CHAPTER III
AUNT DOROTHY'S LOCKET
"Aunt Polly?" Meg tapped lightly on her aunt's door.
"Yes, dear, come in," called Aunt Polly. "You found your muffler?
That's good. Come over here and see this."
Aunt Polly was seated before her open trunk, a little white box on her knees. Meg came and stood beside her.
"This was your great-great Aunt Dorothy's," said Aunt Polly, opening the little box.
It was lined with blue velvet and on the velvet lay a little gold locket.
"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Meg.
The locket was round and set with tiny blue stones that formed three forget-me-not flowers. In the center of each flower sparkled a tiny diamond.
"The blue stones are turquoises," explained Aunt Polly. "Great Aunt Dorothy wore her locket on a bit of black velvet, but I bought this chain for you. Do you like it, dear?"
"Is it for me?" asked the surprised Meg. "For me, Auntie? Can I wear it to school and show it to the girls? Oh! can I?"
"It is for you," Aunt Polly assured her small niece, kissing her. "But, honey, you must be careful of it. Wear it to school one day, if you want to, and then keep it for special times. You see, you must save it for your little girl."
"My little girl?" echoed Meg, wonderingly. "Why?"
"Because," explained Aunt Polly seriously, "this locket has always been handed down to the oldest daughter. Great-great Aunt Dorothy gave it to her daughter, and she gave it to her oldest daughter and so on. Some might say I should give it to Dot, because she is named for great Aunt Dorothy, but you are the oldest daughter. I had it instead of your mother for that reason. And as I have no daughter, it goes to you."
Meg ran downstairs to show her gift, and the sleds were forgotten while the children crowded around to examine the pretty locket.
"You must be very careful of it, Daughter," said Father Blossom. "You know you've lost two or three trinkets. This is the kind of thing you can't replace if you lose it."
"I'll be careful," promised Meg, clasping the fine gold chain around her neck again and dancing off to the kitchen to show her treasure to Norah.
The next morning it had stopped snowing, but there was, as Sam remarked, "enough and to spare" of snow for coasting. The minute breakfast was over the four little Blossoms, warmly bundled up, were out with their sleds.
Wayne Place hill was a famous coasting hill, and all kinds of children with all kinds of sleds were on hand to enjoy the first real sledding of the winter.
"Trade with you, Bobby," called a freckle-faced boy, dragging an old tin tray.
Bobby grinned.
"Won't trade," he called back. "But you can go down with me."
So the freckle-faced boy, whose name was Palmer Davis, took turns coasting downhill on his tray, which he managed very skilfully, and going down with Bobby on the brand-new sled.
Bobby taught Meg how to steer, and he usually pulled Twaddles up the hill, while Meg gave Dot an extra ride. They coasted the whole morning and went back for the afternoon.
"I'd never get tired," declared Twaddles, as they were starring home.
"I could go sledding all my life!"
"I never get tired, either," announced Dot, from the sled where she was comfortably tucked on and being pulled along by patient Meg.
"That's 'cause you're too young to work," said Meg bluntly, giving the rope such a sudden pull that Dot nearly went over backward.
"She isn't too young," cried Twaddles, who always disliked any allusion to age; he and Dot wanted to be thought just as old as Bobby and Meg. "Hi, Meg, listen! I'm telling you——"
Twaddles twisted around to catch Meg's attention and fell over into a snow drift that lined the edge of the walk. When he had been fished out and brushed off, he had forgotten what he had meant to tell.
Sunday it snowed more, and a high wind whirled the flakes about till the older folk shook their heads and began to talk about a blizzard. However, by Monday morning the wind had died down and the snow had stopped, though the sun refused to shine.
"Sam says it's awful cold," said Norah, bringing in the hot cakes for breakfast. "He's got the walks cleaned off, but maybe the children shouldn't go to school."
"Nonsense!" said Mother Blossom briskly. "Meg and Bobby both have rubber boots and warm mittens and coats. A little cold won't hurt them."
"And sledding after school, Mother?" urged Twaddles. "Dot and I have rubber boots, too."
"And in summer we can't go coasting," said the practical Dot.
"That's so, you can't," laughed Father Blossom, kissing her as he hurried out to the waiting car to go to his office. "Waiting for warm weather for coasting is a pretty poor way to spend one's time."
Meg wore her locket to school, and long before the noon hour every girl had heard about great-great Aunt Dorothy, had tried on the locket, and had wished she had one exactly like it.
"Wouldn't it be awful if you lost it!" said Hester Scott. "Then your little girl never could have a locket."
"But I'm not going to lose it," insisted Meg. "Mother says I have to take it off as soon as I come home from school. Then I'll wear it Sundays and birthdays and when we have company."
Many of the children had brought their lunch, and Meg and Bobby had theirs with them. Mother Blossom thought they should be saved the walk home at noon when the deep snow made walking difficult. The afternoon period rather dragged, though Miss Mason, the teacher, read them stories about the frozen North and their geography lesson was all about the home of the polar bear.
"My, I was tired of listening," confided Bobby, hurrying home with Meg at half-past three. "What do we care what polar bears do when we've got snow all ready to use ourselves?"
"Feels like more, doesn't it?" said the scarlet-cheeked Meg, trotting along in her rubber boots, her blue eyes shining with anticipated fun. "Can't I steer good now, Bobby?"
"'Deed you can," returned Bobby. "You steer better than most girls.
There the twins are out with the sleds."
Dot and Twaddles, rubber-booted and snugly tied into mufflers and coats, greeted the arrival of the other two with a shout.
"Sam says it will snow more to-night," reported Twaddles gleefully.
"Maybe it will be as high as the house, Bobby."
"And maybe it won't," said Bobby practically. "Where's Mother?"
Meg and Bobby went into the house to leave their lunch boxes and tell
Mother Blossom they were at home.
"Be sure and take off the locket, Meg," called her mother, as Meg went up to her room to get a clean handkerchief.
"Meg!" shouted Bobby, "where's my bearskin cap?"
This cap was an old one Father Blossom had worn on hunting trips when a young man. It was several sizes too large for Bobby, and made him look like a British Grenadier, but he thought it was the finest cap in the world. He liked to wear it when playing in the snow because it was warm.
"It's in the blue box on your closet shelf," answered Meg. She was an orderly little sister, and the boys counted on her help to remind them where they had left their things.
"Meg!" This time the call came from Norah, who was putting away clean sheets in the linen closet. "Down on the kitchen table I left four drop cakes—one apiece for ye. Your mother said 'twas all right."
"Meg! Bobby! Hurry up!" shrieked the twins.
Bobby crammed his cap on his head and dashed down the front stairs. Meg seized her clean handkerchief, ran to the kitchen and got the cakes and went out by way of the back door.
"Thought you were never coming," grumbled Twaddles. "Cake, Meg?"
"One for you. One for Dot," said Meg dividing, and giving Bobby his.
"Now aren't you sorry you were cross?"
"He wasn't," Dot assured her; the twins had a way of standing up for each other. "He was just afraid the others would use up all the snow 'fore we got there."
Really, there didn't seem to be much danger of that. Wayne Place hill was alive with coasters when the four little Blossoms reached it. The snow was still deep and soft on the sides, and packed hard and smooth in the center of the road.
"Here comes a bob!" cried Bobby, as the children began their walk up.
"Look how she goes! Dave Saunders is steering."
The big sled shot past them, filled with high-school boys and girls.
"Ours is just as nice," said sunny-tempered Meg, catching Twaddles in a wistful stare.