Meg's delighted little laugh bubbled up to him.

"Oh, Bobby," she gurgled. "I guess I've found the road. Look out for that bank I fell down. I'm sure this is a road. You come and see."

Bobby cautiously scrambled down the bank, over which Meg had slipped, and joined his sister. Meg was on her feet again, and trying to brush the snow off her coat and out of her collar.

"It is a road, isn't it?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, it's a road; but it can't be the one near Mrs. Anson's house,"

answered Bobby, puzzled. "We've walked too far. What's that sticking up?"

It proved to be a signboard, and, giving Meg the eggs to hold, Bobby tried to reach up high enough to brush the snow off so that they could read the lettering. The board was far above his head.

"Shinny up," urged Meg. "Or stand on my shoulders."

The pole was too wet for the first, and Bobby did not want to use his sister for a stepping stone. He finally managed, by jumping up and flirting his cap across the board at each jump, to knock off enough snow to enable them to read the letters.

"M-E-R-T-O-N, six miles" spelled Bobby. "R-I-C-E-V-I-L-L-E, four miles."

Meg looked at him, troubled.

"Where does it say Oak Hill is?" she asked.

"It doesn't say, but we'll find it," said Bobby stoutly, "Come on, Meg, we'll go the way that's four miles."

Meg had gone some distance down the road before she discovered that she had left her m.u.f.f at the sign post. There was nothing to do but to go back for it. As they came up to it, nearly buried in the snow already, so fast it was falling, a little rabbit started up and hopped away over the road in a panic of fear.

"Guess he thought it was another rabbit," commented Bobby.

He walked ahead, carrying the eggs, and Meg followed him closely.

Suddenly he stopped and gave a shout.

CHAPTER XV

GREAT PREPARATIONS

"Meg!" he called. "What do you think? Here's the old skating cap!"

"Skating cap?" repeated Meg stupidly.

"Yes! The skating cap we noticed when we were going to Mrs. Anson's,"

said Bobby. "Don't you remember? We must be clear on the other side of the pond. That was the back road we followed."

Meg was too tired, with tramping through the deep snow, to care very much about which road they had followed. She wanted to get home.

"My coat collar's all wet on my neck," she complained fretfully. "How can we get over the pond, Bobby?"

"Have to walk it," said Bobby. "The snow's too thick to try to skate.

Give me your hand, and you won't slip."

Meg didn't slip, but half way across Bobby did, his feet going out from under him without warning and sending him sprawling. It was so dark now, for they had walked a long distance since leaving Mrs. Anson's house, that Meg could hardly see him.

"Bobby! where are you?" she cried.

"Right here, don't step on me," giggled Bobby, scrambling to his feet and making sure the eggs were unharmed. "That dark thing over there must be the bank. Gee, doesn't that sound like Philip?"

A dog on the low bank had barked, and indeed it did sound like Philip.

"Why it is!" called Meg in delight, when they reached the edge of the pond and began to climb up. "You dear, old Philip! Were you looking for us?"

Philip wagged his stumpy tail and frisked about, trying his best to tell the children that he had come out to look for them. Having Philip with them to talk to and pet made the rest of the way home seem shorter, and in less than fifteen minutes Meg and Bobby were shaking the snow off their clothes in the Blossom front hall.

"Your mother has worried ever since the first snow flake," said Father Blossom, helping Meg shake snow from her wet hair. "Sam and I should have been out with a lantern if you had been much longer."

"We're starving," declared Bobby, handing over the eggs which he had remembered to carry carefully all the time. "Isn't supper ready?"

Supper was ready and Meg and Bobby were so hungry that Father Blossom pretended to be alarmed for fear there wasn't enough food in the house.

He said he was afraid Norah would come in and say there was no more bread and that all the b.u.t.ter and baked potatoes were gone, and then what would they do?

"Oh, I think they're only a little hungrier than usual," Aunt Polly said, smiling.

Being lost in a snow storm didn't make either Bobby or Meg dislike the snow and the first thing they thought of the next morning was the weather.

"I hope it snowed all night," said Meg cheerfully. "I would like to see snow up to the second-story windows, wouldn't you, Bobby?"

Bobby thought that would be fun, too, but when he mentioned it at the breakfast table, no one seemed to like the idea.

"Just about as much snow as I care for, right now," declared Father Blossom. "Our trucks are having trouble breaking the roads and this fresh fall is discouraging for people who want to work. I've a good mind to get out the old box sleigh and hire a horse and let Sam drive to Fernwood for that freight consignment," he said to Mother Blossom.

But Meg's quick little brain understood at once.

"Daddy!" she cried, the loveliest rose color coming into her cheeks.

"Darling Daddy, can't we go in the box sleigh?"

Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly laughed, but Bobby looked up from his oatmeal quickly and the twins began at once to ask if they could go, too.

"Why, lambs, what about school?" Mother Blossom reminded them and that helped Meg with her argument beautifully.

"It's a one-session day!" she said triumphantly. "The teachers have to go to a lecture this afternoon. Oh, Mother, you went riding in a sleigh when you were a little girl and I never did."

"And you've been in automobiles and when I was a little girl I never did," Mother Blossom said gaily. "However, we'll ask Daddy."

Father Blossom looked at Meg, a twinkle in his eye.

"I was careless to mention 'sleigh'," he announced. "But I still think Sam will have to go with a horse, instead of a foundry truck; and if four children were ready and warmly dressed about quarter of one, I shouldn't wonder if that sleigh stopped before this house."

My goodness, there was no more peace at the table after that. The twins nearly went crazy and they wanted to put their leggings on at once, while Bobby and Meg for some mysterious reason seemed to feel that the sooner they got to school, the earlier they would be dismissed and they hurried away a quarter of an hour before the usual time.