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"But you'll find nothing doing in the park," Emmet said presently, with an abrupt change of subject. "The season has just closed, and there is n't a person on the place." "So much the better," Leigh answered. "I 'm not in the mood for merry-go-rounds and picnickers."
Had the picnickers been old ladies, I might have shut my eyes, and made a break out of the water for my clothes; but three of them, at least, were young, and, worse than that, very pretty! The courage for so daring and monstrous an act was not in me. I felt that it would be easier to die; and yet to die in this way is pretty hard when it comes to a practical test. What the deuce was to be done?
It seemed to Peggy as if the dear familiar world with its cheery homes and friendly faces, had been blotted out, and Dorothy and herself were alone on an unfamiliar earth. Yet with all the strange, terrifying loneliness, the stars had never seemed so bright nor the heavenly Father so near. The picnickers had slept late.
The long walk came to an end at last. The roundabout route through Stone Hollow led them near Locust, and, with their arms full of mistletoe, the merry picnickers parted from Lloyd and Betty at the gate. Gay exclaimed enthusiastically over the beautiful old avenue, leading under the snow-covered locusts to the house, but to Lloyd's relief her invitation to come in was refused.
Tippy signed for it, not wanting the boy to see Barbara in such outlandish dress, then carried it out to the picnickers. She held it under her apron until she reached them. Telegrams always spelled trouble to Mrs. Triplett, but Barbara took this one from her with a smiling thank you, without, rising from her seat on the sand. Telegrams had always been pleasant things in her experience.
"She's the loveliest creature," she declared with facile enthusiasm, as she and Mrs. Blair delved into a hamper that the Martins' chauffeur and butler had shouldered up before the picnickers. "And so naïvely young I don't see how her mother dared let her come so far away." "Oh her mother wanted her to see America," Mrs. Blair gave back.
He smiled at her childish look of bewilderment. "I've been painfully aware of it for some time back. I've been suffering for food while you slept." "Why didn't you get into the basket?" "How could I, with you on my manly bosom?" She colored up a little. They had not been married long, evidently. They were soon eating a breakfast with the spirit of picnickers.
Other witnesses among them several picnickers in the grove swore that they had heard the bell. One of these Austen asked if he was not the member from Mercer in the last Legislature, and Mr. Billings, no longer genial, sprang to his feet with an objection.
When the song was over, cheers were given for the class, "the good ole class of Nineteen Fourteen," the school, the teachers, and for the picnic, thus officially concluded; and then the picnickers, carrying their baskets and faded wild flowers and other souvenirs and burdens, moved toward the big "express wagons" which were to take them back into the town.
And Johnnie Green couldn't imagine what had happened, when his staring eyes beheld the Major hanging from a bough over his head. "It's a monkey!" Johnnie Green gasped. "Where in the world could he have come from?" The Retreat Major Monkey quite enjoyed the amazement of the picnickers.
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