n cases that so quickly transformed
them into different animals. "It's really snowing ever so hard,
Mother."

"Not half as hard as it often has when you have plowed cheerfully
through it," Mother Blossom reminded her. "Come, Bobby, finish your
oatmeal. Norah has your lunches packed."

Dot and Twaddles stared at the two older children in astonishment.
They wanted to go to school with all their hearts, and the idea that
any one could tire of that magical place, where chalk and blackboards
and goldfish and geography globes mingled in riotous profusion, had
never entered their busy minds.

"It's an awful long walk," mourned Bobby.

"I'll take you in the car," said Father Blossom quickly. "Hurry now,
and get your things on. I think there's been too much staying up till
nine o'clock lately, Mother."

"I think so, too," agreed Mother Blossom. "We'll go back to eight
o'clock bedtime beginning with to-night. What is it, Dot?"

"Can we go, too?" urged Dot. "Sam will bring us back."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" frowned Bobby, pulling on his rubber boots
and stamping in them to make sure they were well on. "Why do you
always want to tag along every place we go?"

Dot looked hurt, and Bobby was really ashamed of himself. He wasn't
cross very often, but nothing seemed to go right this morning. No one
said anything, but Mother Blossom sent the twins out into the kitchen
on some errand, and then the car came around and Meg and Bobby and
Father Blossom tramped through the snow and climbed in under the snug
curtains. Bobby would have felt better if some one had scolded him.

"Guess we're going to have enough snow this winter to make up for
last," remarked Sam Layton cheerfully. He was not cross, and he was
blissfully unconscious that any one else had been. "Fill-Up and me is
getting kind of tired of clearing off walks every single morning," he
went on, giving the dog his nickname.

Philip, who sat beside Sam on the front seat, wagged his tail
conversationally.

"Maybe we'll have another snow fight," suggested Meg. "That would be
fun, wouldn't it, Bobby?"

"No, it wouldn't," snapped Bobby ungraciously. For the life of him, he
did not seem able to feel pleasant.

Meg talked to Father Blossom and Sam after that, and in a few moments
they were set down at the school, and the car rolled on to the foundry
office.

Bobby had bad luck--bad luck or something else--all the morning. He
blotted his copy book; he had