“Norah wanted a cat!” repeated Meg unbelievingly. “But why? I thought she hated cats, Sam.”

“Mice,” said Sam. “Traps no good. But Annabel Lee is clearing ’em out, all right. She’s a fine mouser. And the prettiest manners! You put the dish down and watch her and Fill-Up eat together.”

Meg found it rather trying that Sam would insist on calling the dog she had named Philip by such an impolite title, but Sam always had his way about such things. Meg put down the dish with Philip’s breakfast in it, and he and the cat ate together as though they had been friends all their lives.

“Meg, Meg!” called Dot, running toward them. “Miss Florence is here, and Mother says you must come in right away and try on. Oh, whose cat?”

“That’s Annabel Lee,” said Meg. “She’s our 18 cat. Sam got her ’cause mice were in the kitchen. I’m going to take her in and show her to Miss Florence.”

“Let me hold her,” begged Dot. “You have to try on. Look, Twaddles, bet you didn’t know we had a cat.”

Twaddles stopped short on his kiddie-car.

“Don’t tell Norah,” he whispered cautiously. “Take her in the front door and she won’t know. Did Mother say we could have a cat?”

Bobby laughed.

“Norah asked for a cat,” he said. “Come on, Twaddles, let’s teach Philip to jump through a hoop. The girls are going to fuss with clothes.”

Meg tossed her yellow hair out of her eyes importantly.

“I have to have the hems of some dresses let down,” she declared. “I grew in the country. Mother says so. ’Sides when you go to school you have to be neat.”

“Nina Mills isn’t neat,” argued Dot, toiling upstairs after Meg, and holding Annabel Lee’s long tail so that she might feel she was having 19 a share in carrying her. “She goes to school, Meg.”

“Well, she’s a sight,” pronounced Meg. “Mother wouldn’t let me look the way Nina Mills does. Look, Miss Florence, we got a cat.”

“If you say ‘got a cat’ in school, Meg, I’m sure something will happen to you,” warned Mother Blossom, bending over the sewing machine. “Miss Florence wants to try the green dress on you, dear.”

Miss Florence Davis was the little dressmaker who went about making clothes for many of the people who lived in Oak Hill. Every one liked her, and she was always as happy as busy folk usually are.

“What a beautiful cat,” she said, stroking Annabel Lee’s fur. “Now I’m sure you’re contented, Meg, with a cat and a dog. Aren’t you?”

“And she’s going to school, too,” announced Dot enviously, sitting down on the floor to watch Meg as she put on the new green dress. “Here, Annabel, come sit in my lap.”

The cat curled up in Dot’s lap and purred loudly. 20

“Do you want to go to school?” asked Miss Florence sympathetically, taking a mouthful of pins and kneeling down to pin up the hem of Meg’s frock.

“Twaddles and I both want to go,” answered Dot. “But that mean old school won’t let you come till you’re five––not even to kindergarten. Did you swallow any?”

“Any what?” asked Miss Florence absently, still pinning the hem.

“Pins,” said Dot interestedly. “I counted three I thought you did. Will they hurt?”

Meg looked down at Miss Florence anxiously.

“Bless your heart, I didn’t swallow any pins!” declared the little dressmaker, smiling. “It’s a bad trick, though, and I always mean to break myself of it. There, Dot, I’ve taken every one out of my mouth. And now walk over by the door, Meg, and let your mother see if that is the right length.”

“Turn ’round slowly,” ordered Dot, as Meg reached the door. Dot had watched a great many dresses being fitted and she knew exactly what one should do. 21

Meg laughed, and began to revolve slowly.

“I think that is a very good length,” said Mother Blossom. “We shan’t need her again till after lunch, shall we, Miss Florence? I want her to go uptown and get some elastic for her hat.”

“And the school things, Mother?” urged Meg. “Can Bobby and I buy our school things this morning?”

“Do you know what you want?” asked Mother Blossom. “I saw Miss Mason yesterday, and she said you don’t need very many things, Meg.”

