Such fun as the children had in the days that followed!  Mother Blossom declared that they almost lived in their bathing suits, and indeed, as the warm weather came on, a bathing suit for the sunny hours of the morning was the most comfortable costume any one could hope for.  The little bathing beach was not too far from the bungalow, and Father Blossom was an excellent swimmer.  He taught each child to swim and very cunning Twaddles and Dot looked in the water.  Dot wore a scarlet bathing cap on her dark hair and her bathing suit was red, too, while Twaddles wore a navy and white suit.  Meg’s suit was a lighter blue and her cap was white, and Bobby had a brown suit like Father Blossom’s.  The children thought that no one could look lovelier than their mother in her black and white suit and cap to match, and indeed Mother Blossom was growing prettier every day.  She said she had not had a real vacation in so long that she felt as the children did—­as if she must play outdoors every minute.

Sometimes they took their supper down to the beach and Father Blossom and Bobby built a fire and they had toasted bread and bacon; sometimes they went hunting for beach plums, that odd fruit that grows on tall bushes and which make such delicious jam; sometimes they all went fishing in the two rowboats, Mother Blossom rowing one and Father Blossom the other.

“I caught the biggest fish,” Dot wrote to Norah, “only it wasn’t a fish—­it was somebody’s old boot.”

But Twaddles and Meg, oddly enough, had the best luck of any of the fishermen.  Meg rarely went fishing that she did not bring home a nice little string of fish she had caught herself (though Bobby had to bait her hooks), and as for Twaddles, he never paid much attention to his line except to pull it in now and then to take a fish off.  One day the whim seized him to fish from the wharf, and when Bobby was sent to call him to supper Twaddles calmly showed him four fine fish he had caught in less than an hour.

“I’ll take you on a fishing trip some day for a mascot,” said Captain Jenks, who continued to be a very good friend.

The four little Blossoms had gone over with him on The Sarah the week after Dot’s adventure in the water to get the wash from Mrs. Clayton.  Bobby and Meg had been a little fearful that Mother Blossom would not trust them again to take care of the twins, but that dear lady knew that accidents make wise little folk more careful.  She assured Bobby and Meg with a kiss that she was sure they would look after Dot and Twaddles more closely this time.  They did; indeed, the twins rather resented the strict supervision under which they made the trip to Greenpier, but when Dot appealed to Captain Jenks, to her disappointment, he sided with Bobby and Meg.

“I have an uneasy feelin’ that I don’t know what you might take into your head to do next,” the captain told the surprised little girl.  “If I was your sister and brother, I’d tie a string to you and then I’d know where you were every minute.”