“Want to get out, Meg?” Father Blossom asked his little daughter gently.

Meg was always afraid when it was necessary to turn a car.  She usually got out when Sam Layton, the Blossom’s former chauffeur, backed their car or found a turn necessary.  Now, however, she shook her head.  Meg was learning, too.

Father Blossom carefully swung the heavy car around and was ready to send it ahead toward home when suddenly the wheel seemed to take matters into its own hand—­if a steering wheel can do such a thing.  Anyway, with a sudden lurch and a bound the car plunged directly into a heavy screen of brushwood that bordered one side of the road!

CHAPTER II

BOBBY HAS A PLAN

Twaddles was the first to speak.  The plunge had been so unexpected and there had been so little warning, none at all, in fact, that if any one had been inclined to scream there was no opportunity.  They were all breathless and rather shaken up.  But Twaddles, who had thrown his arms around Bobby’s neck, managed to grin.

“Well, what do you know about that!” he ejaculated in his funny, serious little voice.

That made them all laugh, and then Father Blossom began to ask anxiously if any one was hurt.

“No one, thank goodness,” Mother Blossom assured him, opening the tonneau door so that Meg and Dot might step out.  “You haven’t cut your hand, Ralph?”

“Just a scratch,” answered Father Blossom carelessly.  “I bore down pretty hard on the wheel rim.  Well, I’m thankful we didn’t turn over.  What do you suppose was the reason for this running jump?”

The four little Blossoms were out on the ground now, picking their way carefully, for they were surrounded by clumps of prickly bushes.  Mother Blossom joined Father Blossom, who was anxiously inspecting the car.

“It’s wedged in so tightly I’ll never be able to back it out,” he said.  “Only see, Margaret, how neatly it has slipped in between these three saplings.  If I had tried that stunt I couldn’t have made it once in fifty chances.”

Meg and Dot and Twaddles and Bobby crowded closer to look.  Perhaps this is a good time to tell you who the four little Blossoms were, if you have never met them before.

You have guessed, of course, that they had other and longer names.  Meg was named for her mother, Margaret; Bobby was Robert Hayward Blossom on the school roll; the twins (they were four years old) were Dorothy Anna and Arthur Gifford Blossom, but no one ever thought of calling the roly-poly dark-eyed pair anything but Dot and Twaddles.

If you have read the first book of this series, “Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm,” you know that Father Blossom owned a large foundry on the edge of the pretty town of Oak Hill and that he and his family lived in a comfortable old-fashioned house with Norah, who had been with them for years, and Sam Layton, the good-natured man of all work, to help make things run smoothly.  You will remember that Brookside Farm was the name of Aunt Polly’s home, Aunt Polly being the older sister of Mother Blossom.  The Four Little Blossoms spent a delightful summer at Brookside and came home just in time for Meg and Bobby to enter Oak Hill school.