AUNT POLLY ARRIVES
When Meg and Bobby came home from school that afternoon they brought
the news that each had been given a Thanksgiving recitation to learn.
Miss Mason did not feel as sure as she had at first that it was Bobby
who had spoiled her book. Mr. Carter's championship of Bobby was not
without results. Still, she did not wholly absolve him, and while she
was fair enough not to mention the subject again, Bobby knew that she
had not forgotten. He was surprised when his name was read aloud as
one to have part in the exercises.
"There's six of us boys," announced Bobby to Mother Blossom. "We all
come out at once and take turns saying a verse. Tim Roon and Charlie
Black aren't in it. Miss Mason said that last year they promised to
learn a part and they never even tried. And then they spoiled the
whole thing by staying away from the exercises."
Meg was waiting her turn impatiently.
"I have the longest piece!" she began breathlessly the moment Bobby
finished. "Five verses, Mother! And we're not going to have any time
to study in school! Will you hear me?"
Mother Blossom said of course she would, and Meg began studying her
verses that very night after supper.
"You'll have to have a new white dress," decided Mother Blossom.
"You're growing so fast, Meg, that none of your summer dresses will
do. I'll have to call up Miss Florence and see, if you can stop in to
be measured to-morrow."
For cheerful little Miss Florence, who flitted about from house to
house making pretty dresses for little girls and their mothers and
sisters, had sprained her ankle a day or two before and Doctor Maynard
would not hear of her leaving the house for weeks and weeks.
"Lucky it wasn't my wrist," Miss Florence had laughed. "I can still
sew, if my customers come to me."
Mother Blossom telephoned that afternoon, and Miss Florence said that
she could begin Meg's new dress early the next week. She would only
have to come two or three times to try it on, and then Miss Florence
would send word when she or Bobby might come after it. Miss Florence
had no one to run errands for her.
What with practicing "pieces," and being fitted for a new dress, and
going to school and playing a little every day, the time fairly flew,
and before Meg and Bobby knew it Aunt Polly had come.
"How you've grown!" she cried when she saw the four little Blossoms.
"Why, I don't believe Jud would know you if he saw you." Jud had been
a great friend of the children's when they visited Aunt Polly at
Brookside Farm, and they had other friends to ask after, too.
"How's Carlotta?" demanded Meg eagerly. Carlotta was the calf given to
Meg and Bobby as a reward for help they had given one of Aunt Polly's
neighbors.
"Carlotta is growing," said Aunt Polly, smiling. "And Linda is going
to school, which leaves me all alone in the house. I declare I was
glad to close it and come down to you, Margaret."
Aunt Polly was Mother Blossom's widowed older sister. The children
loved her dearly, and now, each with a red apple in hand from the bag
Aunt Polly had brought them, they crowded around to ask if she
wouldn't like them to rehearse.
"Rehearse?" asked Aunt Polly, puzzled. "Rehearse what, blessings?"
"Bobby and I have to speak a piece in school the day before
Thanksgiving," explained Meg, "and the twins always have to say
poetry, too, when we practice. Mother hears us every night; don't you,
Mother?"
"What fun!" Aunt Polly clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling. "I don't
know when I've been to any school exercises. By all means have a
rehearsal, Meg. Your father, mother and I will be the audience."
The children went out of the room, and Bobby came back alone. He went
to the center of the room, bowed a little stiffly and said his
six-line verse rapidly.
"Of course it will sound better with six boys taking turns," he
explained, slipping into a chair near Aunt Polly to enjoy the rest of
the entertainment. "My, I hope I don't forget it that afternoon!"
Dot came next, walking composedly, and she gave them "Twinkle,
twinkle, little star," her old stand-by; that was one verse Dot was
always sure of.
When Twaddles' turn came he bowed, thought for a full minute, and then
launched into the Mother Goose rhyme of "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin
Eater."
"Pumpkins are for Thanksgiving," he assured Aunt Polly anxiously, in
case she should think his selection strange.
"Of course they are!" she cried, drawing Twaddles into her lap and
hugging him. "I suspect Jud is packing the largest he can find into a
box now to send us for our pies."
Meg had been upstairs and put on one of her summer white dresses, too
short in the skirt and too tight in the sleeves, for Meg, as Mother
Blossom had said, was growing very fast.
