Read Ebook: Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun by Hawley Mabel C

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Ebook has 1036 lines and 32745 words, and 21 pages

"You wait and you'll see," answered Bobby mysteriously, putting one leg over the sill.

Dot and Twaddles crowded into the open window to watch him as he picked his way along. There was a linen closet between the two rooms, so Bobby had some space to cover before he came to the windows of the room where Meg was hiding.

"My goodness!" whispered that small girl to herself, parting the white curtains to look out as she heard footsteps on the porch roof. "He might fall; it's ever so slippery!"

It was slippery; in fact, the roof was much harder to walk on than Bobby had suspected. For one thing, the roof sloped, and he had to cling to the side of the house as he walked; then, too, the fine driving snow almost blinded him; and a third reason that made it hard going was the way the snow caked and clung to his shoes.

He had reached the window where Meg was waiting, so interested in watching him that she had forgotten why he was coming, and he stooped for a handful of fresh snow. Meg grinned cheerfully at him as he straightened up.

"I'll let you in," she called through the glass, beginning to push up the window.

Bobby reached out to get a good grip on the window frame, missed the ledge and lost his balance. His foot slipped as he threw out his arms to save himself.

BOBBY IS RESCUED

Before the frightened gaze of three pairs of eyes Bobby slid backward over the edge of the porch roof, out of sight.

"He'll be killed!" sobbed Meg, dashing for the door.

She unlocked it and fled down the hall, followed by Dot and Twaddles.

"What is it? What is it?" screamed Norah, as she caught a glimpse of Meg's white face from the dining-room where she was beginning to set the supper table. "Has anything happened to any of ye?"

Meg was already out of the front door. Norah caught up her red shawl and ran after her.

Norah had lived with the Blossoms ever since Bobby was a baby. He was now seven years old. There were four little Blossoms now, and never a dispute about the "baby of the family," for there were two of them! Dot and Twaddles were twins, you see. They were four years old, but liked to be considered older, as many of the younger children do.

If you have read the first book of this series, called "Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm," you already know many of their friends, and above all their Aunt Polly Hayward, who was their mother's older sister. Brookside Farm was Aunt Polly's home, and the four children spent a beautiful summer there with her and learned about farm life and were given a calf, "Carlotta," for their very own. This first book, too, explains about the real names of the four little Blossoms. Bobby was Robert Hayward Blossom, Meg's right name Margaret Alice, like her mother's, and Dot's, Dorothy Anna. Twaddles had a very nice name, too, Arthur Gifford Blossom, and no one ever knew why he was called Twaddles. It seemed to suit him, somehow.

The Blossoms, Father and Mother Blossom and the four children, lived in a town called Oak Hill, where Father Blossom owned a large foundry at one end of the town. Meg and Bobby, of course, went to school. You may have read the book before this one, called "Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School," which tells about the troubles Bobby encountered and how he came safely through them, and of how the twins were so eager to go to school that they finally did in spite of the fact that they were only four years old. If you read that book you will remember that Aunt Polly came down to visit Mother Blossom over Thanksgiving and went to the school exercises to hear Meg and Bobby recite. She stayed for Christmas, too. And finally, because every one loved her very much and because she had no little people of her own at Brookside, she yielded to the persuasion of Father and Mother Blossom and promised to spend the rest of the winter in Oak Hill.

Besides Norah, there lived with the Blossoms Sam Layton, who ran Father Blossom's car and did all the outside work about the place; Philip, a very intelligent and amiable dog, and Annabel Lee, an affectionate and much beloved cat. Dear me, Twaddles had some rabbits, too. He would want you to know those. And now that you are properly introduced, let us go and see what happened to Bobby.

Meg fell down every one of the front steps in her anxiety to reach her brother, and Norah alone saved the twins from a like fall. They tumbled into her and the three held each other up. At least that is the way Twaddles explained it.

"Bobby! Oh, Bobby, are you dead?" wailed Meg, looking, for some inexplicable reason, toward the porch roof. Of course Bobby couldn't be up there when he had fallen off.

"Of course I'm not dead," the indignant voice of Bobby assured her. "I'm all right, not hurt a bit. But I'm stuck in this old bush."

