THE BLOSSOMS GO BERRYING
Sure enough, ahead of them twinkled the pretty ornamental light that
Aunt Polly had lighted on dark nights to show where the driveway went
through the gates.
"We're in back of the house!" cried Meg. "See, that's the kitchen
window where the white curtain is. Don't things look different at
night?"
"Hello! Hello!" came Jud's clear call. "Bobby, Meg, is that you?"
Then as Bobby answered him, they heard Jud shouting:
"All right, folks, they've come. I told you they were all right."
Peter and Jud and a neighbor's boy came running toward the children,
swinging lanterns, and followed by Mrs. Peter Apgar and Aunt Polly and
Linda. Such a time as there was, and such a hugging and kissing and
explaining!
"When you didn't come home to supper, I began to worry," said dear
Aunt Polly, carrying Dot, big girl as she was. Peter had picked up
Meg, and Jud had shouldered Twaddles, while Bobby kept running beside
them.
"You must be starved," was Linda's greeting. "We've got fried chicken
and currant jelly, too."
And though it was late, Aunt Polly was sure that fried chicken would
hurt no one, and while the hungry Blossoms ate, she sat by and
listened to what had happened to them in the woods.
"Why, darlings," she cried over and over, "Auntie will buy you other
books and toys, but I couldn't possibly buy your mother other children
if anything happened to you. Look at Dot's feet; the poor child must
have walked miles. And her face and hands are terribly scratched."
Directly after supper the tired children were ready for bed, and Linda
and Aunt Polly undressed them and bathed the sore little feet and put
soothing cold cream on sunburned, scratched little faces.
The summer weeks flew merrily by, and when a rainy afternoon came and
Aunt Polly suggested that the children should write to their father
and mother, the Blossoms discovered that they really had a good deal
to tell.
"I'll begin, 'cause I'm the oldest and I can write in pencil," said
Bobby. "Then Meg can print, and I'll write what Dot and Twaddles tell
me to. I guess they will like that kind of letter."
Aunt Polly thought so, too, and she gave Bobby her own pretty mahogany
"secretary" that was ever so old a desk, to write at.
Bobby put his tongue in his cheek and worked hard for fifteen minutes.
Then he was ready to read aloud.
"'Dear Daddy and Mother:'" he read. "'We thought you would like to
hear from us. Last week Peter was haying and Meg and I helped him make
loads. Meg drove into the barn all by herself. It is fun to see them
unload the hay, because they have a thing they call a hayfork that
comes down and takes up big handfuls and carries it up to the mow. I
can almost milk. The twins are very good most of the time. Your
loving son, Robert Hayward Blossom.'"
* * * * *
"Will they know that's from you?" asked Meg doubtfully, slipping into
the chair at the desk and taking up the pencil to print her letter.
"You never call yourself Robert."
"I guess I know how to write a letter," Bobby informed her with
dignity. "You always sign your real names to letters, don't you, Aunt
Polly?"
"Yes, indeed, dear," said Aunt Polly, who was doing something to a
pair of overalls.
Meg printed slowly and carefully, and soon her letter was ready to be
read aloud.
"'Dear Daddy and Mother,'" she began proudly. "'We hope you are well.
We are. Dot most wasn't, but I took care of her. She went out to the
barn to hunt for eggs, and the turkey gobbler saw her. He thought she
was carrying corn in the basket. He chased her and she ran. I heard
her crying and I ran down to the barn. She was backed up into a corner
and he was making noises at her. He is awful big, but I am not afraid
of him. I grabbed the broom Jud keeps to sweep the barn floor with and
I chased that old gobbler clear into the orchard. We are going to pick
berries to-morrow.'"
* * * * *
The twins had kept still as long as they could, and now it was their
turn.
"Tell Mother 'bout the snake I saw this morning," said Twaddles. "Jud
says it was a black snake after baby robins. It was on the grape arbor
where there is a robin's nest. Jud killed it."
"Tell Daddy I weeded a whole onion row for Aunt Polly," begged Dot.
"Wait a minute, I have to sign my name," interrupted Meg.
And she signed it, "Margaret Alice Blossom," right in among the words
of the twins' letters that Bobby was patiently writing.
The next day was very warm, and Aunt Polly thought they had better
play in the orchard instead of picking berries, so they trooped out
soon after breakfast, to find the orchard cool and shady.