"You just ought to see the dress Miss Florence is making me, Aunt
Polly," Meg said, her blue eyes shining. "It has two tucks in the
skirt, and puff sleeves----"
"And a pink sash," chimed in Dot.
"Well, what about your piece?" asked Father Blossom. "You don't
suppose there is any danger that you'll march up on the platform
Wednesday afternoon and recite a verse about pink sashes and tucks, do
you, instead of Thanksgiving?"
Meg was sure she wouldn't do that, and to prove it, she recited her
whole five verses very nicely, and with no mistake.
"She has gestures--Mother showed her how," said Bobby, very proud of
his pretty sister. "I don't like to wave my hands, but I like to watch
other people do it."
A few days before the all-important Wednesday Miss Florence
telephoned--she had a telephone in her house now that she could not go
out--and said that Meg's dress was finished. When Bobby and Meg came
home from school at noon for lunch, Mother Blossom told them to go
around by Miss Florence's house that afternoon and get the frock.
"Dear, dear, if I'm not stupid," fussed Miss Florence, folding the
crisp, dainty folds of the dress a few minutes after the children had
rung her bell and announced they were to take the package. "Here I've
gone and saved this nice box for it, and it hasn't a lid. If I lay
sheets of tissue paper over it and pin them carefully, do you think
you can carry it?"
"Sure I can," said Bobby. "You don't need a cover, Miss Florence. Come
on, Meg."
"Be careful and don't drop it," warned Miss Florence, hobbling on her
lame ankle to the door to watch them down the steps. "Isn't it a
miserable day out!"
Meg and Bobby didn't think it was a miserable day, though the wind was
raw and cold, and the ground, soft from the first freeze, was slippery
and muddy. But, as Bobby had once said, they were fond of "just plain
weather."
"Oh, dear," wailed Meg when they were half way home, "here comes that
mean, disagreeable Tim Roon. He's the hatefulest boy!"
Tim Roon, as usual, was loitering along, his hands in his pockets, his
lips puckered up for the whistle that didn't come. Tim never quite did
anything he started to do, whether it was to weed his father's garden
or whistle a tune.
"Hello!" he said, stopping close to Meg. "What have we in the large
box?"
"Go 'way," returned Meg fearfully. "Leave Bobby be. That's my new
dress."
Tim's voice changed to a high, squeaky, thin note.
"'Call me early, Mother,'" he chortled, "'for I'm to be Queen of the
May, Mother, I'm to be Queen of the May.'"
"You take the box, Meg," said Bobby angrily, "while I hit that big
chump."
Meg reached for the box, but Tim was quicker and he knocked it
spinning. Then away he went, running at top speed, his shouts of
laughter echoing up the street.
"I'll bet it's all mud!" mourned Meg, crying a little. "Oh, Bobby, did
it fall in a puddle?"
Bobby was peeping under the tissue paper covers.
"'Tisn't hurt a mite," he declared. "Not one spot, Meg. See, the box
fell right side up. Isn't that lucky?"
Just at that moment Charlie Black came flying around the corner on his
roller skates and ran into Meg before he could stop himself. He
knocked her down and landed on top of her.
"Meg, Meg, did he hurt you?" Bobby had Meg on her feet in a second.
"No? You sure? Well, just you watch me pound him."
Bobby was furious, and hitting Charlie Black he felt would relieve his
feeling almost as much as a fight with Tim Roon. The two bad boys
never lost an opportunity to torment him or Meg, and Bobby felt that
here was a heaven-sent opportunity to even up old scores.
"I've got my skates on," whimpered Charlie, as Bobby leaned over him.
"Don't you dare touch me, Bobby Blossom! Go 'way! I tell you 'tisn't
fair! I've got my skates on!"
"Well, I don't care if you have!" roared Bobby. "Stand up, and see
what you'll get! Stand up!"
Charlie much preferred to lie down, and now he simply rolled over on
his back and pawed the air wildly.
"Don't you dare touch me!" he kept crying. "Go away! Leave me alone."
Bobby looked disgusted.
"You leave me alone and I'll give you something," Charlie whimpered.
"Honest I will, Bobby."
"What?" said Bobby shortly.
Charlie Black sat up and tried to grin at Meg.
"I got four kittens," he said, careless as usual of his grammar.
"They're beauties."