He had had the good fortune, for he might have been seriously hurt if he had struck the ground, to tumble into a large bush planted a short distance from the porch. This bush had not been trimmed for years, and new shoots had grown up and mingled with the old branches until it was very tough and tangled and strong. Plunged in the middle of this sturdy old friend, was Bobby.

"Why don't ye come out?" demanded Norah, relieved to find that he was not hurt. "I left the teakettle boiling over to come and see if ye were killed."

"I can't get out," said Bobby, struggling. "Lend us a hand, can't you, Twaddles?"

Bobby had fallen with enough force to wedge himself tightly into the heart of the bush, and indeed it was no easy matter to dislodge him. Norah took one hand and Meg the other, and they tugged and pulled till Norah was afraid they might pull him out in pieces.

"Where's Sam?" panted Meg. "He could bend down some of the branches."

"Sam," said Norah, "has gone to meet your father with the car."

"Here comes Mother!" shouted Twaddles, as a familiar figure came up the path. "Oh, Mother, Bobby's stuck!"

Mother Blossom was used to "most anything." She said so often. The four little Blossoms had heard her. So now, though Aunt Polly gasped to see the front door wide open and the hall light streaming out over the snow, three children dancing about in the cold with no wraps on and a fourth nearly buried in a tall bush, Mother Blossom merely put down the two or three bundles she carried, leaned her weight against the bush and directed Norah how to bend down other branches. Then, holding on to his mother's arm, Bobby crawled out.

"Run in, every one of you, before you take cold," commanded Mother Blossom quickly. "What have you been doing? Dot looks as though she had been through a mill."

Sweeping them before her, Mother Blossom soon had them marshaled into the house. Aunt Polly closed the door and Norah flew to her neglected kitchen. It was dark outside by this time, and the steadily falling snow had spread a thick carpet on the ground.

"Did you bring us something?" asked Dot expectantly, her hair-ribbon over one eye and both pockets torn from her apron.

"Did you bring us something?" inquired Twaddles, shaking Mother Blossom's packages to try to find out what was in them.

"Did you bring us something?" said Meg and Bobby together, each holding out a hand for overshoes.

Mother Blossom gave hers to Bobby, and Aunt Polly handed hers to Meg, to be put away in the hall closet under the stairs. Just as Meg closed the door of the closet the doorbell rang.

"There's the boy now," announced Mother Blossom. "He's bringing you the something nice I promised."

The boy from Gobert's, the hardware store uptown, probably had never received a more enthusiastic welcome in his life than that he experienced at the Blossom house. Four children flung open the door for him and fell upon him crying: "Where is it? Who's it for? Let me see it!"

He was a tall, thin boy, with a wide, cheerful grin, and four children pouncing upon him at once could not shake his self-possession.

"Got two sleds," he said impressively. "Mrs. Blossom said to send 'em right up. Where do you want them?"

"Put them down there on the rug," directed Mother Blossom, smiling. "Don't you want to come in and get warm, Ted?"

"No thanks," replied Ted, putting on his cap, again. "Want to hustle right home to supper. Looks like a big storm."

He stamped down the steps into the snow, and Meg closed the hall door.

"Two sleds!" Twaddles was round-eyed with admiration. "Now I won't have to wait all afternoon for my turn."

"Unwrap them," said Mother Blossom. "They're just alike, one for the girls, and one for you and Bobby. Aunt Polly bought one as her gift."

Aunt Polly had gone upstairs to take off her hat, but the shouts of excitement brought her back quickly.

"Flexible flyers!" cried Bobby. "Oh, Mother, can't we go out to-night?"

"Mercy, no," answered Mother Blossom. "To-morrow's Saturday, and you'll have plenty of time to play in the snow. Hurry now, and get ready for supper. I shouldn't want Daddy to come home and find his family looking like wild Indians."

It was too much to expect that the children could think or talk anything but sleds and snow that evening, and many were the anxious peeps taken through the living-room windows after supper to see how deep the feathery stuff was.

"Still snowing," reported Sam, as he brought in a great armful of wood for the fireplace. "Looks like real winter at last."

Mother Blossom was mending the twins' mittens, for their thumbs had a way of coming through, no matter how often she knitted them new pairs or darned the old.

"I'm going upstairs to hunt my muffler," said Meg. "I think I left it in the bureau drawer, but I'd better look."

Father Blossom laughed.

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