Chapter 2 BOBBY HAS A PLAN

Twaddles was the first to speak. The plunge had been so unexpected and there had been so little warning, none at all, in fact, that if any one had been inclined to scream there was no opportunity. They were all breathless and rather shaken up. But Twaddles, who had thrown his arms around Bobby's neck, managed to grin.

"Well, what do you know about that!" he ejaculated in his funny, serious little voice.

That made them all laugh, and then Father Blossom began to ask anxiously if any one was hurt.

"No one, thank goodness," Mother Blossom assured him, opening the tonneau door so that Meg and Dot might step out. "You haven't cut your hand, Ralph?"

"Just a scratch," answered Father Blossom carelessly. "I bore down pretty hard on the wheel rim. Well, I'm thankful we didn't turn over. What do you suppose was the reason for this running jump?"

The four little Blossoms were out on the ground now, picking their way carefully, for they were surrounded by clumps of prickly bushes. Mother Blossom joined Father Blossom, who was anxiously inspecting the car.

"It's wedged in so tightly I'll never be able to back it out," he said. "Only see, Margaret, how neatly it has slipped in between these three saplings. If I had tried that stunt I couldn't have made it once in fifty chances."

Meg and Dot and Twaddles and Bobby crowded closer to look. Perhaps this is a good time to tell you who the four little Blossoms were, if you have never met them before.

You have guessed, of course, that they had other and longer names. Meg was named for her mother, Margaret; Bobby was Robert Hayward Blossom on the school roll; the twins (they were four years old) were Dorothy Anna and Arthur Gifford Blossom, but no one ever thought of calling the roly-poly dark-eyed pair anything but Dot and Twaddles.

If you have read the first book of this series, "Four Little Blossoms at 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 cautiously to the rescue. "I do want these clothes to last you till it is time to buy Summer ones. Hold still, Dot. There! Now come and sit in the car and I'll tell you a story till Daddy comes back."

Bobby had managed to free Twaddles, and the four little Blossoms climbed into the car and really sat very still-for them-while Mother Blossom began the story of what she did when she was a little girl and went away to boarding school for the first time. The children loved "true" stories, and they listened intently till Dot spied her father coming down the crooked little path and set up a shout.

Father Blossom had found a farmer who lived near, and had arranged with him to bring two strong horses and a heavy rope and see if he could pull the car from the underbrush. The farmer was a tall, silent man who seemed not to hear the excited questions of the four little Blossoms, and never even spoke to Mother Blossom beyond a quick jerk at his cap when he first saw her sitting in the car.

But, although the farmer, whose name was Ellis, was "no talker" (he himself said so), he was a quick worker, and in less than ten minutes he had rigged up the rope to the car, fastened it to the collars of his horses, and in another five minutes the car was out in the road and clear of the bushes and saplings.

"Only scratched a mite," commented the farmer, pocketing the bill Father Blossom gave him to pay for his time and trouble. "Lucky not to have to have the whole thing scraped and re-varnished."

The Blossoms were home in time for supper, and of course Norah had to hear about the drive. Bobby did not have much to say, for he was busy thinking out a little plan that, he privately decided, could best be tried out at school. Bobby's experience had been that Twaddles and Dot always wanted a finger in his plans and that too many fingers are as bad as too many cooks. And any one will tell you that too many cooks are worse than none.

"Can I take my automobile to school this morning?" Bobby asked at the breakfast table the day after the drive in the new car.

Bobby was very proud of his automobile that worked with pedals like a tricycle but looked exactly like a miniature automobile, even to the red paint and the lamps and the tin license tacked on the back axle.

"If you won't let it interfere with your school work, I suppose you may," conceded Mother Blossom. "Is there a place where you can keep it during school hours?"

"I can keep it down under the first floor stairs," said Bobby eagerly. "And I won't play with it only before school and at recess, Mother, honest."

So he was allowed to take the car, and he went early in order to have time for play before the nine o'clock bell. Meg hung on behind him and the twins watched them out of sight enviously. There was nothing in the world the twins desired so ardently as to go to school. They had been promised that they might start in the kindergarten the next term and they were already looking forward to that time.

"I want to play a new way," Bobby was explaining to Meg as he pedaled furiously. "You'll see-I thought it up all myself last night."

A crowd of boys swept forward to greet Bobby when he entered the school yard. Most of them had seen his car before-it had been a birthday present in February-but to several it was new and all admired it and wished for one exactly like it.

"Can't have any fun with it here," said Tim Roon, rather contemptuously.

Tim was apt to speak of the dark side of everything, and he had very good luck in finding a dark side to draw attention to.

"Yes, I can," insisted Bobby. "You'll see."

He went through the school yard, down to the end where an old-fashioned picket fence shut off the playground from a vacant lot that later would be divided off into the school gardens, a plot for each grade.

"What you going to do?" asked Tim Roon curiously.

The other children looked mystified, including Meg. She, too, wondered what Bobby could be planning to do.

"You'll see." Bobby repeated his favorite phrase.

From his blouse he drew a hammer, borrowed from the tool bench in the Blossom garage, and, awkwardly, for he was not used to the work, inserted it under the end of a picket. There was a ripping, grating noise, and the picket parted from the cross-piece.

"Bobby Blossom!" cried Meg. "What in the world are you going to do?"