CHAPTER XIVDOT READS A STORY
MEG told Bobby about her locket as they walked home and he was very indignant.
“Just let me catch that Tim Roon!” he said wrathfully. “He’s always trying to bother someone. I don’t believe you would ever have got your locket back if it hadn’t been for Mr. Gordon.”
“Oh, Tim wouldn’t keep it—that would be stealing,” said Meg who liked to think the best of everyone. “He only wanted to tease me; I know he would have let me have it after a while. But I was afraid he would lose it or break it.”
New Year’s Day was, of course, on Tuesday just a week after Christmas, and school was to open the next Monday. So Meg and Bobby determined to have all the fun they could before they had to go back to lessons.
“Mother, they say the skating on Blake’s pond is wonderful,” said Meg at breakfast the morning after the party. “Better than ever. The ice is eight feet thick!”
“Now Meg,” protested Father Blossom, his eyes twinkling at her over the top of his paper, “are you sure it isn’t eight inches you mean?”
“Well, maybe it is eight inches,” admitted Meg. “But that is thick, isn’t it, Daddy? And Bobby and I want to go this morning, because they say the high school crowd is going to skate all the afternoon and we couldn’t have much fun then.”
Mother Blossom moved the sugar bowl away from Twaddles who seemed to want to pour sugar on his oatmeal, and said she had a question to ask Meg.
“I’ve often wondered, Daughter,” said Mother Blossom, “who ‘they’ are; you’re always quoting what ‘they’ say, Meg, and yet you seldom use any names.”
“They are—they are—well, I guess I mean everybody,” explained Meg. “Everybody says the skating is wonderful, Mother. You don’tcare if Bobby and I go this morning do you?”
“Let Twaddles and me go?” said Dot eagerly. “Mother, can’t we go skating, too?”
Father Blossom looked across the table at Mother, and laughed.
“Now the argument begins,” he remarked whimsically. “A little more coffee, please, Norah, to fortify me.”
“Oh, Mother, don’t let the twins go!” said Bobby hastily. “We can’t have a bit of fun with them around. They get in the way, and Twaddles won’t stay off the pond, and they always want to come home before we do.”
“I think you’re a mean boy!” stormed poor Twaddles. “You and Meg are selfish. You have all the fun—you went to a party yesterday and Dot and I didn’t go.”
“No, but you had a party home with Mother,” Meg told him. “Norah said you had cocoanut layer cake and cocoa in the yellow pot.”
“Yes, we had a lovely party,” said Mother Blossom cheerfully. “And twinnies, if you don’t go skating this morning, I’ll think of something pleasant for you to do in the house.”
“It’s a very cold day,” said Father Blossom, folding up his paper and taking his fur-lined gloves (which Santa Claus had brought him) from the window sill. “Quite too cold for anyone to go out who doesn’t have to. I don’t think Meg and Bobby will stay at the pond very long; and small folks like Dot and Twaddles mustn’t think of taking such a long walk.”
“Oh, Daddy!” cried Dot, disappointment in her voice.
“Oh, Dot!” said Father Blossom, kissing her. “Be a good girl, honey, and tonight when I come home, we’ll pop corn at the fireplace.”
Sam brought the car around in a moment and took Father Blossom off to the busy foundry. Dot, with her nose pressed against the window pane, was trying not to cry when her attention was attracted by a farm wagon going slowly past.
“What a lot of noise that wagon makes!” she said aloud. “Why doesn’t the man oil it the way Jud used to oil Aunt Polly’s wagons?”
“That wagon doesn’t need oiling,” Norah answered. She was clearing the breakfast tableand had heard Dot’s remark. “Wagons always creak like that in cold weather. You can tell by that it’s a very cold day.”
Bobby and Meg bundled up warmly and taking their skates from the hall closet, hurried off to the pond. They promised Mother Blossom to come home the moment they felt cold.
“The big boys will have a bonfire on the ice,” said Bobby. “We can warm our hands there, Mother.”
“Don’t go near the fire unless there are older people around,” warned Mother Blossom. “You can’t always tell what a bonfire is going to do, Bobby.”
As soon as Meg and Bobby were out of sight, the twins teased Mother Blossom to tell them what they could do.
