“Mothers don’t cry,” said Twaddles in fine scorn.  “Do they, Daddy?”

“I cried,” confessed Mother Blossom, smiling at the astonished Twaddles.  “I’ll never forget how I felt—­so far from home and with a heavy, fretting baby in my arms.  I just sat down on a rock and cried.  And Bobby cried with me.”

The four little Blossoms were too amazed to speak.  To think of Mother crying!

“Pretty soon some one came along the road,” Father Blossom went on with the story, “and, of course, they saw Mother and Bobby crying.  This some one was a woman in a gray wrapper, pushing a baby carriage in which were two little children and a great many packages.  The children were two boys about three and four years old, and the woman was their mother.  She said her name was Mrs. Harley and that she lived about a quarter of a mile further on.  She was very good indeed to Mother—­made her little boys get out and walk and put Bobby in with the bundles.  Then she helped Mother as far as her house, gave her hot tea and some bread and butter, and kept her until Mr. Harley came home.  He had a rickety old buggy and a shabby horse and he harnessed up and brought Mother and Bobby home in great style.”

“That was nice,” said Meg with satisfaction.  “Can we go and see Mrs. Harley when we get to Apple Tree Island?”

“There is no Mrs. Harley there now,” answered Father Blossom almost sadly.  “She came to see Mother several times that summer.  Mr. Harley was shiftless and easy going, but extremely fond of his family.  They lived in a shack, but they loved each other devotedly and that, you know, is much better than having a fine house.  Well, Mother never went to Apple Tree Island again—­you youngsters kept her too busy.  But I went nearly every year because I’ve always had to look after some property there for an invalid friend of Aunt Polly’s.  I never went that I didn’t see the Harleys and carry them some message or gift from Mother.  Four years ago Mrs. Harley met me with the news that her husband had disappeared.”

“Was he drowned?” asked Twaddles fearfully.

“No, no one thought so,” answered Father Blossom.  “Mrs. Harley said that he had been acting queerly all that Winter—­that he would go for days without speaking, and then fly into a rage if any one asked him a question.”  “He was always so good to his family,” said Mother Blossom, smoothing Meg’s hair absently.  “He must have been out of his mind, Ralph.”

“I think so myself,” agreed Father Blossom.  “Anyway, Mrs. Harley told me that one morning, a wet, cold day in March, he got up before it was light, lit a fire in the kitchen stove and went out of the house.  They never saw him again.  He had a rowboat and this they found abandoned on the south shore of Sunset Lake, showing that he must have rowed over to the mainland.

“The next summer, when I went to Apple Tree Island, I was told that Mrs. Harley and the children had also disappeared,” continued Father Blossom.  “She had gone, leaving no trace, and taking the two little boys with her.  I went to see the shack and she had left it as neat as wax inside and not one scrap of paper anywhere to give a clue as to what she intended to do.”