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 right through the brook and up into our meadows. Say, build a raft, why don't you? I always did when I was a kid. Here, I'll show you."