“Oh, Mother, Twaddles and I need some crayons,” said Dot, tumbling Annabel Lee out of her lap, much to that sleepy animal’s surprise and disapproval. “And a pencil box with a lock, Mother.”

“You’re not going to school,” retorted Meg. “Is she, Mother?”

Mother Blossom put down her sewing.

“I don’t see why my twinnies are so eager to go to school,” she said sadly. “What in the wide world should I do if all my children went off to school and left me alone? Perhaps, Dot, you 22 and Twaddles and I can have our own kindergarten after Meg and Bobby get nicely started.”

“With a blackboard?” demanded Dot. “And inkwells and a cloak room, Mother?”

Mother Blossom and Miss Florence laughed.

“I begin to think the other children are the attraction, not school,” said Mother Blossom. “However, Meg must run along if she is to be back by lunch time. I’ll give you and Bobby each fifty cents, dear. And suppose Dot and Twaddles have a quarter each to spend? Going to school without a shiny new pencil box isn’t to be thought of, I’m sure.”

Meg and Dot ran downstairs and found Twaddles and Bobby had tired of teaching Philip to jump through a hoop, and were busily cracking stones in the driveway.

“Some of ’em might be valuable,” said Bobby, when Meg asked him why he was doing that. “I heard a boy talking about it once. Might have gold or iron ore in.”

“Well, we’re going uptown to buy elastic and school things,” said Meg. “Mother gave me the 23 money in this purse. Fifty cents is for you, and the twins can spend a quarter.”

The four little Blossoms set off on their errand, and Philip tagged along after them. He wasn’t interested in school supplies, but he dearly loved a walk.

“I’ll get the ’lastic first,” decided Meg, when they reached the street where most of the Oak Hill stores were. “Don’t buy anything till I get that.”

The others waited while the elastic was measured and wrapped, and after Meg had paid for it they went over to the fascinating counter where all the things one needs in school were displayed.

“Hello!” said a girl who was looking at a blank book when the four little Blossoms came up. “You been away?”

This was Nina Mills. She was an untidy looking child and her hands were not very clean. But she smiled pleasantly enough.

“We’ve been in the country,” Meg informed her, as Bobby and Twaddles and Dot apparently 24 couldn’t find anything to say. “We went to see our Aunt Polly.”

“Oh,” said Nina Mills. “That’s nice. I wish I could go off on visits. You coming to school Monday?”

“Bobby and I are,” Meg answered. “The twins are too little.”

The twins frankly scowled. How they did hate being “too young” to do so many things they wished to do.

“Yes, they’re too little,” agreed Nina Mills. “You’ll be in Miss Mason’s room. So’m I. I’m in Bobby’s class. Well, I guess I have to go now. Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said the four little Blossoms awkwardly.

“Now hurry up and let’s get our things ’fore any one else comes,” proposed Bobby, who did not like to talk to people he did not know very well. “I’m going to buy this ruler that folds up, Meg.”

Meg was busy trying a key in a pencil box.

“It’s fifty cents and I can’t get anything else, but look at all the things in it,” she said. “Pencils 25 and rubbers and pens. I guess I’ll take this one.”

The twins were examining a box of crayons and Dot was sure that she could learn to write only with the box that held the most colors.

“An’ I want two blotting papers, pink and blue,” she told the good-natured saleswoman. “An’ a pencil with a blue stone in it.”

“I’ll take these chalk ones,” decided Twaddles, choosing a box of soft, chalky crayons. “I’d like a bottle of glue, too, and a red book.”

The red book was a little cash account book such as Twaddles had seen Father Blossom use.

With their parcels neatly tied up, the four little Blossoms started back home, Philip trotting on ahead.

“Let’s walk around by the school,” suggested Meg. “It’s only the next block and we’ve plenty of time.”

“All right, let’s,” assented Bobby. “I’ll show you Miss Mason’s room.”