ing up into the town, believing
that perhaps some of the store windows had attracted Dot.

No one remembered seeing a little girl in a green dress and a brown
straw hat.

Just as Mother Blossom was wearily wondering if she should telegraph
Father Blossom that Dot was lost, a motor jitney lumbered down to the
dock. Some one in a green dress and a brown straw hat was sitting on
the front seat beside the driver.

"Mother! Mother!" shouted Dot.

There was just time for her to tumble out of the car into her mother's
arms, just time for Mother Blossom to give the driver a dollar bill
and say a word of thanks, and then the steamboat whistle blew loudly
once.

"That means she's starting," said the jitney man. "Run!"

And hand in hand, Mother Blossom and Dot raced down the wharf and over
the gangplank on to the deck of the boat, just as it began to slide
away.

CHAPTER VI

BROOKSIDE AT LAST

"We thought you weren't coming," said Meg anxiously.

"Where did you find Dot?" asked Bobby and Twaddles in the same
breath.

Dot smiled serenely.

"I came back myself," she informed them. "The jitney man told me
how."

Mother Blossom sat down on a camp-stool and fanned herself with
Twaddles' blue sailor hat.

"See if we can't get to Brookside without any more mishaps," she
commanded the children. "If we had missed the boat, think of the worry
and trouble for Aunt Polly. Even if we telegraphed she wouldn't get it
before she started over to meet us."

The four little Blossoms promised to be very good and to stay close
together.

Lake Tobago was a small lake, very pretty, and for some minutes the
children saw enough on the shores they were passing to keep them
contented and interested. In one place two little boys and their
father were out fishing in a rowboat and the steamer passed so close
to them that the four little Blossoms, leaning over the rail, could
almost shake hands with them.

"There's another wharf! Do we stop there? Yes, we do! Come on, Dot,
let's watch!" shouted Twaddles, as the steamer headed inshore toward a
pier built out into the water.

"Keep away from the gangplank," warned Mother Blossom. "You mustn't
get in people's way, dear."

The pier was something of a disappointment, because when the boat tied
up there the children discovered that only freight was to be taken off
and more boxes carried on. There was only one man at the wharf, and
apparently no town for miles.

"Doesn't anybody