Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun | Page 2

wait, Bobby Blossom!"
She darted for him, but Bobby was too quick. He dashed out into the hall, Meg following, and Dot and Twaddles trailing after them. Shrieking and shouting, the four raced into the dining-room, tore twice around the table, then into the long living-room, where Meg managed to corner Bobby under the old-fashioned square piano.
They had forgotten to be angry by this time, and after she had tickled him till he begged for mercy--Bobby was extremely ticklish--they crawled out again, disheveled and panting, and were ready for something new.
"I'm going to get some snow," declared Dot, beginning to raise one of the windows.
"Don't! You'll freeze Mother's plants," warned Meg. "Dot Blossom, don't you dare open that window!"
For answer Dot gave a final push and the sash shot up and locked half way.
"Oh, it's love-ly!" cried Dot, leaning out and scooping up a handful of the beautiful, soft, white stuff. "Just like feathers, Meg."
"You'll be a feather if you don't come in," growled Bobby sternly. "Look out!"
Dot, leaning out further to sweep the sill clean, had slipped and was going headlong when Bobby grasped her skirts. He pulled her back, unhurt, except for a scratch on her nose from a bit of the vine clinging to the house wall and a ruffled disposition.
"You leave me alone!" she blazed. "You've hurt my knee."
"Want to fall on your head?" demanded Bobby, justly indignant. "All right, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll give you something to be mad about."
Before the surprised Dot could protest, he had seized her firmly around the neck and, holding her tightly (Bobby was very sturdy for his seven years), he proceeded to wash her face with a handful of snow he hastily scooped from the window sill. Dot was furious, but, though she struggled and squirmed, she could not get free.
"Now you'll be good," said Bobby, giving her a sounding kiss as he let her go, for he was very fond of his headstrong little sister. "Want your face washed, Twaddles?"
There was a sudden rush for the window and Meg and Twaddles and Dot armed themselves with handfuls of snow. Dot made for Twaddles, for she saw more chance of being able to capture him, and Bobby had designs on Meg.
"Glory be! Where to now?" Norah's cry came from the pantry as four pairs of stout shoes thundered through her kitchen and up the back stairs. Norah, if the children had stopped long enough to hear, would have told them that she had hurried home to start supper after seeing the "episode" of the serial picture she was interested in at the motion picture house.
Dot sounded like a husky young Indian as she hurled herself upon Twaddles in the center of Aunt Polly's carefully made bed in the guest-room and rubbed what was left of her handful of snow into his eyes and mouth.
"My, it's wet," he sputtered. "Let go, Dot! Ow! you're standing on my finger."
Meg had dashed into her mother's room, and, banging the door in Bobby's face, turned the key. She was safe!
Bobby had no intention of being defeated. When he heard the key turn in the door he looked about for a way to outwit Meg. He might be able to climb through the transom if he could get a ladder or a chair.
His own room was next to his mother's, and, turning in there to get a chair, he saw the window. It opened on the roof of the porch, as did the windows in his mother's room. What could be simpler than to walk along the roof of the porch, raise a window and get in? He could gather up more snow, too, as he went along, and just wouldn't he wash Meg's face for her!
"What you going to do?" asked Twaddles, as Bobby hoisted his window.
Dot and Twaddles, tiring of their own fracas, had come in search of Meg and Bobby.
"You wait and you'll see," answered Bobby mysteriously, putting one leg over the sill.
Dot and Twaddles crowded into the open window to watch him as he picked his way along. There was a linen closet between the two rooms, so Bobby had some space to cover before he came to the windows of the room where Meg was hiding.
"My goodness!" whispered that small girl to herself, parting the white curtains to look out as she heard footsteps on the porch roof. "He might fall; it's ever so slippery!"
It was slippery; in fact, the roof was much harder to walk on than Bobby had suspected. For one thing, the roof sloped, and he had to cling to the side of the house as he walked; then, too, the fine driving snow almost blinded him; and a third reason that made it hard going was the way the snow caked