Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun Part 15

That night it snowed again. Father Blossom said winter was a habit, like anything else, and that after the weather made up its mind to send one snow-storm it couldn't stop but had to send them right along.

"I want Dot to stay in the house to-day," said Mother Blossom, after Meg and Bobby had started for school. "She coughed a good deal last night and I think she'll have to keep out of the snow for a while."

"Oh, Mother!" wailed Dot. "I want to go coasting with Twaddles.

Everybody's out on Wayne Place hill in the afternoons, and when we go in the morning we have the nicest time! Please, Mother, just this once; and I will take the nasty cough medicine to-night, just as good."

Mother Blossom shook her head.

"Mother said no," she said firmly. "Now, Dot, you're too big a girl to cry. Why, dearest, you haven't missed a day since there has been sledding. Can't you and Twaddles find something pleasant to do in the house?"

"Just suppose you hadn't any house to stay in," remarked Twaddles severely. "Then you'd have something to cry about."

Twaddles was usually very good indeed just when Dot felt like being naughty. And when Twaddles was bad, Dot was generally as good as gold.

But sometimes they were naughty together, and now and then as good as gold at the same time, but not often.

"There's nothing to do," sobbed Dot, using her pretty handkerchief to sop her tears with and finding it not half large enough. "I'm tired of paper dolls and I don't want to play school. Oh, dear, oh, dear!"

Aunt Polly, coming into the room in search of her pet thimble, discovered the disconsolate Dot huddled on the sofa, and Twaddles standing by her suggesting one amus.e.m.e.nt after the other.

"Never mind, honey," comforted Aunt Polly, sitting down on the sofa and cuddling Dot into her lap. "I know something you haven't done and that will be heaps of fun."

"That I never did?" asked Dot, sitting up to look at Aunt Polly.

"That you've never done," repeated Aunt Polly.

"Indoors or out?" asked Twaddles, standing on one foot excitedly.

"Out," answered Aunt Polly.

"Mother won't let me go out," wailed Dot, the tears starting again. "I think it's mean."

"Mean?" said Aunt Polly. "Goodness, lambie, suppose you should be sick when we had the play and the fair? No indeed, you mind Mother like a good girl and you'll be glad when the cough is all gone. But this thing I have in mind can nearly all be done in the house, and then we'll get Sam and Twaddles to do the outdoor work. Then, when Bobby and Meg come home this afternoon, maybe they won't be surprised!"

Aunt Polly and Dot and Twaddles put their heads very close together and whispered for five minutes or so. The twins were delighted at the idea of having a secret from Meg and Bobby who, of course, were often into things that did not interest or held no place for Dot and Twaddles.

"Well then, that's settled," announced Aunt Polly, after they had whispered their plan. "Now we'll go down to the kitchen and see Norah."

Norah was glad to see them, and when she heard what they wanted she brought out a plate of stale bread and a thick chunk of clean white suet.

"Sure ye can cut it up yourselves," she said to Dot and Twaddles, who eyed the big carving knife fearfully. "Get your scissors. I cut the stuffing for the Sunday chicken with the scissors, entirely."

So for half an hour the twins, under Aunt Polly's direction, snipped bread crumbs and suet happily and then busily tied strings to other pieces of fat.

"We're going to have company, Norah," explained Dot, opening and shutting her cramped little fingers when the bread and fat were all nicely snipped.

"Company, is it?" asked Norah, glad to see Dot had stopped crying. "Is it food for company you're fixing now?"

"Yes, it's their dinner," answered Dot, nodding her head. "Isn't it, Twaddles? And we're going to set the table. You watch, Norah."

Aunt Polly went down into the cellar and came back, carrying a broad, smooth board, the top of a packing box. She emptied the bread and suet crumbs into a paper bag and put the fat tied to the pieces of string in another. Then Twaddles slipped on his cap and coat, took the two bags in one hand, tucked the board under his arm, and ran out to the garage.

"Put a chair here in the window, Dot," said Aunt Polly. "There, I'll pin back the curtains. Now you can see everything they do."

Norah peered curiously over Dot's shoulder, interested, too.

In a few minutes Sam came out of the garage, carrying a hammer and the little short step-ladder that conveniently turned into a chair if you knew how to do the trick. He and Twaddles marched over to the clothespole that Norah seldom used. She preferred to wind her clothes-line around three, and the fourth pole, to Dot's fancy, always seemed to feel slighted.

"Now that poor pole won't be lonesome any more," she murmured to herself.

Sam set up his stepladder, and, taking the board from Twaddles and a couple of long, strong nails from his pocket, he nailed the board firmly to the top of the pole.

"See, Norah?" cried Dot.

Then Sam took the bags, and the fat and crumbs of bread he scattered all over the top of the board. All around the edge of the board he drove in smaller nails, and to these he tied the pieces of fat, there to dangle on their strings.

Dot clapped her hands.

"It's our bird table!" she explained to Norah. "Where's Mother? I'm going to tell her."

Mother Blossom came and admired the bird-table, and the grocery boy, when he came with the packages, noticed it right away.

"Annabel Lee can't get up there, can she?" he grinned. "Looks like you'd have plenty of company, Dot."

Indeed, the few sparrows that came first must have told the other birds, for in less than an hour there was a throng of feathered creatures eating at the twins' table. Chippies and s...o...b..rds came as well as the sparrows.

"I only wish we had built one before," said Aunt Polly, watching the hungry little crowd eat. "I've thrown out bread crumbs every morning, but half the time they were buried in the snow. We can keep this swept off and always filled with food."

Dot spent the rest of the morning watching the birds, and how she did laugh at those who picked at the fat hanging on the strings. They flew at it so fiercely it seemed as though they thought it was alive and they must kill it.

"What's that out in the yard?" asked Bobby the first thing when he came home from school at noon.

"That's our bird table," Twaddles informed him. "Aunt Polly thought of it and Dot and I fixed it. Sam nailed it up for us. You ought to see the birds eat the stuff."

"Let me put some food out to-morrow morning?" asked Meg. "Doesn't Aunt Polly think of the loveliest things!"

Dot didn't want to leave the window to eat her own lunch, but the sight of the rice pudding decided her, especially as Mother Blossom said she didn't think her table should be slighted when the birds showed such appreciation of the one set for them.

"They have such good manners," said Mother Blossom pointedly.

"I wonder if Bobby and Meg couldn't go over to Mrs. Anson's right from school, Mrs. Blossom?" asked Norah, a few minutes before it was time for the children to put on their boots again. "We haven't an egg in the house, and Sam is going to be gone with the car all the afternoon."

"But, Norah, I hate to have them go so far in this kind of weather,"

objected Mother Blossom. "Don't you think it feels like more snow?"

"Oh, no, Mother!" Bobby's voice was eager. "They were sweeping off the pond this noon, weren't they, Meg? They never sweep it till it's stopped snowing for good, so there'll be skating. Meg and I can skate up the pond to the creek and up that as far as Mrs. Anson's house.

Then we'll come home by the road, so we won't break any eggs. My, Mother, that will be such fun!"

Meg's eyes danced with pleasure.