“Good grief, is the house on fire?” Sam demanded as they came running out of the house.  “Where’s Philip?  I thought you wanted him to go.”

CHAPTER XVI

OVER THE CROSS ROAD

Philip could be heard barking madly in the garage and Meg volunteered to go and let him out.  The others were too much absorbed in the horse and sleigh to offer to release the dog.

“What’s the name of the horse?” asked Dot.

“I forgot to inquire,” Sam answered.  “So you may call him anything you like.  He lives at the livery stable and you might name him after his master, Walter Rock.  Call him Walt for short, you know.”

Philip, dancing and barking, came running over the snowy lawn and Meg raced after him.

“The horse’s name is Walt,” Dot informed her importantly.  “I think he looks kind, don’t you, Meg?”

“Of course he is a kind horse,” said Meg.  “He’s a pretty color, too.”

Walt was a spotted horse, brown and white, not a polka-dot horse, of course, but with what Meg called a “pattern” of oddly shaped slashes of white on his brown coat.

“He must be a foulard horse,” Meg commented as the children climbed into the soft clean straw which filled the box of the sleigh.

Sam shouted with laughter and Mother Blossom and Aunt Polly and Norah, who were all standing in the doorway to see them start, called out to ask what the joke was about.

“Tell you when we come back,” shouted Sam, taking up the reins.  “All set back there?  Then here we go, jingle bells!”

The horse set off at a trot and the four little Blossoms grinned at each other delightedly.  There were plenty of warm blankets in the sleigh and the livery stable man had put in a fur lap robe that made Twaddles think of a big black bear.  None of the children had gone driving in a sleigh very often, for Father Blossom used his car practically all winter and kept no horses.  Aunt Polly had horses and for all the children knew she might have a sleigh, though they had never seen one in the barn; but when they visited Aunt Polly at Brookside Farm, it was summer and snow was the one thing furthest from their thoughts.

“Meg,” said Sam soberly as they left Oak Hill and turned into a country road, “this kind of a horse is called a calico horse.  I thought you’d like to know.”

“Well, foulard is something like calico—­I mean the pattern is,” Meg replied.  “I like calico horses.”

“I wish I’d brought the sled,” said Bobby.  “We could tie on behind and ride on it.”

“It’s more fun this way,” Meg insisted, being a little girl who didn’t always want something she didn’t have.  “Do you like to drive a sleigh, Sam?”

“Sure,” said Sam over his shoulder.  “Always did.  When I was a boy and lived in the country, we had a real old-fashioned sleigh, with red cushions in it and everything.  We used to drive down the river on the ice then—­that was sport, let me tell you.”