"MabelCHawley-FourLittleBlossomsOnAppleTreeIsland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawley Mabel C)

"I have to go out in front and watch for Daddy," he announced importantly. "I
want to see what color the new car's painted. Sam said to be sure and write
him."
Norah, working over the faintly peeping young robin, blushed very red.
"You take the brush pan and broom," she directed Twaddles, "and brush up that
mud. Wasn't it only this morning your mother was telling you not to be making
extra work?"
Twaddles obediently seized the dustpan and the long-handled broom. His
intentions were doubtless of the best, but he was a stranger to the ways of
broom handles. This one, in his hands, caught the lid of a kettle Norah had on
the stove and sent it spinning across the room to land with a noisy clatter in
the sink. Twaddles privately considered this a distinct feat, but Norah was
unappreciative.
"Glory be!" cried the long-suffering Norah. "Be off with ye, and I'll clean up
the mud. The more helpful ye try to be, Twaddles, the more work ye make."
Twaddles departed with as much dignity as he could muster, and running through
the front hall found his mother and his brother Bobby looking at the window
boxes on the front porch. The boxes had been put away for the winter and that
morning Father Blossom had brought them down to see about painting them.
"Can I plant things?" demanded Twaddles.
Meg, who was digging contentedly in the flower bed at the foot of the steps,
looked at him sympathetically. Meg's fair little face was flushed and there was
a streak of dirt across her small straight nose and she was unmistakably very
busy and very happy.
"Isn't it fun?" she greeted her little brother. "Mother says we may each have a
garden this year; didn't you, Mother?"
"I surely did," agreed Mother Blossom, smiling. "What is Dot bringing?"
Around the corner of the house came Dot, Twaddles' twin sister. Her hair-ribbon
drooped perilously on the end of a straggling lock of dark hair and her pretty
dark blue frock hung in a gap below the belt where it had pulled loose at the
gathers. Dot always had trouble about keeping her frocks neat.
"I got a hose!" she declared triumphantly. "Daddy won't have to buy one. The
Mertons threw this out on the trash basket and I brought it home. I guess Daddy
can mend it."
Bobby shouted with laughter.
"That's the old piece they used to beat rugs with," he said positively, "Nobody
could mend that."
"Come see the robin I found," suggested Twaddles. "It's getting dry on the shelf
warmer. Perhaps we can keep him to play with."
"That you can't," said Mother Blossom quickly. "It wouldn't be right in the
first place, and in the second place it is against the law. You must put him out
in the grass again, Twaddles, as soon as he is warm and dry."
"Daddy!" Meg's quick eyes had seen a car making the corner turn. "Here comes
Daddy! What color is the car, Bobby?"
"BlackЧno, blue, dark blue!" cried Bobby.
As the comfortable touring car drew up at the curb and the smiling driver waved
a gloved hand at the eager group on the porch, Dot jumped up and down with
excitement.
"Take me, Daddy?" she shrieked. "Aren't you going?"
Pell-mell the children raced down the garden path and Mrs. Blossom followed more