“Dot Blossom, you’re not to touch my books,” she scolded. “The idea! Why don’t you fuss with your own things?”
Dot looked vexed.
“I’m helping you,” she explained. “Don’t you want to take your books to Aunt Polly’s to read rainy days? Well, then, I’ll pack ’em for you.”
Mother Blossom had followed Meg, and now she intervened.
“No one is to pack anything to-day,” she said firmly. “I want Dot to go into town with a message for Miss Florence. And Meg must practice on the piano half an hour at least. This afternoon we’re going to take Aunt Polly driving. After she goes home there will be plenty for all of us to do to get ready.”
Miss Florence Davis was the dressmaker who often came to the house to make clothes for the 37 Blossom children, and Dot set off presently for her house, carrying a note to her. Miss Florence had no telephone. She said she wasn’t home long enough to answer it. But she always left a slip of paper pinned to her door to tell people at whose house she was sewing, and her customers were used to going about the town till they found her.
“She says she can come,” reported Dot when she returned from her errand. “She can give you four days, Mother. Where are the boys?”
Mother Blossom looked at her small daughter and sighed.
“I thought you knew Sam painted the fence last night,” she said mildly.
“I did, but I forgot,” explained Dot, trying to fold over a pleat so that the vivid streaks of green paint would not show. “I guess I kind of brushed up against it, Mother.”