bundle that must be the surprise Daddy told us about. Hurry, Dot."

The two little girls ran downstairs and found the others gathered
about the trunks and parcels on the front porch.

"Daddy's surprise!" shouted Bobby. "Let me open it, Mother?"

Mother Blossom handed him the shears and he cut the heavy cord.
Something brown and heavy was inside.

"It's a dress. No, it isn't, it's a tent! It's a tent and four Indian
suits!" Bobby was so delighted that he gave a war-whoop then and there
and began to do a war dance.

"An Indian suit!" shrieked Twaddles, trying to stand on his head.

"Indian beads!" cried Meg, holding up a long chain of bright colored
glass beads.

"And feathers!" Dot, too, had been digging in the package.

The rest of the afternoon was a busy time for them all. Jud helped
them set up the tent on the side lawn, and then the four little
Blossoms dressed up in their new suits and played Indians to their
hearts' content. There were jackets and trousers and feather
head-dresses for Bobby and Twaddles and squaw costumes and bead chains
for Meg and Dot. Jud made them each a wooden hatchet, which completed
the make-believe.

The next morning Mother Blossom had to go back to Oak Hill. The
children went as far as the gate to say good-by to her, but both she
and Aunt Polly, who was to drive her over, not in the car but with
Nelly Bly and a smart-looking red-wheeled buggy, thought that it was
better for them not to go to town.

When they had kissed her good-by and watched the buggy till it was
nothing but a cloud of dust in the road, the four little Blossoms
began to feel very queer indeed. They had never been alone in a
strange place without any mother before.

"Well, my goodness, if you're not here," said Jud cheerily, coming up
behind them. He pretended not to see the tears beginning to splash
down Dot's cheeks. "I'm going down to the brook to mend the line
fence, and I thought if you wanted to come along and play in the
water----"

They did, of course. Dot slipped her hand into Jud's and the others
followed, talking busily. What was a line fence? How could he fix it?
What could they play in the water?

Jud didn't mind questions at all. Indeed, he rather enjoyed answering
them.

"You see, this fence goes along the brook right in the center," he
explained carefully, "to show where your Aunt Polly's land stops and
Mr. Simmond's land begins. If we didn't have a fence there his cattle
would walk rig