"What, Daddy?" asked Bobby seriously.
"That Twaddles might have taken off his oil-soaked suit," replied Father Blossom, going to the rescue of the lonely and hungry little fellow.
Meg and Bobby and Dot looked at each other.
"I never thought of that," confessed Bobby.
CHAPTER VII
BEGINNING THE JOURNEY
"There's Tim Roon! Wave to him, Bobby," cried Meg.
"Doesn't Marion Green look funny before she knows you?" commented
Dot.
The car with Mother and Father Blossom and the four little Blossoms and their suitcases and rugs and shawls and long and short coats, had whirled past Marion Green so rapidly that she had not guessed who the people were until they were almost around the corner, though she waved to them in answer to their call.
For the time at last had come to start for Apple Tree Island, and this morning the Blossoms were actually on their way. Norah's sister had come to stay with her and Annabel Lee, so Mother Blossom had been spared the work and trouble of closing the house. Meg and Bobby had been promised that they could go into a higher grade in the fall, because of their good records for the term. Dot's new dresses were all finished; and Twaddles had wheedled his father into allowing him to take along an empty bird-cage which took up a great deal of room and was utterly useless. The Blossoms had no bird, and, as Bobby pointed out to Twaddles, he would not be able to catch a bird if he tried, and if he did catch one, said Bobby, it would be against the law for him to keep it. He would have to let it go as he had the robin. But Twaddles was firm in his resolve to carry the empty cage.