e," mumbled Bobby unhappily. He had hoped to get away
unnoticed. "I guess--I guess a snowball hit it."

"A packed ball, probably dipped in water first," announced Mr. Carter,
gently touching the poor sore eye. "Tim, do you know anything about
such a ball?"

"No, I don't," said Tim hastily. "Nobody can say our side packed
balls."

"No one can prove your side threw a packed ball," corrected the
principal pointedly. "Still, it is hardly likely that Bobby's men
would have hit their own general with a frozen ball. I don't intend to
try to find out any more, Tim. But I'm sorry that in every game there
must always be some one who doesn't play fair."

Mr. Carter said that Bobby should go home at once and let his mother
put something on his eye. It was a real victory for the Black's side,
he announced firmly. And Bobby, going home with Meg, his handkerchief
tied over his puffy eye, felt like a real general, wounded, tired, but
successful and happy.

Mother Blossom always knew what to do for the little hurts, and she
bandaged Bobby's eye and listened to the account of the snow fight with
great interest.

"Meg, Meg!" Dot's voice sounded from the front hall, as Mother Blossom
finished tying a soft handkerchief around Bobby's head to hold the
eye-pad in place. "Is Meg home yet?"

Dot appeared in the doorway of Mother Blossom's room.

"What's the matter with Bobby?" she asked.

Bobby explained, but Dot was too excited to pay much attention to the
story of the fight. She had other matters on her mind.

"Meg, you've got a letter," she announced. "We all have. Only
Twaddles and I opened ours."

"A letter!" repeated Meg, delighted. "Who wrote it?"

"Give Bobby his," directed Mother Blossom. "Open them, dears. That is
the only sure way to know what is inside."

Meg and Bobby tore open the square pink envelopes together, but Meg
read hers first.

"Marion Green's going to give a birthday party!" she exclaimed. "Isn't
that fun! I can wear my white dress. What'll we take her, Mother?"

Mother Blossom said that they would think up something nice before the
day for the party came, and then they heard Father Blossom come in, and
down the four little Blossoms rushed to tell him about the snow battle
and the party.

"I'm glad," announced Dot with a great deal of satisfaction at the
supper table that night, "there's something in this town they don't say
Twaddles and I are too young to go to!"

Everybody la