“Good-by, Daddy! Good-by, Daddy dear! Good-by, dear, darling Daddy!”

The four little Blossoms all tried to hug their father at once. They were at the station, where Sam and the car had brought them, and the train that was to take them on the first lap of the journey to Aunt Polly’s farm was turning the curve down the track.

“Be good,” said Father Blossom, speaking as clearly as he could with Dot hanging around his neck and Twaddles pounding his chest affectionately. “Help Mother all you can, and be sure to write me nice letters.”

The long, shiny train glided into the station, and there was a scramble among the people waiting on the platform. Apparently every one wanted to be the first to get on. It took Mother and Father Blossom and Sam and the jolly conductor to see that all four of the little Blossoms 46 and the two bags were stowed away comfortably in two seats.

Then Father Blossom and Sam got off and stood on the platform talking through the open window until the train began to move slowly.

“Good-by!” shouted the children. “Good-by, Daddy! Good-by, Sam!”

Meg leaned over Twaddles, who was seated next to the window.

“Don’t forget to feed Philip,” she cried.

Sam waved his hand to show that he heard and understood, and the train went faster and faster. In a few minutes Oak Hill station was far behind them.

“Now we’re started,” announced Bobby, with satisfaction.

“Did my kiddie-car get on?” asked Twaddles anxiously. “S’posing they forgot it?”

“Is that why you were hanging round the baggage-room?” demanded Bobby. “Course the kiddie-car is on. I saw Mr. Hayes putting it on. You ask the conductor.”

But the conductor, who came through presently for tickets, didn’t know.

“I tell you what you do,” he said, his eyes twinkling at Twaddles. “You ask the brakesman to take you into the baggage car and let you look around. Then you can see for yourself.”

“But that is making a great deal of trouble,” protested Mother Blossom. “You can easily wait till we get to Brookside, dear.”

“Let him go, let him go,” advised the conductor cheerily. “It will kind of break up the monotony of the trip, ma’am. These little folks are going to get pretty tired before they get to Alawana.”

So Twaddles marched off importantly with the conductor to find the young, good-natured brakesman, and the three little Blossoms rather wished they could go, too.

“What happens when we get to Alawana, Mother?” asked Bobby. “Do we change cars?”

“No, dear, we take the boat,” explained Mother Blossom. “If the train is on time we have an hour to wait, which will allow us to have lunch; then we take a steamer that takes us up Lake Tobago to Little Havre. There we take a stage, or a wagon, or whatever they have to 48 meet the boat, and ride to Four Crossways; and there Aunt Polly meets us and drives us over to Brookside.”

“Here comes Twaddles,” announced Dot. “Did you find the kiddie car?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s there,” reported Twaddles, squeezing in past Meg, and climbing into his place beside his twin. “There’s lots of trunks and things there, too.”

During the long stretches when the train hummed steadily along and there was nothing to be seen from the car windows but miles and miles of green fields and woods with here and there a house, the children played a game Mother Blossom had known when she was a little girl.

“My ship is loaded with apples,” Bobby would say.

“My ship is loaded with apricots,” Meg would declare.

Dot usually had to think a minute.

“My ship is loaded with––with ashes,” she might announce finally.

“My ship is loaded with at;” this from Twaddles.

“Oh, Twaddles!” Bobby would scold. “You can’t load a ship with ‘at.’ That isn’t anything.”

“’Tis, too,” maintained Twaddles stubbornly. “It begins with ‘a,’ doesn’t it? And it’s a word. So there.”

If Twaddles had his way and was excused from thinking up another word, it would be Mother Blossom’s turn.

“My ship is loaded with asters,” she might say, smiling.

When no one could think of another word that began with A, they would go on to B. This game amused the children for many minutes at a time. They had just started on words beginning with C when the train reached Alawana.

“I’m hungry,” declared Meg, when they all stood together on the platform and the train that had brought them from Oak Hill was nothing but a black speck in the distance. “We had breakfast an awful long time ago.”

“I guess it was yesterday,” said Dot mournfully.

Mother Blossom laughed.

“Poor chickens, you are hungry,” she said. “Never mind, I see a nice little restaurant across the street. Let me find out when the boat goes, and then we’ll have a good, hot lunch.”

The Lake Tobago boat, Mother Blossom found out, left in half an hour. Their train had been late. However, the dock was not far off, and Mother Blossom was sure they would have time for sandwiches and milk at least.

All the children were tremendously excited at the thought of going on a steamer, as not one of them had ever been on a boat. There was no lake or river near Oak Hill, and the largest body of water the four little Blossoms had seen was the town reservoir.

