SUNNY SUMMER DAYS

"Washed and ironed Dot!" repeated Father Blossom. "Why, what happened to Dot?"

The four little Blossoms explained, and then they had to tell the story again to Mother Blossom when they went up to the bungalow.

Father and Mother Blossom were so glad and so grateful that the accident had turned out so fortunately, when it might easily have had serious consequences, that they scolded no one. Dot was sure that she would not climb up on the rail of The Sarah another time, and Father and Mother Blossom knew she would be careful.

Such fun as the children had in the days that followed! Mother Blossom declared that they almost lived in their bathing suits, and indeed, as the warm weather came on, a bathing suit for the sunny hours of the morning was the most comfortable costume any one could hope for. The little bathing beach was not too far from the bungalow, and Father Blossom was an excellent swimmer. He taught each child to swim and very cunning Twaddles and Dot looked in the water. Dot wore a scarlet bathing cap on her dark hair and her bathing suit was red, too, while Twaddles wore a navy and white suit. Meg's suit was a lighter blue and her cap was white, and Bobby had a brown suit like Father Blossom's. The children thought that no one could look lovelier than their mother in her black and white suit and cap to match, and indeed Mother Blossom was growing prettier every day. She said she had not had a real vacation in so long that she felt as the children did--as if she must play outdoors every minute.

Sometimes they took their supper down to the beach and Father Blossom and Bobby built a fire and they had toasted bread and bacon; sometimes they went hunting for beach plums, that odd fruit that grows on tall bushes and which make such delicious jam; sometimes they all went fishing in the two rowboats, Mother Blossom rowing one and Father Blossom the other.

"I caught the biggest fish," Dot wrote to Norah, "only it wasn't a fish--it was somebody's old boot."

But Twaddles and Meg, oddly enough, had the best luck of any of the fishermen. Meg rarely went fishing that she did not bring home a nice little string of fish she had caught herself (though Bobby had to bait her hooks), and as for Twaddles, he never paid much attention to his line except to pull it in now and then to take a fish off. One day the whim seized him to fish from the wharf, and when Bobby was sent to call him to supper Twaddles calmly showed him four fine fish he had caught in less than an hour.

"I'll take you on a fishing trip some day for a mascot," said Captain Jenks, who continued to be a very good friend.

The four little Blossoms had gone over with him on The Sarah the week after Dot's adventure in the water to get the wash from Mrs.

Clayton. Bobby and Meg had been a little fearful that Mother Blossom would not trust them again to take care of the twins, but that dear lady knew that accidents make wise little folk more careful. She a.s.sured Bobby and Meg with a kiss that she was sure they would look after Dot and Twaddles more closely this time.

They did; indeed, the twins rather resented the strict supervision under which they made the trip to Greenpier, but when Dot appealed to Captain Jenks, to her disappointment, he sided with Bobby and Meg.

"I have an uneasy feelin' that I don't know what you might take into your head to do next," the captain told the surprised little girl. "If I was your sister and brother, I'd tie a string to you and then I'd know where you were every minute."

However, of all their games and pastimes, the one of which the four little Blossoms never tired, was to go and play around the ruins of the Harley shack. The island was so safe a place, such an ideal playground for little people, that Father and Mother Blossom felt no uneasiness no matter where the children went. They must be home punctually to meals and they must not go in the water anywhere without asking permission and then only on the bathing beach if no older person was with them. These few rules were all they had to remember and it was small wonder that they often said Apple Tree Island was the nicest place in the world! Aunt Polly had sent Bobby a little watch and he could "tell time" nicely; so no matter how far they wandered they had no excuse for not coming back to the bungalow when Mother Blossom set them a time limit.

"Let's go to Mr. Harley's house," suggested Meg one bright morning.

That was the way they always spoke of the forlorn shack--it was "Mr. Harley's house."

"All right, let's," agreed Bobby. "I'll ask Mother if we can take our lunch. We don't want the twins this time, do we?"

Bobby and Meg had been washing the breakfast dishes while Mother Blossom, at the pretty desk in the large hall, was making out a grocery list for Father Blossom to take to town on the morning boat. Meg and Bobby were learning to be the best little helpers one ever saw; in fact, this Summer all the children had learned a great deal about housekeeping and they meant to astonish Norah with their knowledge when they went home.

"I think it would be nice if we could play by ourselves," said Meg gently, in answer to Bobby's question.

Meg and Bobby sometimes felt that they would like to play a game without the aid of Dot and Twaddles. Not that they did not love the small sister and brother dearly, but Meg and Bobby usually liked to do the very same thing in the very same way, and Dot and Twaddles were apt to want to do it six different ways and all at once! That, as you may understand, occasionally led to disputes.

"Take your lunch and play at Mr. Harley's house?" said Mother Blossom, laying down her pencil and smiling at the two earnest faces. "I don't know why not. I'll put some sandwiches up for you as soon as I finish this list."

