“Do you know what you want?” asked Mother Blossom. “I saw Miss Mason yesterday, and she said you don’t need very many things, Meg.”
“Oh, Mother, Twaddles and I need some crayons,” said Dot, tumbling Annabel Lee out of her lap, much to that sleepy animal’s surprise and disapproval. “And a pencil box with a lock, Mother.”
“You’re not going to school,” retorted Meg. “Is she, Mother?”
Mother Blossom put down her sewing.
“I don’t see why my twinnies are so eager to go to school,” she said sadly. “What in the wide world should I do if all my children went off to school and left me alone? Perhaps, Dot, you 22 and Twaddles and I can have our own kindergarten after Meg and Bobby get nicely started.”
“With a blackboard?” demanded Dot. “And inkwells and a cloak room, Mother?”
Mother Blossom and Miss Florence laughed.
“I begin to think the other children are the attraction, not school,” said Mother Blossom. “However, Meg must run along if she is to be back by lunch time. I’ll give you and Bobby each fifty cents, dear. And suppose Dot and Twaddles have a quarter each to spend? Going to school without a shiny new pencil box isn’t to be thought of, I’m sure.”
Meg and Dot ran downstairs and found Twaddles and Bobby had tired of teaching Philip to jump through a hoop, and were busily cracking stones in the driveway.
“Some of ’em might be valuable,” said Bobby, when Meg asked him why he was doing that. “I heard a boy talking about it once. Might have gold or iron ore in.”