"Wow, it's cold!" he said. "Just like ice, Jud."

"You won't mind it after you've been in a little while," Jud a.s.sured him. "Now when I say come out, you're to come. No teasing to stay in!

Is that agreed?"

"All right," promised the four little Blossoms. "Oh, ow! isn't it cold?"

CHAPTER XV

WHAT MEG FOUND

The first thing Dot did was to step in a deep hole and get her dress and tucked-up skirt wet nearly to her shoulders.

"It's all right," said Meg calmly. "Aunt Polly brought some dry things with her. I guess she expected Dot to go in bathing instead of wading."

This made Dot very indignant, but she pattered along after the others, and in a few minutes forgot to be cross. When you are wading in a clear, cold brook with little dancing leaves making checkered patterns on the water, and a green forest all around you, you can not stay cross long.

"I see something," said Bobby suddenly. "Look! Over there where it's wide! Don't you see it, Meg?"

"Looks like clothes," said Meg, shading her eyes with her hand, for the sun on the water dazzled her. "Maybe it's a wash. Aunt Polly said some of the hired men around here wash their clothes in the brook.

Let's go and see."

"Here, here! Where are you going?" called Jud, as they began to scramble down.

"We saw something on the other side of the brook," explained Bobby.

"We're going over to see what it is."

"Well, you just wait," ordered Jud. "That's the widest part of the brook down there, and all that side is swampy land. You can't land on it. You'll sink in. Wait till I take my shoes off, and I'll come and help you."

Jud took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up to his knees. He wasn't afraid that the four little Blossoms would drown, for the brook was not very deep in any part. But it was wide at the point where Bobby wanted to cross, and there was no bank, only a piece of swamp, on the other side.

"Now I'll take Dot and Twaddles, and you and Meg hold hands," said Jud, as he stepped into the water. "Come on, Pirates, let's board yonder frigate."

The children giggled and stepped gingerly after Jud. They were glad he had come with them, for the mild little brook looked like a river to them as they got out into the middle of it.

"What do you suppose that is over there?" said Bobby. "I wish it was buried treasure. I never found any buried treasure."

"Maybe it is Indians," Meg suggested a little fearfully.

"With a flag of truce?" said Jud, understanding at once. "Well, Meg, I don't believe we have any Indians around here."

He made a dive for Dot and saved her from slipping, but she wasn't a bit grateful.

"I almost caught a crab," she sputtered.

Before Bobby could tell her that crabs didn't live in brooks, they had reached the piece of swamp land and all four children rushed for the fluttering bit of white which had attracted Bobby's attention.

"Why, it's a shirt!" said Twaddles in great disappointment.

Whatever he had expected to see, it certainly wasn't a shirt and he felt cheated. Jud had to laugh at the queer expression on his face.

Meg, however, did not laugh. She was eyeing the shirt closely and Jud saw that she had something on her mind. Perhaps Meg was his favorite among the children, if he had a favorite. He had once told Linda that Meg was a "regular little woman" and indeed, quiet as she was, she often saw things that other people did not notice.

"Jud," she said now, "that shirt hasn't any b.u.t.tons on it and the pocket is ripped. And Linda brought her sewing basket."

Bobby looked at his little sister as though he thought she was losing her mind.

"What's a sewing basket got to do with it?" he demanded.

"It needs mending," said Meg soberly. "Maybe the man who washed it hasn't any needle and thread."

The twins declared that everyone had needle and thread, but Jud rather spoiled their argument by announcing that he had none.

"I can't sew, so what good would needle and thread do me?" he asked them.

Meg, forgetting the shirt for a moment, asked him what he did when b.u.t.tons came off his clothes.

"My mother sews them on again," said Jud, "and Mother darns my socks and Mother mends the rips I get in my coats."

"There, you see!" Meg cried triumphantly. "This man hasn't any mother to sew b.u.t.tons on him."

"On his shirt, you mean," giggled Dot.

"Well, maybe he hasn't," Bobby admitted. "I don't suppose he has, or he wouldn't have to do his own washing. But Linda's basket is on the other side of the brook."

"I'm going to take the shirt over to her and ask her to mend it,"

announced Meg. "I know she will. Then I'll bring it back and hang it on the bush and won't he be surprised!"

Jud chuckled.

"He'll be more surprised if he comes along and his shirt is missing,"

he laughed. "Why, he'll think the birds made way with it."

This was a new problem for Meg and she thought about it for several minutes.

"Dot and Twaddles can stay here," she decided, "and if the man comes, they can tell him that I will bring his shirt back as soon as it is mended."

But the twins did not take kindly to the idea of being left alone.

They said they were going back when Jud went.

"Then you take the shirt, and I'll stay," said Meg, who seldom gave up a plan, once she had made it. "Please ask Linda to put the b.u.t.tons on and mend the pocket and then you bring it right back."

Jud looked doubtful at the thought of leaving Meg, even when Bobby declared he would stay with her.

"I have to go, for the children can't get back alone," he said, "but you mustn't go away from here: I want to be able to find you when I bring the laundry home."