DOWN ON THE POND

"A penny for your thoughts, Daughter," said Father Blossom presently.

Meg's lip quivered.

"I want my locket!" she sobbed, hiding her face against her father's shoulder. "All the girls have lockets and mine was nicer than any of them."

"Yes, it was," agreed Dot judicially, from her seat on the rug before the fire. "It had such a cunning snap."

"I don't care about the snap," retorted Meg, sitting up and drying her eyes on Father's nice big white handkerchief. "The forget-me-nots were so lovely and besides it was great Aunt Dorothy's."

Father Blossom now proposed a plan.

"I'll advertise for your locket, Meg," he said. "We'll offer a reward, and perhaps some one will find it. At any rate, it will encourage them to look for it. Right after supper we'll get pencil and paper and write out an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the _Oak Hill Herald_."

Father Blossom did not really believe that offering a reward for the lost locket would bring it back. He thought likely that it was buried under the deep snow beyond the sight of every one. But he knew that Meg would feel better if she thought that everything possible was being done to recover the pretty trinket.

After supper that night they wrote an advertis.e.m.e.nt, describing the locket, telling where it was lost, and offering ten dollars reward to the person who should bring it back. This advertis.e.m.e.nt was printed for three weeks in the Oak Hill paper, but though a number of people who read it did go out and scuffle about a bit in the snow on Wayne Place hill, partly in the hope of earning the reward, partly with a good-natured wish to help Meg, no one found the locket. The Blossom family were forced to conclude that it was gone forever.

The Monday afternoon following the party Meg and Bobby came rushing home from school with great news.

"Mother! Mother!" they shouted, flinging down lunch boxes and books in the hall and tearing upstairs like small cyclones. "Oh, Mother!"

Mother Blossom, sewing in Aunt Polly's room, looked up at them and laughed.

"Is there a fire?" she asked calmly.

Bobby was almost out of breath, but he still had a bit left to tell the news.

"They've swept off Blake's pond!" he gasped. "Everybody's going skating. The ice is great, Mother. Just like gla.s.s."

"Where are our skates? Can we go?" chimed in Meg. "It isn't a bit cold, Mother."

"Just cold enough to skate, I suppose," smiled Mother Blossom. "Well, of course you can't miss the first skating of the season. But I don't believe they want such little folks on the pond, dear. Some of the big boys will be likely to skate right over you."

"We'll keep near the edge," promised Bobby. "Come on, Meg. Where are our skates?"

Meg and Bobby had double runner skates, which are very good to learn on, and they had used them only once or twice because the winter before there had been practically no skating. Mother Blossom said the skates were in a dark green flannel bag, hanging in the hall closet, and the children tumbled downstairs to find them. You would have thought that they were afraid the ice would melt, if they didn't hurry.

Presently Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly heard sounds of argument.

"You can't go," cried Bobby. "You're too little."

"You haven't any skates," said Meg crossly.

"Mind your own business," shouted Twaddles, apparently making a rush at some one, for there was the sound of a scuffle and then a wail from Dot.

Mother Blossom dropped her sewing and went out into the hall.

"Children!" she cried warningly, leaning over the railing.

"Oh, Mother!" Bobby's voice was filled with protest. "The twins want to go skating!"

"Can't we, Mother?" said Dot eagerly, looking up at her mother imploringly. "Bobby and Meg always have all the fun. Can't we go?"

"They're too little," insisted Meg. "They haven't any skates, either.

And Dot will get her feet cold and want to come home right away."

"Won't either," scolded Dot. "I am too going! Can't I, Mother?"

"Well, suppose you go till four o'clock," proposed Mother Blossom, who could always see both sides of a question. "If Bobby and Meg do not get cold, they may stay till half-past four. And you'll have to promise to do as Bobby says, twinnies, and keep out of the path of older boys and girls. You mustn't spoil good fun for other people who really know how to skate."

"I suppose you might as well tag along," conceded Bobby rather ungraciously. "n.o.body let us go skating when we were only four years old, did they, Meg?"

"No, they didn't," agreed Meg.

"Next year we're going to have skates," announced Twaddles importantly.

"Daddy said so."

Before they reached the pond, however, all ill feelings were forgotten, and the sight of the gla.s.sy oval, well-filled with skaters, completely restored the four little Blossoms to their usual good humor.

"Whee!" cried Dot, skipping with excitement. "Look how smooth! Let's make a slide, Twaddles."

Meg and Bobby sat comfortably down in a s...o...b..nk to put on their skates, and as they were working with the straps, Dave Saunders glided up.

"You kids want to keep out of the center of the pond," he advised them, not unkindly. "All the high school folks are out to-day, and when a string of them join hands the line goes almost across the pond. If you once slip, you're likely to be stepped on."

Meg and Bobby promised to stay near the outside edges of the pond, and Dave skated off with long, even steps that carried him away from them swiftly.

"It looks so easy," sighed Meg, standing up on her skates and wobbling a little. "I wish I could skate the way Dave can."

"Well, we have to practice," said Bobby sensibly. "Daddy says if you keep at it, by and by you find you're a good skater. Come on, Meg, let's take hold of hands."

Twaddles and Dot stood watching their brother and sister skate for a few minutes, and wished that they, too, had skates. Then they wisely decided to have as much fun as they could without.

"Smooth the snow down on this bank," suggested Twaddles, "and we can play it's a toboggan slide. I wish we had brought the sled."

Dot helped him to smooth down the snow, and then they joined hands and tried the first slide. It was rather rough in spots, but a good slide for all of that, with a thrilling break at the end where they fell from the bank down on to the ice.

"Let me slide, too?" asked Ruth Ellis, coming up to them after the twins had been enjoying their slide for a few minutes.

Of course they were glad to have company, and in a short time a number of the younger children who had no skates were enjoying the slide.

Some of the girls were afraid of the tumble at the end, but Dot, who had always done everything Twaddles did, thought that was the best part of the fun.

Meg and Bobby skated back to them now and then to see that they were all right, and Bobby took off his skates once to try the slide while Twaddles tried to use the skates. They were too large for him, and a fall on the ice dulled his interest. He decided he would rather slide.

"They're going to have a big bonfire to-night," reported Bobby, on one of his trips back to the twins. "Things to eat--oh, everything! I wish Mother would let us stay up to skate."