“You haven’t played school in a long time,” suggested Mother Blossom. “Or don’t you want to play school during the holidays?”
“We’re tired of playing school,” objected Twaddles.
“You mean you’re tired of the old way you play it,” said Mother Blossom. “I don’t believeyou have ever played you were a college professor, have you, Twaddles? Take the old glasses and pretend you’re a professor like the ones who taught Daddy in college.”
“But what’ll I do with Dot?” asked Twaddles anxiously.
“Why, Twaddles Blossom!” Mother Blossom pretended to scold. “Dot will go to college of course. Isn’t she going when she is a big girl? You may be the professor and Dot one of your students.”
“But, Mother, I don’t know how to play college,” said Twaddles. “Dot doesn’t, either. You tell us how.”
Mother Blossom thought a moment. She was used to planning plays for the twins and even Meg and Bobby sometimes came and asked her to tell them “something to play.”
“Why don’t you hold entrance examinations, Twaddles?” said Mother Blossom, after she had thought while the twins watched her anxiously. “Play that Dot wants to come to college and you must try her out and see if she knows enough to come into your class. You mightread aloud for him, Dot, and pretend that he is a professor of English.”
So Twaddles and Dot ran up to the playroom and got out all the toys without which they thought they couldn’t play school. Twaddles put on the big spectacles that had no glasses in them—which were among his choicest possessions—and Dot sat down to read to him.
Neither child could read, though they knew their alphabet fairly well. But Dot had an excellent memory and knew many stories that had been read aloud to her, and now she opened a book and pretended to be reading from it to Twaddles.
“Begin,” said the professor kindly.
“Once upon a time,” read Dot, “there was the nicest girl you ever saw. Her name was Cinderella. Her sisters were so mean to her she said ‘I won’t stay with you any more’ and she ran away. They wouldn’t let her go skating with them,” added Dot, glancing up from her book at Professor Twaddles, who nodded to show he understood.
“Cinderella went on a ship across the ocean,”continued Dot, “and the ship was wrecked in the middle of the ocean and the wind blew her ashore. While she was blowing through the air she saw another person in the water and he was Robinson Crusoe. ‘Catch hold of my sash,’ said Cinderella, ‘and I will pull you ashore.’ And he did, and they both landed on a desert island,” and now Dot stopped to get her breath and see what effect the story was having on the professor. He was staring at her through his glasses in amazement.
“Aren’t you mixing Cinderella up with another story?” he asked doubtfully.
“That’s all right,” Dot answered airily. “I like different stories. Besides,” she added, “I’m reading to you from the book.”
“Oh!” said the professor. “Excuse me; go on.”
“As soon as Cinderella and Robinson Crusoe found they were on an island,” went on Dot, “they thought they would look around and see if anyone lived there they knew. They went to all the houses and rang the doorbells——”
Dot’s Wonderful Story.Dot’s Wonderful Story.Page170
Dot’s Wonderful Story.Page170
Dot’s Wonderful Story.Page170
“How could they if it was a desert island?” interrupted Twaddles. “Nobody lives on a desert island.”
“Well, they did on this one,” retorted Dot. “Cinderella was afraid to ring the doorbells, but Robinson Crusoe went right up and punched ’em hard. And when the folks came to the door, if he didn’t know them, he said he hoped they would excuse him.”
“I don’t believe they have doorbells, either,” murmured Professor Twaddles, but Dot paid no attention to him. She was determined to finish her story.
“Pretty soon they came to a house,” she continued, “where little Red Riding Hood lived. She was very glad to see them and when they asked her to take a walk, she said she would. And they walked and they walked, and by and by they came to a deep, dark forest.”
Dot paused and shook her finger at the professor.
“The Three Bears lived in that wood,” she said slowly. “And they came out to eat them up! The Big Bear said he would eat Cinderella and the Middle Bear was going to eatRobinson Crusoe and the Little Bear said he would eat little Red Riding Hood.”
“Did they?” asked Twaddles with interest.
“No, they didn’t,” replied Dot. “There was a Fairy Tree at the edge of the wood and Jack the Giant Killer lived inside it. He heard the Three Bears talking and he jumped right out of that tree and killed them with his hatchet. And, after that, a ship came and got Cinderella and the others, too, and took them home. And they all lived happily ever after.”