"I wish I had my book that was drowned," mourned Meg. "I love to sit
up in a tree and read."
"Well, I loved Geraldine better than Tottie-Fay," said Dot, giving the
old doll a shake as she spoke.
"No use fussing," advised the sensible Bobby. "They're lost, and we
mustn't let Aunt Polly hear us, 'cause she'll think she ought to go
right off and buy us some more. I'm going to climb this tree. Who
wants a ripe apple?"
"I do," and Meg jumped up. "Let me hold my apron and you throw 'em
down, Bobby. Twaddles, stop teasing Spotty."
"I aren't teasing him," declared Twaddles indignantly. "I'm going to
teach him to carry bundles."
Twaddles' method of teaching the patient Spotty was to sit down on him
with feet spread wide apart and wait for the dog to shake him off.
Dot sat down quietly in the grass and began to make a bouquet of
wild-flowers. It was Dot who always helped Aunt Polly weed and water
her flower garden, and Dot who liked to see fresh flowers on the
dining-room table.
When Meg had her apron full of apples she sat down near Dot, and the
four ate as many sweet summer apples as four small people could who
had eaten breakfast less than an hour before.
"There's Poots," said Meg suddenly, glancing up and seeing the black
cat picking her way through the grass. "Do you suppose she is hunting
birds?"
Poots blinked her green eyes innocently. If she were after birds, she
had no intention of catching any before an audience. She sat down and
began to wash her face.
A mischievous idea seized Twaddles.
"Rats, Spotty!" he shouted. "Rats!"
Now rats sounds pretty much like "cats," and the excited and startled
Spotty did not stop to question which word Twaddles had used. He
jumped up, his ears pointing forward.
"Rats, sic 'em!" said bad little Twaddles. "Rats, Spotty!"
Spotty barked twice sharply. Poots arose, her fur bristling. Spotty
leaped at her, barking playfully. Away ran Poots, her black tail
sticking straight up in the air. And after them raced the four little
Blossoms, shouting and calling frantically.
Poots ran straight for the front wall and scrambled up it, leaving
Spotty to bark wildly on the ground and make futile rushes at the
solid wall he couldn't hope to climb. Some of the masonry was loose,
and Poots, digging with her sharp claws, sent down a shower of dust
into the dog's eyes. He whined, and dug at his eyes with both
forepaws. Then he sneezed several times.
"You will chase me, will you?" Poots seemed to say, gazing down at him
from her safe position. "The idea!"
"Well, we might as well pick up some of this stuff," said Twaddles,
knowing that the fun was over.
"It's cooler--just feel that breeze!" exclaimed Meg. "Let's ask Aunt
Polly if we can't go berrying after dinner."
Aunt Polly obligingly said they could, and after dinner the four
little Blossoms scrambled into overalls Aunt Polly had bought and
shortened to fit them.
"I wish your mother could see you," she said, as she gave them each a
bright tin pail. "No need to worry about your dress now, is there,
Dot?"
"Going berrying?" asked Jud, as they passed him, clipping the green
hedge around the kitchen garden. "Better keep out of the sun."
The children walked down the road and turned into another field. They
knew where the blackberry bushes grew, and they meant to fill their
pails.
"Let's start here by this fence," suggested Bobby. "What's that over
in Mr. Simmond's field?"
"It's a bull," answered Meg who knew all the animals at Brookside and
on the neighboring farms by this time. "He's as cross as can be, but
he took three prizes at the last Fair."
Twaddles ate the first dozen berries he picked and then he picked
another dozen for Dot's pail. He decided that larger and better
berries grew on the other side of the fence. He crawled under and his
shout of delight brought the others.
"You never saw such big ones!" cried Twaddles gleefully. "Meg, look!"
"They are big," agreed Meg. "Come on, Bobby, let's go on the other
side. Mr. Simmonds won't care."
Dot was already under the fence, and Meg and Bobby stooped down and
crawled under after her.
The four little figures in blue overalls began to pick industriously.
The berries were thick and juicy, and the bottoms of the tin pails
were covered in a few minutes. Meg had just stopped to pull a briar
from her thumb when she heard a bellow behind her.
There stood the bull, in the middle of the field, his head down
between his knees, his feet pawing the ground, and his angry eyes
glaring at the berry pickers.
"Oh, Bobby! The bull!" gasped Meg. "Run, Dot and Twaddles!"