"Dear, dear," chuckled Aunt Polly. "So you've been thinking about Brookside all this time, have you? And what makes you think your mother wants to talk about the farm with you?"

Four pairs of eyes fixed their anxious gaze upon Mother Blossom.

"Well, dearies," said Mother Blossom in answer, "Daddy and Aunt Polly and I have talked this over, and we've come to a decision. It is impossible for me to get you ready to go home with Aunt Polly to-morrow."

"Oh, Mother!" mourned Twaddles.

"Would you want to go and leave Mother?" that dear lady asked in surprise.

"Not--not exactly," stammered the little boy. "But I want to go somewhere awfully."

"Couldn't you go, too, Muddie?" suggested Meg.

"Listen, and I'll tell you what we've planned," said Mother Blossom.

"Aunt Polly has to go back to-morrow. We've tried to persuade her to stay, but it seems the summer is a very bad time to be away from a farm. But a week from to-morrow, if you are all very good and help me as much as you can, I will take you to Brookside to visit Aunt Polly for a month, or as long as she can stand four active youngsters in her quiet house."

"Hurrah!" shouted the four little Blossoms.

"Won't that be great! Let's get the trunk down right away, Mother."

"Well, I wouldn't, not till Daddy comes home," said Aunt Polly, fanning herself and smiling. "A week is plenty of time, and I hear that Dot has to have some new frocks made."

"Is Daddy coming?" Bobby asked suddenly.

"I wanted him to, for I think he needs a rest," said Aunt Polly soberly. "But the most we could get him to promise was that he might come up with your mother when it is time for you to go home."

"Mother's going--she said so," Meg reminded her aunt.

"Only to take you to Brookside, Daughter," explained Mother Blossom.

"Then I am coming home again to stay with Daddy. You see, I couldn't leave him alone in this house for a whole month. Think how lonesome he would be."

Twaddles thought this over for a moment.

"Well, I guess it will be a change for him, 'thout any children," he remarked, with a sunny smile.

Aunt Polly scooped him into her lap and gave him a big hug.

"Now where in the world did you get that idea?" she said.

"I found it," confided Twaddles cheerfully.

Dot had already disappeared. She thought it time to begin her packing.

Presently they heard her in the house tumbling books out of the bookcase on to the polished floor.

"Glory be, whatever are ye doing?" came Norah's cry. "Haven't I enough to be doing, without ye upsetting a room as fast as I put it in order?"

CHAPTER IV

THE WILLING PACKERS

Meg rushed into the house.

"Dot Blossom, you're not to touch my books," she scolded. "The idea!

Why don't you fuss with your own things?"

Dot looked vexed.

"I'm helping you," she explained. "Don't you want to take your books to Aunt Polly's to read rainy days? Well, then, I'll pack 'em for you."

Mother Blossom had followed Meg, and now she intervened.

"No one is to pack anything to-day," she said firmly. "I want Dot to go into town with a message for Miss Florence. And Meg must practice on the piano half an hour at least. This afternoon we're going to take Aunt Polly driving. After she goes home there will be plenty for all of us to do to get ready."

Miss Florence Davis was the dressmaker who often came to the house to make clothes for the Blossom children, and Dot set off presently for her house, carrying a note to her. Miss Florence had no telephone. She said she wasn't home long enough to answer it. But she always left a slip of paper pinned to her door to tell people at whose house she was sewing, and her customers were used to going about the town till they found her.

"She says she can come," reported Dot when she returned from her errand. "She can give you four days, Mother. Where are the boys?"

Mother Blossom looked at her small daughter and sighed.

"I thought you knew Sam painted the fence last night," she said mildly.

"I did, but I forgot," explained Dot, trying to fold over a pleat so that the vivid streaks of green paint would not show. "I guess I kind of brushed up against it, Mother."

Usually when Aunt Polly went home the four little Blossoms were disconsolate, but the next morning they saw her to the station quite cheerfully. Were they not going to Brookside themselves exactly one week from that day?

"Now we must fly around and get ready," announced Bobby, when they returned to the house. Bobby had a great trick of remembering speeches he had heard older folk make.

"Indeed then and you must," agreed Norah, who was sweeping the porch.

"Your mother wants Dot in the sewing room. Miss Florence is ready to try on. And, Bobby, it's sorry I am, but we're out of soap."

It was rather a long walk to the grocery store, and Bobby didn't think that going for soap promised one bit of excitement. Neither did Meg want to practice the piano scales that one day were to make her a good musician. Norah knew something of what they were thinking.

"You'll both be helping your mother to get ready to go," she said earnestly and kindly. "I've got extra washing to do, for all your clothes must be clean. And if Meg's going to stop learning music every time a new plan comes up, she'll grow up to be terrible ignorant of lots of things."

"All right, I'm going," said Bobby quickly. "An' you'll be through by the time I get back, Meg. Then I guess we can pack the toys."

Twaddles, left alone, wandered up to the sewing room.

"h.e.l.lo, Twaddles," said Miss Florence pleasantly. "Have you come up to see what pretty dresses Dot is going to have? And what is this I hear about every one going to Brookside?"

"We're going to see Aunt Polly," explained Twaddles. "And, Mother, can we take toys? Bobby's all ready to pack 'em as soon as he gets back."

"If you don't pack something pretty soon, the house won't hold you,"

observed Mother Blossom, smiling. "You see, Twaddles dear, Mother doesn't believe you will need many toys at Brookside. There will be so many wonderful new out-of-door things for you to play with. Suppose we say that each of you may choose the two things you are fondest of.

That won't make so much to carry."