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

they entered the barn.
"Forgotten how to milk, Meg?" asked Peter Apgar, coming into the dairy barn from
feeding the horses. "Want to try it this morning?"
"I don't think I've forgotten how," said Meg cautiously, "but I'd rather Jud
milked, 'cause he can do it so much faster than I can; and then he can go round
with us and see the things."
That little speech pleased Jud mightily and pleased Peter Apgar, too, because,
you will remember, Peter was Jud's father.
"You go sight-seeing this minute, Jud," he ordered his tall son. "Guess I can do
the milking on a special morning like this."
So the four little Blossoms and Jud went to pay their respects to all the dear
farm animals the children had known that first summer they spent on Brookside
Farm. Carlotta, the calf given to Meg and Bobby, had grown to be a beautiful
sleek cow and Meg privately decided she was prettier than any Aunt Polly owned.
Jerry and Terry, the two farm horses, acted as though they remembered the small
visitors; and as for Mrs. Sally Sweet, Aunt Polly's pet Jersey cow, she came
right up to the bars and fairly begged to have her nose stroked.
"Mother will want to see you," said Jud, when they had made the rounds of the
barns and poultry yards.
Jud was "as nice as ever," Meg said, and the winter he had spent at an
agricultural college had given him more confidence in his own ability. He was as
determined as ever, the children found, to be a farmer and a good one.
At Mrs. Peter's neat front door they found Mr. Tom Sparks, a man who sold and
bought cattle and who had given Carlotta to Meg and Bobby. He was surprised and
delighted to see the four children again and said it was just his usual good
luck that had made him drive in that morning; he was going off the next morning
on a two weeks' trip to buy cows.
"I'd almost like to live here," confided Dot to Twaddles as they went in to
breakfast.
CHAPTER IX. ON THE WAY AGAIN
Early the next morning Father Blossom brought the car around and, amid much
hugging and kissing and a few tears, the good-bys were said. The Blossoms
promised that if Aunt Polly and Linda and Jud did not get to see them while they
were on Apple Tree Island, they would surely stop at Brookside Farm on their way
home.
"I wonder how Mr. Harley feels now?" said Meg suddenly, when, the farm far
behind, they were riding swiftly toward Sunset Lake. "I haven't thought about
him all the time we were playing; have you, Dot?"
"No, I haven't," admitted Dot. "But I'm sorry for him, just the same. Do you
suppose he has found Mrs. Harley?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Father Blossom.
"We will see him to-day, though, and give him what little news Aunt Polly could
tell us of his wife. I am going to Greenpier, the little town where Chris Smith
has his boats. I rather think Mr. Harley will bunk right there with him. Chris
is a bachelor and will probably be glad to have some one live with him."
Sunset Lake was twenty miles from Aunt Polly's farm, and the Blossoms arrived
there before noon. There was no trouble in finding Chris Smith's boathouse, for
Greenpier was a very small, shabby town and the large sign "Boats for Hire" was
easily the most conspicuous thing in the place.
"Howdy!" Mr. Harley greeted them, shuffling over the road from the wharf as