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

Brookside Farm," you know that Father Blossom owned a large foundry on the edge
of the pretty town of Oak Hill and that he and his family lived in a comfortable
old-fashioned house with Norah, who had been with them for years, and Sam
Layton, the good- natured man of all work, to help make things run smoothly. You
will remember that Brookside Farm was the name of Aunt Polly's home, Aunt Polly
being the older sister of Mother Blossom. The Four Little Blossoms spent a
delightful summer at Brookside and came home just in time for Meg and Bobby to
enter Oak Hill school.
What they did that first winter in school and how the twins tried their best to
do exactly as Meg and Bobby did, and usually succeeded, is told in the book
called "Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School." They found school most
exciting and it did seem as though there was something to be done every minute
of the short winter days, but, dear me, when the heavy snowfalls began you
should have seen the children! They coasted, and they skated, and Meg lost her
beautiful turquoise locket. But she found it, so you need not be sorry. The
whole story of that locket is told in the third book of the series, called "Four
Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun." Meg and Bobby were lost in a snowstorm,
too, and for a time things looked very serious for them, but that adventure also
had a happy ending.
And now we find the four little Blossoms, early in April, just as glad to see
the beautiful, shining green Spring as they had been to see the first Winter
snow. Sam Layton had gone away to Canada to work on a farm soon after the
weather grew pleasant, and the four little Blossoms missed him very much. They
suspected that Norah missed him, too, though she said nothing. The children had
all promised to write to Sam, and Norah wrote every week.
This was the reason Father Blossom was driving the new car. As he said, Sam was
such an excellent driver there had really been no need for him to drive; but
with Sam away, if Father Blossom wanted to reach his foundry on time every
morning there was nothing for him to do but to learn to drive the car himself.
"I'll go and see if I can persuade some farmer to come and pull us out," he said
to Mother Blossom, when he had tried without results to back the car from the
mass of bushes and saplings into which it had driven. "You stay right here with
Mother, children, and I'll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes."
Twaddles wanted to go with his father, but when it was explained to him that his
mother and the girls needed his protection and that of Bobby, he was quite
willing to wait quietly in the bushes. That is, as quietly as Twaddles ever
waited anywhere.
"Perhaps we can find flowers," Meg suggested, as Father Blossom disappeared,
whistling. "Brush some of these leaves away, Dot, and let's see what grows
underneath."
"Oh, dear!" came with a big sigh from Dot, and they turned to see her caught by
a bush whose sharp spikes went right through her firm serge frock and bloomers
and held her fast.
"I'll get you," offered Twaddles gallantly, and he tried to scramble over the
intervening bushes, fortunately all low.
But though low, they were tightly woven, for no underbrush had been cut from
this section of the woods for years. In a moment Twaddles was pinned as tightly
as Dot, a narrow, string-like coil of vine wrapping securely round his ankles
and a sharp stake thrusting itself slantwise through the sleeve of his sweater.
"Don't wriggle," implored Mother Blossom, as she and Meg and Bobby came