“If they have sails, I’m going to roll ’em up and down,” Dot announced, so thrilled at the prospect that she upset her glass of milk down the front of her frock.

“You’ll have to wear it,” said Mother Blossom, mopping her as dry as she could with a 51 napkin. “Perhaps I can put a dry dress on you on the boat. Now try to eat quietly, dear; we haven’t much time.”

The shower-bath of milk rather subdued Dot for the moment, and lunch was finished without further mishap. Then a brief walk through the pretty little country town brought them to the lake.

“O-oh! Isn’t it lovely!” breathed Meg. “Just see how it sparkles in the sun. Don’t you like it, Dot?”

“It’s all right,” agreed Dot carelessly.

Her quick eyes had spied an old organ grinder and his monkey on the other side of the dock. She slipped under the rope, where the people who wanted to take the boat were standing, and ran over to the music.

“We needn’t have hurried,” said Mother Blossom, coming back to her little folk. She had been to the office to have the baggage checks looked after. “The boat is held up for another half hour because of some engine trouble. Where’s Dot?”

Well, where was Dot? Meg had thought her 52 little sister was standing next to her. The boys were sure she had been just behind them. Where was Dot?

She stood in the crowd gathered about the organ grinder, a little girl with shining dark eyes and a milk-splashed frock, watching the clever bowing and scraping of the small monkey with evident delight. Then a sudden movement of the people about her startled her. She remembered that she was supposed to go somewhere with the rest of her family. She saw people hurrying toward a large automobile with nine or ten long seats in it, and she hurried toward it, too. A man helped her up the high step, and she found a seat just behind the driver.

The automobile was lumbering up a narrow white road with woods on either side of it before Dot realized where she was.

“Why, this isn’t the boat!” she said aloud.

The lady seated next to her glanced at her curiously.

“The boat?” she repeated. “This jitney goes to Fermarsh. You’re not traveling all alone, are you, little girl? You don’t look more’n five.”

“I was four in June,” announced Dot with dignity. “Twaddles was, too. We’re twins. But I have to go to Little Havre on the boat.”

“You’re going in the opposite direction,” said the woman placidly. She did not seem to care. “What’s that on your dress?”

Dot’s tears brimmed over.

“Milk,” she sobbed. “I tipped it over. An’ I have to go on the boat with my mother.”

The jitney driver heard and turned.

“What’s this?” he asked. “You belong on the boat, little girl? Well, now, don’t cry; we’ll fix it. I heard they had engine trouble to-day, and like as not they’ll be late starting. Long up the road a spell we’ll meet the two o’clock jitney coming back, and I’ll see that Dave Gunn takes you in with him. An’ if you do miss the boat my wife’ll take care of you over night and we’ll ship you up to Little Havre on to-morrow’s boat.”

Dot felt that the jitney driver was very kind, but she hoped with all her heart that she would not have to stay all night in a strange house. She wanted her mother, and Twaddles and Meg and 54 Bobby. She hadn’t known till this minute how dearly she loved them.

Sure enough, their jitney had not gone very far when they saw another jitney coming toward them.

“Hi, Dave!” called the driver of Dot’s jitney. “Got a passenger for you. A little lady who tangled up her traveling directions and missed getting on the boat. You take her with you, and see that she lands on the steamer.”

Mr. Gunn stopped his machine and came over to the other jitney.

“Come on, Sister,” he said pleasantly, lifting Dot down gently.

“Why, you are little to be traveling on your own. I’ve got three home ’bout your size.”

Mother Blossom, as you may suppose, had been nearly frantic all this time. She had taken the other children on board the boat and had left them on deck with the bags, after they had promised not to stir from the spot where she left them, and she had been going up and down the dock making inquiries, and even walking up 55 into the town, believing that perhaps some of the store windows had attracted Dot.

No one remembered seeing a little girl in a green dress and a brown straw hat.

Just as Mother Blossom was wearily wondering if she should telegraph Father Blossom that Dot was lost, a motor jitney lumbered down to the dock. Some one in a green dress and a brown straw hat was sitting on the front seat beside the driver.

“Mother! Mother!” shouted Dot.

There was just time for her to tumble out of the car into her mother’s arms, just time for Mother Blossom to give the driver a dollar bill and say a word of thanks, and then the steamboat whistle blew loudly once.

“That means she’s starting,” said the jitney man. “Run!”

And hand in hand, Mother Blossom and Dot raced down the wharf and over the gangplank on to the deck of the boat, just as it began to slide away.