“I want you children to eat ’em, but not till they are ripe,” Mr. Harley shouted back.  “Along about the first week in July, you come up here and you’ll find the best sweet apples you ever tasted.  That is, if the storms leave any on the tree, and I guess they will.  You eat all you want—­I never want to taste one of those apples again!”

Twaddles stopped trying to tickle Bobby, and Meg squeezed Dot’s hand excitedly.  Poor Mr. Harley!

“Then—­then you haven’t heard about your little boys?” asked Bobby hesitatingly.

“Not a word,” groaned Mr. Harley.  “It’s as though the earth had opened and swallowed ’em.  I can’t, for the life of me, figure out where they could have gone.  Sometimes I get to thinking they’re here, and I can’t rest till I get a boat and row over.  One night I got up at one o’clock and rowed here; but Lou and the boys were just as far away as ever.”

The rain was coming more gently now, and the heaviest clouds had passed over the island.  Mr. Harley lifted the oilcloth flap, and the four little Blossoms felt a refreshing breeze sweep in upon them.

“We can start in a minute or so,” announced Mr. Harley, opening the umbrellas.

A few minutes later they started in a fine drizzle of rain.  That, however, soon stopped and the sun came out, and by the time they had reached the bungalow, to find Father Blossom just coming up from the wharf and Mother Blossom, not a bit frightened by the storm, on the porch, the only trace of the thunderstorm was the wet grass and the dripping eaves of the pretty bungalow.

May swept into June and June was nearly gone when one morning Father Blossom announced that he wanted to take Mother Blossom over to Greenpier in the rowboat and that he hoped the children could persuade her that they would be all right if left to themselves for a little while.

“I don’t think we’ll be gone more than two or three hours,” said Father Blossom seriously; “and while I don’t suppose this day means anything to you, it does mean a good deal to Mother and to me.  And if you children will take care of each other, we’ll be back before you have time to miss us.”

“I know what day it is,” Meg cried proudly.  “It’s the day you and Mother were married!”

She remembered from the last June, and Mother Blossom had not thought any of the children would remember.

“I do hope they will be all right, Ralph,” she said a little anxiously, as Father Blossom handed her into the rowboat and took the oars and the four little Blossoms stood on the wharf and waved to them.

“Of course they will be all right,” Father Blossom asserted sturdily.

“Daddy, oh, Daddy!” called Bobby after the boat, “may we have your field glasses?”

“All right, only be careful of them,” Father Blossom called back.

“What’ll we do?” asked Dot, as they left the wharf and walked back to the bungalow.