Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm Part 7

"You're going in the opposite direction," said the woman placidly. She did not seem to care. "What's that on your dress?"

Dot's tears brimmed over.

"Milk," she sobbed. "I tipped it over. An' I have to go on the boat with my mother."

The jitney driver heard and turned.

"What's this?" he asked. "You belong on the boat, little girl? Well, now, don't cry; we'll fix it. I heard they had engine trouble to-day, and like as not they'll be late starting. Long up the road a spell we'll meet the two o'clock jitney coming back, and I'll see that Dave Gunn takes you in with him. An' if you do miss the boat my wife'll take care of you over night and we'll ship you up to Little Havre on to-morrow's boat."

Dot felt that the jitney driver was very kind, but she hoped with all her heart that she would not have to stay all night in a strange house. She wanted her mother, and Twaddles and Meg and Bobby. She hadn't known till this minute how dearly she loved them.

Sure enough, their jitney had not gone very far when they saw another jitney coming toward them.

"Hi, Dave!" called the driver of Dot's jitney. "Got a pa.s.senger for you. A little lady who tangled up her traveling directions and missed getting on the boat. You take her with you, and see that she lands on the steamer."

Mr. Gunn stopped his machine and came over to the other jitney.

"Come on, Sister," he said pleasantly, lifting Dot down gently.

"Why, you are little to be traveling on your own. I've got three home 'bout your size."

Mother Blossom, as you may suppose, had been nearly frantic all this time. She had taken the other children on board the boat and had left them on deck with the bags, after they had promised not to stir from the spot where she left them, and she had been going up and down the dock making inquiries, and even walking up into the town, believing that perhaps some of the store windows had attracted Dot.

No one remembered seeing a little girl in a green dress and a brown straw hat.

Just as Mother Blossom was wearily wondering if she should telegraph Father Blossom that Dot was lost, a motor jitney lumbered down to the dock. Some one in a green dress and a brown straw hat was sitting on the front seat beside the driver.

"Mother! Mother!" shouted Dot.

There was just time for her to tumble out of the car into her mother's arms, just time for Mother Blossom to give the driver a dollar bill and say a word of thanks, and then the steamboat whistle blew loudly once.

"That means she's starting," said the jitney man. "Run!"

And hand in hand, Mother Blossom and Dot raced down the wharf and over the gangplank on to the deck of the boat, just as it began to slide away.

CHAPTER VI

BROOKSIDE AT LAST

"We thought you weren't coming," said Meg anxiously.

"Where did you find Dot?" asked Bobby and Twaddles in the same breath.

Dot smiled serenely.

"I came back myself," she informed them. "The jitney man told me how."

Mother Blossom sat down on a camp-stool and fanned herself with Twaddles' blue sailor hat.

"See if we can't get to Brookside without any more mishaps," she commanded the children. "If we had missed the boat, think of the worry and trouble for Aunt Polly. Even if we telegraphed she wouldn't get it before she started over to meet us."

The four little Blossoms promised to be very good and to stay close together.

Lake Tobago was a small lake, very pretty, and for some minutes the children saw enough on the sh.o.r.es they were pa.s.sing to keep them contented and interested. In one place two little boys and their father were out fishing in a rowboat and the steamer pa.s.sed so close to them that the four little Blossoms, leaning over the rail, could almost shake hands with them.

"There's another wharf! Do we stop there? Yes, we do! Come on, Dot, let's watch!" shouted Twaddles, as the steamer headed insh.o.r.e toward a pier built out into the water.

"Keep away from the gangplank," warned Mother Blossom. "You mustn't get in people's way, dear."

The pier was something of a disappointment, because when the boat tied up there the children discovered that only freight was to be taken off and more boxes carried on. There was only one man at the wharf, and apparently no town for miles.

"Doesn't anybody live here?" asked Twaddles, almost climbing over the rail in his eagerness to see everything.

"Sure! There's a town back about half a mile," explained the deck-hand who was carrying on a crate of live chickens. "This is just where farmers drive in with their stuff."

"Let me see the chickens," cried Dot, climbing up beside her brother.

Her elbow knocked his hat, and because he hadn't the elastic under his chin, it went sailing over on to the wharf. One of the men rolling a barrel toward the steamer did not see the hat and calmly rolled his barrel over it.

"Now you've done it!" scolded Meg, in her big-sister anxiety. "That's a fine-looking hat to go to see Aunt Polly in. Hey, please, will you bring it back here with you?"

The man with the barrel heard and turned. He picked up the shapeless broken straw that had been Twaddles' best new hat, and brought it to them, grinning. Several people who had been watching laughed.

"It does look funny, doesn't it?" said Meg. "You'd better go and show it to Mother, Twaddles."

Twaddles went back to Mother Blossom and dangled his hat before her sadly.

"Oh, Twaddles!" she sighed. "Is that your hat? And we're miles from a store. Here, let me straighten out the brim. What happened to it?

Where did you go?"

Twaddles said truthfully enough that he hadn't been anywhere, and explained what had happened to the hat. The boat was out in the lake again by this time and steaming on toward Little Havre.

"Where are the others?" asked Mother Blossom. "Tell them we get off in fifteen or twenty minutes, and I want them all to come and stay near me."

Presently the boat sc.r.a.ped alongside a wide wharf and a number of people began to bustle off.

"Where are we going now?" asked Twaddles, his round eyes dancing with excitement. Twaddles certainly loved traveling.

"Don't you 'member?" said Meg importantly. "We have to go to Four Crossways, and Aunt Polly will meet us. There's a bus that says 'Four Crossways,' Mother."

Mother Blossom had to see about the trunks and the kiddie-car, which, it seemed, were all to go in a queer contrivance attached to the motor bus, a "trailer," the driver called it.

"Isn't that nice?" beamed Bobby, when he heard of this arrangement.

"Our trunks will get there the same time we do."