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

It was Meg. She had found it impossible to desert Bobby in trouble, and had come
back in time to hear Palmer's grievance.
Mr. Carter tried not to smile.
"Aside from hurting Palmer, Bobby," said the principal seriously, "you've
damaged the school property. What do you suppose Mr. Hornbeck would say if he
saw that fence?" Mr. Hornbeck was one of the school committeemen.
This was something Bobby had not considered.
"I'll mend it," he promised hastily. "Honestly, I never thought about hurting
the fence."
"I know you didn't," Mr. Carter said promptly. "Still, that really doesn't alter
the fact that you've damaged property that doesn't belong to you. I think to
help you remember another time, we'll say you must mend the fence this morning
and make up the time after school. I'll take Palmer in and patch him up now.
Meg, you should be in your classroom."
"I want to help Bobby," asserted Meg firmly. "I'll stay after school with him,
too. It's just as much my faultЧI knew he shouldn't pull off pickets, only I
never told him."
Mr. Carter looked at the little girl oddly.
"All right, only you'll have to make up the time with Miss Mason," he said. "I
think Bobby is a lucky boy to have such a loyal little sister."
Meg and Bobby managed to put the pickets back and Mr. Carter found a piece of
new wood with which to patch the old cross piece. They learned that it is easier
to destroy things than to mend them, and after they had stayed till half past
four that night and Mother Blossom had heard the reason and forbidden them ever
to take the tin automobile to school again, both children decided that a game
with such a sorry ending wasn't worth planning.
The twins had spent the day grubbing in the garden. "Hunting grasshoppers,"
Twaddles said, as Mother Blossom buttoned him into a clean blouse for supper.
"Why, it's months too early for grasshoppers," said Meg scornfully. "They never
come till it's hot in the summertime. How can you be so silly, Twaddles?"
"Huh!" was the best response Twaddles could make to this remark, but when he was
ready to go downstairs he slipped into Meg's room. Her blue serge skirt and a
fresh middy blouse lay over a chair and Twaddles knew she would wear them to
school the next day. With a quick glance toward the door he slipped something
into the pocket of the blouse, which was stitched into the turned up hem.
"Twaddles!" called Dot. "Twaddles! Hurry up. Mother says she wants to tell us
something. Come on down,"
Mother Blossom was smiling as though something pleased her very much.
"Come into the living-room, children," she said, as the four little Blossoms
came running downstairs. "Daddy has telephoned that he won't be home to supper
and we may take a few minutes to hear my news. Do you think you would like to go
to Apple Tree Island?"
"Apple Tree Island?" repeated Twaddles, who never could keep still. "Is it a
place, Mother?"
"A beautiful place, darling," she assured him. "It has green grass and gray
rocks and crooked old apple trees and is set down in the center of the prettiest
lake you ever saw."
"Who lives there, Mother?" asked Meg. "Are we going visiting?"
"Not exactly visiting," explained Mother Blossom. "You know Daddy's friend, Mr.
Winthrop? He owns a bungalow on Apple Tree Island, and this summer he and his