Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island

d from the oven, his stout t

ing into her orderly

are you making t

ftly backed out of the oven, turning to show a

rah curiously. "The sponge cake

orgetting, perhaps, the many times he had hung around the kitchen door duri

" asked Norah

th before the old-fashioned coal range and bega

grass, and he was too cold and wet to fly. Mother used to put 'em in

ot enough to bake biscuit in, Twaddles. Wait, I'll wrap your robin up in cotto

rt attention for his pati

nnounced importantly. "I want to see what color the n

faintly peeping young

s, "and brush up that mud. Wasn't it only this morning y

to the ways of broom handles. This one, in his hands, caught the lid of a kettle Norah had on the stove and sent it spinning across

f with ye, and I'll clean up the mud. The more hel

is mother and his brother Bobby looking at the window boxes on the front porch. The boxes had been pu

things?" dema

t him sympathetically. Meg's fair little face was flushed and there was a streak of d

brother. "Mother says we may each have

Mother Blossom, smiling

on the end of a straggling lock of dark hair and her pretty dark blue frock hung in a gap below the

have to buy one. The Mertons threw this out on the trash

uted with

to beat rugs with," he said posi

addles. "It's getting dry on the shelf war

the first place, and in the second place it is against the law. You must

eyes had seen a car m

y! What color is

ue, dark blue

the smiling driver waved a gloved hand at the eager gro

she shrieked. "A

own the garden path and Mrs. B

Dot kept repeating

ally. "The main idea with you seems to be to keep moving. How about it, M

his Spring weather. I really ought to be upstairs mending

sply. "That settles it-we're going t

see the new car. It was a very handsome, nicely finished model, painted dark blue, as Bobby had said. The seats were

ith you, Dadd

nsisted Twaddles.

ing all over. Isn't it, Daddy? Meg and I should rid

her Blossom seriously. "Suppose we settle the question another time and to-day let the three girls ride in th

mbed in beside her and Bobby and Twaddles took their places in the

fine a driver I was perfectly content to let him run the car and never even felt ambitious to drive myself. If

nced Twaddles sadly. "Right in the

som judicially. "You've plenty of those little cotton things

nce was peculiar in that it usually bothered him too late. "I borro

do you always do something you shouldn't? Those handkerchiefs are pure linen

he place where he had dropped the handkerchief. When he had had plenty

"He's got a stick and is poking something.

oughly, as her next remark proved. "If Bobby goes after Twaddles they will play with it until dark. Let

les sat on a stone blissfully engr

this minute," she com

ddl

ully. "It was a dear little snake. All right, I'

the new car. They reached the broad, level lake road and drove for several miles along it unti

Father Blossom asked his

ut when Sam Layton, the Blossom's former chauffeur, backed their car or foun

e wheel seemed to take matters into its own hand-if a steering wheel can do such a thing. Anyway, with a sudden