THE END OF THE VACATION
The four little Blossoms wanted to go to the same place where they had
gone before and Jud drove them. Then he was to take the horses and
wagon back for his father to use during the day and Peter would come
for the picnickers in the afternoon and get his sandwiches.
"Don't go wading till Jud comes," said Aunt Polly, when good-natured
Jud had gone back. "Help Linda spread out the rubber blanket, for we
want to be comfortable while you play around."
The children spread out the blanket and on top of that Aunt Polly
spread a cotton one and then she and Linda sat down to sew.
"Let's go see if there is another shirt spread out to dry," suggested
Meg, and she was much excited when they saw a bit of white fluttering
from a bush.
"'Tisn't the same place," Dot argued.
"Well, it's almost the same place," retorted Bobby. "Only it looks
ragged," he added.
Meg was eager to go and examine the white thing, but she knew they
would have to wait for Jud. Aunt Polly laughed when she heard about it
and said that Meg would have Linda running a mending shop if she was
not very careful.
"After we have lunch, if Jud is willing to take you, you may go over
and see what it is," she told her little niece kindly. "You'd have
every one nicely washed and mended if you could, wouldn't you, Meg?"
Jud came back on foot and after he had rested a minute, declared he
was willing to wade the brook with the children. But Aunt Polly
insisted they must have lunch first and of course no one wanted to
miss that. As soon as the last crumb was gone, however, the children
began to tease and Jud said they might as well go. He had laughed at
the idea of another shirt, but half way across the stream he seemed to
change his mind.
"Guess somebody lost his shirt," observed Jud, keeping a firm grip on
Dot, who seemed to be trying to dance.
"Say, wouldn't it be funny," began Bobby, but Meg had the same idea at
the same time.
"Do you suppose it could----" she said slowly.
"It's the raft!" yelled Twaddles, breaking away from Jud, and rushing
into the bushes. "It's our raft--Oh, Jud!" Twaddles had stepped on a
sharp stone.
"I wish you'd be a little more careful," said Jud calmly. "Well, it is
the raft! Can you beat that?"
Tangled in broken reeds and a few prickly bushes, lay their raft,
Geraldine smiling as sweetly as ever and still propped up against
Meg's book. Nothing was missing, not even Twaddles' singing bird or
Bobby's airplane.
"I'm so glad!" Meg kept saying. "I'm so glad! Now let's go home and
play with them."
"It's lucky we've had this long, dry spell," said Jud, picking up
Geraldine and eyeing her critically. "If we'd had one good storm,
good-by toys."
Dot tucked Geraldine under her arm, Twaddles stuffed his bird into his
pocket, Meg took her book and Bobby his airplane, and Jud offered to
tow the raft. So slowly and carefully they made their way back to
where Jud had left his socks and shoes.
Aunt Polly and Linda were surprised and delighted when they saw the
children coming, for they had begun to wonder what they could be
doing.
"You don't mean to tell me you found the raft!" exclaimed Aunt Polly,
when she heard the news. "Why, that's the best luck I ever heard of."
And Linda said "My goodness!" over and over, and wanted to know just
where they had found it and who saw it first and how they had managed
to reach it.
"You've played enough in the water," said Aunt Polly, when each child
had told the story. "Put on your shoes and stockings and see if you
can't find me a maidenhair fern for my fern-box."
Meg found it first, and then Jud lent her his jack-knife and showed
her how to take it up so that the roots would not be injured. Then he
left her for a minute while he went back to get a paper cup from Linda
to plant it in, and when he came back he found her backed up against a
tree and looking frightened.
"What scared you?" he asked quickly. "Did you see a snake, Meg?"
"No," she whispered. "I don't know what it was. But it stared and
stared at me, Jud."
"Well, where did you see it?" demanded Jud briskly. "Let me have a
whack at it with this branch. Where'd you see it, Meg?"
"In the hole in this tree," answered Meg. "I was shaking more dirt off
the fern when I looked up and there it was jiggling at me."