"And may just Meg and I go, Mother?" added Bobby coaxingly.

"Oh, Bobby, you know the twins will be disappointed," Mother Blossom replied. "They do love to poke around that shack and I'm afraid they will feel hurt if they think you do not want them."

She tapped her pencil absently on the desk for a moment.

"I tell you, children," she cried, putting an arm around each.

"Suppose you and Meg, Bobby, go on to the shack and play by yourselves this morning; then, at noon, I'll send the twins with lunch for all of you and you stay an hour or two longer and play with them. How will that be?"

Meg and Bobby thought this was a splendid plan, and, only stopping to kiss Mother Blossom and to take an old rusty shovel which was Bobby's chief treasure, they ran off. Dot and Twaddles were down at the wharf waiting to see Captain Jenks and his motor-boat, a daily habit which was encouraged by the captain, who usually brought them some little treat.

"We'll go around the other side of the island, and they won't see us," said Meg, the general. "It isn't much longer, really."

The other side of the island was rockier, though, and the bushes were thicker. Still, Meg and Bobby managed to scramble though, and half an hour's steady tramping brought them to the Harley shack.

"It keeps falling apart," mourned Meg; and indeed the place looked worse every time they visited it.

"Apples!" shouted Bobby, running forward to look under the gnarled trees. "Apples, Meg! Big ones!"

"They're not ripe," said Meg promptly. "'Sides, they're not ours-- they belong to Mr. Harley. Daddy says everything here belongs to him."

"I guess they are green," admitted Bobby, who had tried in vain to soften one in his fingers. "But apples belong to anybody, Meg."

"They do not!" contradicted Meg. "Why, Bobby Blossom! how can you talk like that? Don't you remember when you and Twaddles were in the fruit store with Daddy last Spring and Twaddles took a strawberry from one of the boxes because he saw another boy do it?

You know Daddy made him put it back before he could eat it. If strawberries don't belong to anybody, I guess apples don't."

Meg's honest blue eyes looked beseechingly at her brother.

"All right," surrendered Bobby. "I wasn't going to eat 'em, anyway."

"I hope not," said Meg severely. "What'll we play?"

"Hunting for treasure," responded Bobby. "That's why I brought the shovel. You want to pound first?"

Meg and Bobby had invented this game. They pretended that hundreds of years ago fierce pirates had buried chests of gold and jewels on this end of the island and that the Harley shack had been the castle home of these wicked sea rovers. The pirates had died without leaving directions to tell where they had buried the treasure, and gradually the castle had crumbled away.

Then, one day, there came two brave sailors (some people called them Meg and Bobby) and they set to work to dig up the great iron chests. They meant to divide the money and jewels with the descendants of those from whom the pirates had stolen it. And their method of locating the buried treasure was to go about with a shovel and tap here and there. Where the earth gave out a hollow sound, there they would dig. These two sailors had not yet found anything, but it was certainly an exciting game.

"Dig here, Bobby!" cried Meg, when she had rapped the earth around the crazy chimney and persuaded herself that it sounded "hollow."

So Bobby dug. And presently his shovel struck something.

"Oh, Bobby, what is it?" shrieked Meg. "Is it an iron chest?"

She really half-believed that Bobby had found the pirate's buried treasure.

The twins were scrambling over the rocks and they heard Meg's cry.

Mother Blossom had kept them as long as she could, but they had insisted on setting out a half hour before noon and they had run most of the way, the lunch basket b.u.mping wildly in time to their steps. Their faces red from the heat and streaming with perspiration, they burst into the ruins of the Harley house just as Bobby brushed the dirt from his find. "I don't know what it is," said Bobby, trying to look closely at the odd-shaped little thing in his hand, with three children insisting on seeing it at the same time. "Look out, Dot, you nearly made me drop it."

None of the children could guess what it was Bobby had found, and finally he slipped it into his pocket to take home and show Father Blossom. Then he discovered that he was hungry, and the twins proudly produced the basket.

"Have to wash first," announced Bobby firmly. "Did you bring a towel?"

Mother Blossom had sent a towel, and Bobby pulled up a br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket of water from the Harley well and poured the old tin wash basin full. The well had been thoroughly cleaned out that Spring by the men whom the Winthrops sent up to put the bungalow in order. They had wisely decided that it was better to have all the water on the island fit to drink rather than to try to keep any one from using an abandoned well.

"You and Dot wash," commanded Bobby, when his face was washed and dried and his hands as neat as could be.

"I did wash my face 'fore breakfast," insisted Twaddles indignantly. He thought that should last him a long time.

Bobby, however, was equally insistent, and Dot and Twaddles had to bathe their hands and faces before he would let them share in the contents of the lunch basket. Mother Blossom was used to satisfying four good appet.i.tes, and the children ate every crumb she had sent them.