Rosemary laughed and pulled Shirley back from the fire.
After twice fixing a day for the picnic, only to have Doctor Hugh summoned by telephone and obliged to remain away till early evening, the suggestion of a picnic supper had been suggested and accepted.
"A good idea, I call it," Winnie had approved. "We won't have to start till around four o'clock and by that time Hughie ought to have a couple of hours off, anyway. I'm not crazy about eating outdoors, but if a body can have something hot, it isn't so bad as it might be."
Warren and Richard had promised to build the fire and make the coffee—they assured Winnie that even she would praise their brew—and Doctor Hugh had insisted on the "hot dogs" without which no properly conducted supper—so he said—could be arranged. He was sharpening a stick to serve Sarah as a toaster now.
Winnie's hospitable2 soul rejoiced in the groups gathered about the glowing fire, built on an improvised3 stone hearth4 between two tree stumps5. Winnie had put her best efforts into the food and she liked to be assured that the quantity, as well as the quality, would be appreciated.
They were all there—the six from the Willis household, Mr. and Mrs. Hildreth, Richard and Warren; and the six Gays with roly-poly little Mrs. Robinson and her husband who had come up to introduce his wife to the farm and leave her there while he finished "the season" on the road. Mrs. Willis had been delighted to have this opportunity to meet the people who were to live with the Gay children and who would, she reasoned, have more or less influence over them. Mrs. Robinson had been three days at the farm and already she had won the friendship of Louisa and Alec, not an easy matter to bring about. The younger children were devoted6 to her and it was apparent that the motherless household unconsciously welcomed her wealth of tact7 and wisdom and sympathy.
"They need you so," said Mrs. Willis when she had a chance to speak confidentially8 to the wife of the circus agent.
"Not more than I need them," responded Mrs. Robinson. "They have no mother and I have no children."
And if the payment of the quarter's rent in advance had "turned the luck," as Alec insisted, it was the coming of Mrs. Robinson that turned the Gays back to normal, happy living.
Rosemary had stipulated9 that the "grown-ups" were to visit and leave the preparation of the supper to the children. Most of the preparation was confined to setting the table—on a flat rock—and to boiling the coffee and toasting the meat. Richard and Warren were in charge of the fire and Louisa and Rosemary undertook to set out the eatables, while Alec carried fresh water from the spring, fished out ants from the milk pitcher10 and endeavored to keep the younger fry from tasting everything left unguarded.
Sarah's insistence11 on toasting her own "hot dog" led to a general clamor for sticks and Doctor Hugh obligingly whittled12 a dozen wands. taking care to make them long as a precaution against a too eager approach to the fire.
The table looked very pretty when Rosemary summoned them, for a bouquet13 was in the center and tiny wreaths of flowers circled the paper dishes. Warren's coffee was pronounced delicious and Winnie received so many compliments on her stuffed eggs and the potato salad that she told Mrs. Hildreth it would serve her right if the cake should turn out to be soggy.
"Then," declared Mrs. Hildreth neatly14, "I should know it was no cake of your baking!"
But one distressing15 incident interrupted the serene16 progress of that wonderful supper—when the paper cup of ants and bugs17 and beetles18 and flies that Sarah had captured before sitting down, upset directly into her saucer of home-made ice cream. Even that catastrophe19 could not mar1 the general enjoyment20, though Sarah retired21 to fish out the bugs carefully by hand with the forlorn hope of "drying them off and saving them."
When the supper was over and everything cleared away, Warren built up the fire again and they gathered around it. The day had been warm but a slight chill was in the air—the early touch of fall.
"It doesn't seem as though we were going home to-morrow," remarked Rosemary pensively22. "And school opens next week."
"The summer has gone so swiftly," said Mrs. Willis. "I can scarcely realize that this is September. The Hammonds have started—Hugh had a letter yesterday."
"I think it's been a long summer," declared Sarah, trying to hide a yawn.
"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Louisa bluntly.
Then the baby June was discovered asleep in Alec's lap and Mrs. Robinson offered to take her back to the house and put her to bed. Louisa decreed that bed-time had arrived for the other Gays and they all turned homeward, promising23 to say good by to the Willises in the morning.
"And remember you've promised to bring Rosemary out to see us this winter, Doctor Willis," Louisa reminded him.
"You come along, Sarah, and see the new tricks I've taught your pig," said Mr. Robinson with the kindest intention in the world.
Sarah made no reply. She had never voluntarily mentioned Bony since the morning she had watched him driven off the farm and gradually her mother and sisters had forgotten him. Not so Sarah. She never forgot but nothing ever induced her to go and see the pig though she had plenty of opportunities later, had she so desired.
The twilight24 shut down and Warren added more fuel to the fire. Shirley pressed close to her mother, hoping to hide the fact that she, too, was getting sleepy.
"I don't think it was a long summer," she chirped25, "I would like more summer to get herbs in; Mr. Fiddlestrings likes us to get them for him."
"You don't call him that, do you?" asked Rosemary, shocked.
"Everyone does," retorted Shirley. "Only they say 'Old Fiddlestrings' and we don't—do we, Sarah?"
"He has a stuffed snake," said Sarah who seldom troubled herself to answer questions that failed to directly interest her. "Rich, you said you'd show me how to stuff a snake and you never did."
"Well, I never got around to it," Richard apologized. "I'm one who found the summer too short."
Mr. Hildreth grunted26.
"Guess you don't need a stuffed snake, Sarah," he said humorously. "A stuffed chicken seemed to be too much for your family."
Sarah looked disgusted, while the others laughed at the recollection of that chicken. Sarah, a few weeks before, had found a dead chicken under the carriage house and had decided27 it to be a Heaven-sent opportunity to practise her theories of taxidermy. She had stuffed the carcass with a variety of available materials—grass and hay and pebbles28, mixed with small sticks and cakes of mud—and, her task completed, had hidden the treasure in a cupboard in the pantry. For some reason she deemed the sympathy of her family doubtful and she made no mention of the experiment to anyone.
It was not long before Winnie complained of an unpleasant odor in her always thoroughly29 aired pantry. She stood it for one day, grumbling30. The second day she began to talk about "country plumbing31" and the third morning she started in to scrub and scour
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