"Where?" asked Jud again, a bit impatiently. "I don't see any hole."
"I'm standing over it," said Meg, "so the thing can't get away."
Meg, you see, was frightened, but not too frightened to be interested
and curious about a strange animal.
"I'm sure it's an animal, 'cause it moves," she told Jud, as she stood
aside to let him look in the hole.
Jud put his hand in the hole--it was an old dead tree and hollow at
the top--and drew out something soft and fluffy.
"Just as I thought," he chuckled. "It's a baby owl."
"Oh, how cunning," cried Meg, coming closer and venturing to put a
finger on the bunch of feathers. "But what a funny face, Jud!"
Indeed the baby owl looked like a very young and foolish monkey as it
sat in Jud's hands and rolled its head and stared aimlessly.
"He's pretty near blind," Jud explained. "In the daytime owls can
hardly see at all. I suspect there's a nest in this old tree. Want to
hold it for me while I feel?"
Meg was certainly not afraid of a baby owl, and she took it tenderly.
Sure enough, Jud knew what he was talking about--he put his arm away
into the tree trunk and brought out two more little owls.
Twaddles and Dot had come up by this time, and they were perfectly
entranced with the queer little birds.
Jud carefully put the baby owls back. Then they planted the fern in
the paper cup, found Bobby, who was trying to fish with a breadcrumb
tied to a string, and told him about the owls, and then they heard the
wagon coming for them.
"Have a good time?" asked Peter, as he helped them all in and the
wagon started its noisy trip home. Peter was eating one of the
sandwiches they had saved for him and looked very contented.
"Such a nice time," said the four little Blossoms.
"Was there any mail?" asked Aunt Polly.
"Just one letter," replied Peter.
But that was a very important letter, as the Blossoms found out when
they were once more at home and Aunt Polly read it to them while
Linda was getting supper.
"Mother's coming!" cried Bobby, meeting Jud on his way to the barn.
"That's fine," said Jud heartily. Then his face fell.
"But you don't want to go home yet!" he urged. "Vacation isn't over so
soon, is it? There's lots we planned to do we haven't done."
"Mother's going to stay a week," said Bobby happily. "School doesn't
open for two weeks, but we have to go home and get ready. Say, Jud, I
didn't miss Mother--not such a lot, that is--but now I miss her
dreadful much."
When Mother Blossom came she found all the children in the car with
Aunt Polly to meet her. And the things they did during that one week,
from another picnic to having all the new friends they had made at
Brookside come to supper, including Mr. Sparks--well, Linda said there
was more going on than there had been all through the summer, and
Linda ought to have known!
"I s'pect Aunt Polly will miss us," said Twaddles the last morning of
their visit, as Mother Blossom was buttoning Dot into a clean frock
and Aunt Polly was on her knees locking the trunks.
"I s'pect I shall," said Aunt Polly, tears in her kind eyes.
This was too much for Twaddles.
"You come and stay at our house," he told her earnestly. "And you can
come and visit school."
For the twins still insisted they were going to school.
Aunt Polly promised that she would come to see them some time during
the winter and that she wouldn't cry any more but just remember the
nice times they had had together that summer.
"And if you go to school, you'll learn to write, and then I shall look
for letters," she said seriously.
So the four little Blossoms started home for Oak Hill and found a
Daddy Blossom there very glad to see them, as well as Norah and Sam
and Philip, who, as Meg observed, had "grown considerable." He wasn't
lame any more, either.
And if you want to read about what Meg and Bobby did in school, and
how the twins contrived to go to school, too, in spite of the fact
that they were only four years old, you must read the next book about
them which is called "Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School."
"Oh, but it's been a perfectly lovely summer, hasn't it?" said Meg,
while she was helping unpack her things.
"Best ever," declared Bobby.
"And just think--we own a cow!" cried Dot.
"And maybe--when she gets big--we can milk her," added Twaddles. "Oh,
I like the country--I do."
"Let's all buy a farm when we grow up," suggested Bobby.
"Let's!" all the others cried in chorus.
THE END