CHAPTER

I THE FIRST SNOW-STORM II BOBBY IS RESCUED III AUNT DOROTHY'S LOCKET IV WHEN THE BOBSLED UPSET V MEG IN TROUBLE VI THE ORANGE AND THE BLACK VII A BIRTHDAY PARTY VIII DOWN ON THE POND IX A NEW KIND OF JAM X WORKING FOR THE FAIR XI BOBBY'S MEANEST DAY XII BUILDING A SNOW MAN XIII THE TWINS HAVE A SECRET XIV LOST IN THE STORM XV GREAT PREPARATIONS XVI OVER THE CROSS ROAD XVII MR. MENDAM XVIII AT LAST THE FAIR

CHAPTER I

THE FIRST SNOW-STORM

"Where's Mother?" Meg and Bobby Blossom demanded the moment they opened the front door.

It was the first question they always asked when they came home from school.

Twaddles, their little brother, looked up at them serenely from the sofa cushion on which he sat cross-legged on the floor at the foot of the hall stairs.

"Mother and Aunt Polly went uptown," he informed his brother and sister. "They're going to bring us something nice. They promised."

Meg pulled off her hat and unbuttoned her coat.

"I'm starving," she announced. "It's awfully cold out. What are you doing anyway, Twaddles?"

"Sliding down the banisters," answered Twaddles calmly. "See, we spread down sofa cushions so 's we wouldn't hurt ourselves. It's Dot's turn now. Hi, Dot!" he ended in a shout.

"Here I come—look out!" With a swish of pink gingham skirt a small, plump little girl came flying down the banister to land luckily on a red satin sofa cushion ready to receive her.

"Well, I must say," announced Meg with dignity, "that's a fine way to do—using Mother's best sofa cushions! Where's Norah?"

"Gone to the movies," replied Dot, pushing the hair out of her eyes and smiling sunnily. "She waited till she saw you turn the corner, 'cause she said she wouldn't leave us alone."

Twaddles, who had been pressing his short nose against the glass in the door panel hoping to see his mother coming with the promised gift, suddenly wheeled and tried to stand on his head. That was Twaddles' way of expressing delight. "It's snowing!" he cried. "Little fine snowflakes, the kind that Daddy says always last. Oh, I hope we have coasting. I'll bet it snows all night."

"You said that Thanksgiving," retorted Bobby gloomily, "and it just snowed enough to cover the ground one night and melted 'fore we were up the next morning. And here it is January, and it hasn't snowed since."

"'Sides the sled is busted," agreed Twaddles mournfully, quite willing to be melancholy if some one would show him the way. "Even if it did snow, we couldn't have any fun without a sled."

"I guess we can mend it, maybe," interposed Meg cheerfully. "I'm going out and get some bread and peanut butter. Who wants some?"

They all did, it seemed, even Dot and Twaddles, who were too young to go to school, but who managed to have famous appetites as regularly as the older children. Mother Blossom allowed them to have what Norah called a "snack" every afternoon after school, and Meg was always careful to see that they ate only the things permitted and that no one dipped into the cake box.

"Look how white!" cried Dot, finishing her bread and butter first, and kneeling on a kitchen chair to see out of the window. "The ground is all covered already and you can see feetsteps."

"Footsteps," corrected Bobby, taking a last large bite of his lunch.

"Shoesteps," insisted Meg, closing the pantry door and putting away the bread.

"That isn't a shoestep," argued Bobby, pointing to a particularly clear and distinct print in the snow just outside the window.

"'Tis, too," scolded Meg. "That's where Sam went out to the garage."

"'Tisn't a shoestep, 'tisn't a shoestep!" chanted Bobby, bent on teasing.

Meg's fair face flushed. She was exasperated.

"What is it, then?" she snapped.

Bobby measured the distance to the hall door.

"A rubberstep!" he shouted triumphantly. "Sam wore his rubbers! Yah!"

"You think you're smart!" said Meg, half laughing and half frowning. "Just you wait, Bobby Blossom!"

She darted for him, but Bobby was too quick. He dashed out into the hall, Meg following, and Dot and Twaddles trailing after them. Shrieking and shouting, the four raced into the dining-room, tore twice around the table, then into the long living-room, where Meg managed to corner Bobby under the old-fashioned square piano.

They had forgotten to be angry by this time, and after she had tickled him till he begged for mercy—Bobby was extremely ticklish—they crawled out again, disheveled and panting, and were ready for something new.

"I'm going to get some snow," declared Dot, beginning to raise one of the windows.

"Don't! You'll freeze Mother's plants," warned Meg. "Dot Blossom, don't you dare open that window!"

For answer Dot gave a final push and the sash shot up and locked half way.

"Oh, it's love-ly!" cried Dot, leaning out and scooping up a handful of the beautiful, soft, white stuff. "Just like feathers, Meg."

"You'll be a feather if you don't come in," growled Bobby sternly. "Look out!"

