"'Dear Daddy and Mother,'" she began proudly. "'We hope you are well.

We are. Dot most wasn't, but I took care of her. She went out to the barn to hunt for eggs, and the turkey gobbler saw her. He thought she was carrying corn in the basket. He chased her and she ran. I heard her crying and I ran down to the barn. She was backed up into a corner and he was making noises at her. He is awful big, but I am not afraid of him. I grabbed the broom Jud keeps to sweep the barn floor with and I chased that old gobbler clear into the orchard. We are going to pick berries to-morrow.'"

The twins had kept still as long as they could, and now it was their turn.

"Tell Mother 'bout the snake I saw this morning," said Twaddles. "Jud says it was a black snake after baby robins. It was on the grape arbor where there is a robin's nest. Jud killed it."

"Tell Daddy I weeded a whole onion row for Aunt Polly," begged Dot.

"Wait a minute, I have to sign my name," interrupted Meg.

And she signed it, "Margaret Alice Blossom," right in among the words of the twins' letters that Bobby was patiently writing.

The next day was very warm, and Aunt Polly thought they had better play in the orchard instead of picking berries, so they trooped out soon after breakfast, to find the orchard cool and shady.

"I wish I had my book that was drowned," mourned Meg. "I love to sit up in a tree and read."

"Well, I loved Geraldine better than Tottie-Fay," said Dot, giving the old doll a shake as she spoke.

"No use fussing," advised the sensible Bobby. "They're lost, and we mustn't let Aunt Polly hear us, 'cause she'll think she ought to go right off and buy us some more. I'm going to climb this tree. Who wants a ripe apple?"

"I do," and Meg jumped up. "Let me hold my ap.r.o.n and you throw 'em down, Bobby. Twaddles, stop teasing Spotty."

"I aren't teasing him," declared Twaddles indignantly. "I'm going to teach him to carry bundles."

Twaddles' method of teaching the patient Spotty was to sit down on him with feet spread wide apart and wait for the dog to shake him off.

Dot sat down quietly in the gra.s.s and began to make a bouquet of wild-flowers. It was Dot who always helped Aunt Polly weed and water her flower garden, and Dot who liked to see fresh flowers on the dining-room table.

When Meg had her ap.r.o.n full of apples she sat down near Dot, and the four ate as many sweet summer apples as four small people could who had eaten breakfast less than an hour before.

"There's Poots," said Meg suddenly, glancing up and seeing the black cat picking her way through the gra.s.s. "Do you suppose she is hunting birds?"

Poots blinked her green eyes innocently. If she were after birds, she had no intention of catching any before an audience. She sat down and began to wash her face.

A mischievous idea seized Twaddles.

"Rats, Spotty!" he shouted. "Rats!"

Now rats sounds pretty much like "cats," and the excited and startled Spotty did not stop to question which word Twaddles had used. He jumped up, his ears pointing forward.

"Rats, sic 'em!" said bad little Twaddles. "Rats, Spotty!"

Spotty barked twice sharply. Poots arose, her fur bristling. Spotty leaped at her, barking playfully. Away ran Poots, her black tail sticking straight up in the air. And after them raced the four little Blossoms, shouting and calling frantically.

Poots ran straight for the front wall and scrambled up it, leaving Spotty to bark wildly on the ground and make futile rushes at the solid wall he couldn't hope to climb. Some of the masonry was loose, and Poots, digging with her sharp claws, sent down a shower of dust into the dog's eyes. He whined, and dug at his eyes with both forepaws. Then he sneezed several times.

"You will chase me, will you?" Poots seemed to say, gazing down at him from her safe position. "The idea!"

"Well, we might as well pick up some of this stuff," said Twaddles, knowing that the fun was over.

"It's cooler--just feel that breeze!" exclaimed Meg. "Let's ask Aunt Polly if we can't go berrying after dinner."

Aunt Polly obligingly said they could, and after dinner the four little Blossoms scrambled into overalls Aunt Polly had bought and shortened to fit them.

"I wish your mother could see you," she said, as she gave them each a bright tin pail. "No need to worry about your dress now, is there, Dot?"

"Going berrying?" asked Jud, as they pa.s.sed him, clipping the green hedge around the kitchen garden. "Better keep out of the sun."

The children walked down the road and turned into another field. They knew where the blackberry bushes grew, and they meant to fill their pails.

"Let's start here by this fence," suggested Bobby. "What's that over in Mr. Simmond's field?"

"It's a bull," answered Meg who knew all the animals at Brookside and on the neighboring farms by this time. "He's as cross as can be, but he took three prizes at the last Fair."

Twaddles ate the first dozen berries he picked and then he picked another dozen for Dot's pail. He decided that larger and better berries grew on the other side of the fence. He crawled under and his shout of delight brought the others.

"You never saw such big ones!" cried Twaddles gleefully. "Meg, look!"

"They are big," agreed Meg. "Come on, Bobby, let's go on the other side. Mr. Simmonds won't care."

Dot was already under the fence, and Meg and Bobby stooped down and crawled under after her.

The four little figures in blue overalls began to pick industriously.

The berries were thick and juicy, and the bottoms of the tin pails were covered in a few minutes. Meg had just stopped to pull a briar from her thumb when she heard a bellow behind her.

There stood the bull, in the middle of the field, his head down between his knees, his feet pawing the ground, and his angry eyes glaring at the berry pickers.

"Oh, Bobby! The bull!" gasped Meg. "Run, Dot and Twaddles!"

CHAPTER XI

THE HOME LAUNDRY

Dot and Twaddles took one frightened look at the bellowing bull, and then dropped flat on the ground and began to squirm under the fence.

"Hurry, Meg," urged Bobby. "Don't stand there like that! Run!"

"I'm waiting for you," quavered Meg.

"All right, hurry," repeated Bobby.

He and Meg crawled under the fence and stood beside Twaddles and Dot.

Then they looked over at the bull. He was not charging directly toward them, but at something else his angry red eyes had seen even before the children noticed it. Further down there was a gap in the fence where several rails were broken.