Excerpt
CHAPTER I THE FIRST SNOW-STORM
"Where's Mother?" Meg and Bobby Blossom demanded the moment they opened the front door.
It was the first question they always asked when they came home from school.
Twaddles, their little brother, looked up at them serenely from the sofa cushion on which he sat cross-legged on the floor at the foot of the hall stairs.
"Mother and Aunt Polly went uptown," he informed his brother and sister. "They're going to bring us something nice. They promised."
Meg pulled off her hat and unbuttoned her coat.
"I'm starving," she announced. "It's awfully cold out. What are you doing anyway, Twaddles?"
"Sliding down the banisters," answered Twaddles calmly. "See, we spread down sofa cushions so 's we wouldn't hurt ourselves. It's Dot's turn now. Hi, Dot!" he ended in a shout.
"Here I come—look out!" With a swish of pink gingham skirt a small, plump little girl came flying down the banister to land luckily on a red satin sofa cushion ready to receive her.
"Well, I must say," announced Meg with dignity, "that's a fine way to do—using Mother's best sofa cushions! Where's Norah?"
"Gone to the movies," replied Dot, pushing the hair out of her eyes and smiling sunnily. "She waited till she saw you turn the corner, 'cause she said she wouldn't leave us alone."
Twaddles, who had been pressing his short nose against the glass in the door panel hoping to see his mother coming with the promised gift, suddenly wheeled and tried to stand on his head. That was Twaddles' way of expressing delight. "It's snowing!" he cried. "Little fine snowflakes, the kind that Daddy says always last. Oh, I hope we have coasting. I'll bet it snows all night."
"You said that Thanksgiving," retorted Bobby gloomily, "and it just snowed enough to cover the ground one night and melted 'fore we were up the next morning. And here it is January, and it hasn't snowed since."
"'Sides the sled is busted," agreed Twaddles mournfully, quite willing to be melancholy if some one would show him the way. "Even if it did snow, we couldn't have any fun without a sled."
"I guess we can mend it, maybe," interposed Meg cheerfully. "I'm going out and get some bread and peanut butter. Who wants some?"
They all did, it seemed, even Dot and Twaddles, who were too young to go to school, but who managed to have famous appetites as regularly as the older children. Mother Blossom allowed them to have what Norah called a "snack" every afternoon after school, and Meg was always careful to see that they ate only the things permitted and that no one dipped into the cake box.
"Look how white!" cried Dot, finishing her bread and butter first, and kneeling on a kitchen chair to see out of the window. "The ground is all covered already and you can see feetsteps."
"Footsteps," corrected Bobby, taking a last large bite of his lunch.
"Shoesteps," insisted Meg, closing the pantry door and putting away the bread.
"That isn't a shoestep," argued Bobby, pointing to a particularly clear and distinct print in the snow just outside the window....