Dot, leaning out further to sweep the sill clean, had slipped and was going headlong when Bobby grasped her skirts. He pulled her back, unhurt, except for a scratch on her nose from a bit of the vine clinging to the house wall and a ruffled disposition.

"You leave me alone!" she blazed. "You've hurt my knee."

"Want to fall on your head?" demanded Bobby, justly indignant. "All right, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll give you something to be mad about."

Before the surprised Dot could protest, he had seized her firmly around the neck and, holding her tightly (Bobby was very sturdy for his seven years), he proceeded to wash her face with a handful of snow he hastily scooped from the window sill. Dot was furious, but, though she struggled and squirmed, she could not get free.

"Now you'll be good," said Bobby, giving her a sounding kiss as he let her go, for he was very fond of his headstrong little sister. "Want your face washed, Twaddles?"

There was a sudden rush for the window and Meg and Twaddles and Dot armed themselves with handfuls of snow. Dot made for Twaddles, for she saw more chance of being able to capture him, and Bobby had designs on Meg.

"Glory be! Where to now?" Norah's cry came from the pantry as four pairs of stout shoes thundered through her kitchen and up the back stairs. Norah, if the children had stopped long enough to hear, would have told them that she had hurried home to start supper after seeing the "episode" of the serial picture she was interested in at the motion picture house.

Dot sounded like a husky young Indian as she hurled herself upon Twaddles in the center of Aunt Polly's carefully made bed in the guest-room and rubbed what was left of her handful of snow into his eyes and mouth.

"My, it's wet," he sputtered. "Let go, Dot! Ow! you're standing on my finger."

Meg had dashed into her mother's room, and, banging the door in Bobby's face, turned the key. She was safe!

Bobby had no intention of being defeated. When he heard the key turn in the door he looked about for a way to outwit Meg. He might be able to climb through the transom if he could get a ladder or a chair.

His own room was next to his mother's, and, turning in there to get a chair, he saw the window. It opened on the roof of the porch, as did the windows in his mother's room. What could be simpler than to walk along the roof of the porch, raise a window and get in? He could gather up more snow, too, as he went along, and just wouldn't he wash Meg's face for her!

"What you going to do?" asked Twaddles, as Bobby hoisted his window.

Dot and Twaddles, tiring of their own fracas, had come in search of Meg and Bobby.

"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.

CHAPTER II

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.

"You all evidently plan to start out right after breakfast, don't you?" he teased them. "Where is the best coasting, Bobby?"

"On Wayne Place hill," replied Bobby. "My, I'm anxious to let Fred Baldwin see the new sled."

Aunt Polly folded up her embroidery.

"I'll go upstairs with you, Meg," she said. "I've something I want to show you. Come into my room after you find your scarf."

As they went upstairs they met Twaddles coming down, carrying the cat, Annabel Lee, in his arms.

"Going to give her a ride on the sled—just in the hall," he informed them. "If she gets used to sleds in the house, maybe she'll like to take a ride outdoors. Philip could pull her."

Aunt Polly was doubtful about Annabel Lee's feelings toward sleds, but Twaddles was sure she would learn to like coasting.

CHAPTER III

AUNT DOROTHY'S LOCKET

"Aunt Polly?" Meg tapped lightly on her aunt's door.

"Yes, dear, come in," called Aunt Polly. "You found your muffler? That's good. Come over here and see this."

Aunt Polly was seated before her open trunk, a little white box on her knees. Meg came and stood beside her.

"This was your great-great Aunt Dorothy's," said Aunt Polly, opening the little box.

It was lined with blue velvet and on the velvet lay a little gold locket.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Meg.

The locket was round and set with tiny blue stones that formed three forget-me-not flowers. In the center of each flower sparkled a tiny diamond.

"The blue stones are turquoises," explained Aunt Polly. "Great Aunt Dorothy wore her locket on a bit of black velvet, but I bought this chain for you. Do you like it, dear?"

"Is it for me?" asked the surprised Meg. "For me, Auntie? Can I wear it to school and show it to the girls? Oh! can I?"

"It is for you," Aunt Polly assured her small niece, kissing her. "But, honey, you must be careful of it. Wear it to school one day, if you want to, and then keep it for special times. You see, you must save it for your little girl."

"My little girl?" echoed Meg, wonderingly. "Why?"

"Because," explained Aunt Polly seriously, "this locket has always been handed down to the oldest daughter. Great-great Aunt Dorothy gave it to her daughter, and she gave it to her oldest daughter and so on. Some might say I should give it to Dot, because she is named for great Aunt Dorothy, but you are the oldest daughter. I had it instead of your mother for that reason. And as I have no daughter, it goes to you."

Meg ran downstairs to show her gift, and the sleds were forgotten while the children crowded around to examine the pretty locket.

"You must be very careful of it, Daughter," said Father Blossom. "You know you've lost two or three trinkets. This is the kind of thing you can't replace if you lose it."

"I'll be careful," promised Meg, clasping the fine gold chain around her neck again and dancing off to the kitchen to show her treasure to Norah.