CHAPTER XVI

OVER THE CROSS ROAD

Philip could be heard barking madly in the garage and Meg volunteered to go and let him out. The others were too much absorbed in the horse and sleigh to offer to release the dog.

"What's the name of the horse?" asked Dot.

"I forgot to inquire," Sam answered. "So you may call him anything you like. He lives at the livery stable and you might name him after his master, Walter Rock. Call him Walt for short, you know."

Philip, dancing and barking, came running over the snowy lawn and Meg raced after him.

"The horse's name is Walt," Dot informed her importantly. "I think he looks kind, don't you, Meg?"

"Of course he is a kind horse," said Meg. "He's a pretty color, too."

Walt was a spotted horse, brown and white, not a polka-dot horse, of course, but with what Meg called a "pattern" of oddly shaped slashes of white on his brown coat.

"He must be a foulard horse," Meg commented as the children climbed into the soft clean straw which filled the box of the sleigh.

Sam shouted with laughter and Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly and Norah, who were all standing in the doorway to see them start, called out to ask what the joke was about.

"Tell you when we come back," shouted Sam, taking up the reins. "All set back there? Then here we go, jingle bells!"

The horse set off at a trot and the four little Blossoms grinned at each other delightedly. There were plenty of warm blankets in the sleigh and the livery stable man had put in a fur lap robe that made Twaddles think of a big black bear. None of the children had gone driving in a sleigh very often, for Father Blossom used his car practically all winter and kept no horses. Aunt Polly had horses and for all the children knew she might have a sleigh, though they had never seen one in the barn; but when they visited Aunt Polly at Brookside Farm, it was summer and snow was the one thing furthest from their thoughts.

"Meg," said Sam soberly as they left Oak Hill and turned into a country road, "this kind of a horse is called a calico horse. I thought you'd like to know."

"Well, foulard is something like calico--I mean the pattern is," Meg replied. "I like calico horses."

"I wish I'd brought the sled," said Bobby. "We could tie on behind and ride on it."

"It's more fun this way," Meg insisted, being a little girl who didn't always want something she didn't have. "Do you like to drive a sleigh, Sam?"

"Sure," said Sam over his shoulder. "Always did. When I was a boy and lived in the country, we had a real old-fashioned sleigh, with red cushions in it and everything. We used to drive down the river on the ice then--that was sport, let me tell you."

"Let us drive on the river," said the four little Blossoms with one voice.

"That's nothing but a creek, where you go to skate," Sam answered a little scornfully. "This river I'm talking about was a real river--wide and deep; boats came up it in summer time. We lived two or three hundred miles north of here and it was three times as cold."

"Well, it's cold enough now," said Dot wisely. "Isn't it, Meg?"

"Yes," Meg agreed absently, "but look how pretty it is--I think snow is lovely. And the bells sound so pretty, too. Here comes another sleigh."

The children stood up to look, holding on to the back of the seat, to steady themselves. Coming toward them were two horses, harnessed to a sleigh much like the one Sam was driving--a light box set on two sets of runners.

"From the creamery," said Sam, as his quick eyes saw the heavy milk cans.

The man driving the sleigh called "Howdy!" and shook his whip at them and Dot gasped and held on to Meg as Sam turned out for the other team.

The road was fairly well trampled in the center, but when it became necessary for two vehicles to pa.s.s, they had to turn into the drifts.

The four little Blossoms felt their sleigh tilt alarmingly, but before they had time to be frightened they were back on the level road again.

"Do--do sleighs ever tip over?" asked Dot anxiously.

"Oh, sometimes," Sam said cheerfully. "But if you are going to be turned over in anything, Dot, always pick out a sleigh for the accident; a motor car can pin you down and a railroad wreck is serious, but when a sleigh turns over, you just slip out into the snow and there's nothing to hurt you."

This sounded comforting, but the children agreed that they would rather not be tipped over.

"I think we'll take this cross road over," said Sam, when they came to a place where four roads met. "It may be a bit harder going and more drifts to get through, but we'll save time at that."

"We don't have to save time, do we?" Bobby put in. "We're always saving time, Sam--at least you are. And I think it would be fun to drive as much as we want to, just once."

Sam laughed good-naturedly as he turned the horse into the road he had chosen.

"You'd like a good time to last as long as possible, wouldn't you, Bobby?" he said. "Well, with all the short cuts and all the time saving I can do, we won't be home before dark; does that suit you?"

That suited Bobby exactly and he began to whistle.

"Say," Twaddles cried, interrupting the whistling suddenly. "Say, Sam, I want to get out."

"You do? Why?" asked Sam, without turning his head.

"I saw a glove back there in the road," Twaddles announced. "A nice glove, Sam, that somebody lost."

Sam said "Whoa!" to the horse and turned to look at Twaddles.

"How far back--a mile?" he asked suspiciously.

"Just a little way," Twaddles replied earnestly. "I want to go get it, Sam. Please. It's a good glove."

"I suppose it is a worn-out mitten, but this is your trip, partly,"

said Sam, who was kindness itself and usually did all he could to make the four little Blossoms happy. "So run along, but if you're not back in an hour I am going on without you."

Twaddles laughed and Bobby helped him down. They watched him running down the road, a small, st.u.r.dy figure, dark against all that whiteness.

"He's got it!" cried Dot, as Twaddles stooped and picked something up.

"Twaddles sees everything!"

Her twin did not run all the way back, because he couldn't. It was hard going in the snow and his feet slipped. Besides, he was almost out of breath.

"It's a good glove," the others heard him saying as he came within speaking distance. "It's a very good glove and somebody lost it."

Bobby and Meg pulled him back into the sleigh and he held out the glove for them to see. Sam Layton whistled in surprise when he examined it.

"Well, Twaddles, you were right and I was wrong," he said. "This is a good glove; it's fur lined and almost new. Somebody is out of luck--one glove is about as useless as one shoe lace."

"Maybe we'll find the man," Twaddles declared placidly.

"You believe in luck, don't you?" said Sam, starting the horse on his way again. "That glove must have been dropped from some wagon or car and probably last night. I think we're the first folks through here to-day."