THE PICNIC
“What on earth is Betsey doing with that _pail_?” asked Cousin Margaret
in amazement. She and Mother sat one afternoon in the cool sewing-room
as Betsey passed the door lugging a pail of soapsuds.
“Betsey, what are you up to? Cleaning house?” she called, laughing.
“Just so,” replied Betsey, coming back slowly and setting her steaming
pail on the floor. “You see, Mrs. Delight’s house needs a _thorough_
cleaning all over before company comes, so today Dinah and Mrs. Delight
clean house.”
“You funny child!” said Cousin Margaret, letting her dainty work fall to
the table. “Do you mean to say you really scrub?”
“Scrub!” echoed Betsey, lifting her pail again. “Say, come on up with me
and see!”
Cousin Margaret was very young and very pretty, and she really didn’t
have the slightest idea how one cleaned a doll-house. So with a little
wink at Mother, she followed Betsey up the stairs.
When she saw Betsey’s collection of house-cleaning materials, she sank
weakly into a big chair and stared. There was a stiff brush, and a soft
brush, and a cake of sapolio; a whole basketful of soft cloths, and a
chamois skin.
“What’s the chamois skin for?” she asked.
“To clean the mirrors,” said Betsey.
“Well, I do declare!” was all Cousin Margaret could say. But pretty soon
she leaned forward and began to watch Betsey with a little secret
admiration. Mrs. Delight was already dressed in one of her fresh morning
dresses, white apron and ruffled sweeping cap, and she and Dinah were
supposed to be moving all the furniture into the drawing-room. Mr.
Delight sat stiffly on the window-seat and watched.
“You see, Cousin Margaret,” explained Betsey, “Mrs. Delight’s twin
sister and her husband are coming to visit. (Those are Anne’s old dolls
she lets me take.) And Mr. Delight is going to the post-office to mail
the invitation. _I’ll_ tell you,—I’ll put him in the car with Dumpling
and make Mrs. Delight and Dinah wave to him, and then you can attend to
him while I clean house. Water’s getting cold!”
“How stylish and proper he do look,—a-driving dat kerridge!” suddenly
observed Betsey in Dinah’s pleasant voice.
“Why, Betsey, how you scared me! I thought you really were another
person!” exclaimed Cousin Margaret, looking up from the post-office. But
when she once looked up from the post-office she couldn’t look back
again, for there was Betsey on her knees, going at the little house with
the largest scrubbing-brush as if the dirt were inches thick.
“You’ll take the paint off!” screamed Cousin Margaret.
“Take the paint off!” echoed Betsey. “Just see here.” She doubled her
cloth over a skewer and began digging out the corners of the little
dining-room windows. And when the room was clean enough, she wiped the
smooth floor vigorously back and forth with a clean cloth.
“Now see the difference,” she announced, looking first at the clean
dining-room and then at the drawing-room.
“Why, the other is actually gray, isn’t it?” said Cousin Margaret,
peering in at the little room. “Don’t you want to let me do this one?”
[Illustration: “HE SURE DO LOOK MIGHTY STYLISH A-DRIVING DAT KERRIDGE,”
SAID DINAH]
“O thank you!” cried Betsey, seizing the carpets to shake out of the
window. So Cousin Margaret promptly began her first house-cleaning. As
she polished off the threshold, she heard a gentle thud, thud, over by
the desk, so she took her head out of the house to see what was going
on. There sat Betsey beating pillows with two of the tiniest little
carpet-beaters you ever saw. They were made of twisted wires, exactly
like big ones, only so small that they made you laugh to look at them.
Cousin Margaret laughed. But she had to own up that the rooms looked
very fresh and sweet, as they put back the clean carpets and dusted
furniture.
“What does your Mrs. Delight do to entertain her guests?” she asked.
“I thought they could have a picnic,” said Betsey, pausing a moment to
think. “I have a pattern for a dandy lunch-basket. And Tom has the
dearest little canoe!”
“Has he, indeed?” observed Tom’s voice around the corner.
“You’ll lend it, won’t you?” pleaded Betsey.
“It makes a good deal of difference what it’s wanted for,” replied Tom,
with his hands in his pockets.
“Well, the Delights are going to have a picnic, and they go to a certain
grove, like Brighton’s Lake, you know, where they have canoes to rent.
And I have everything but the canoe, Tom.”
“Everything?” questioned Tom. “Have you a Thermos bottle?”
“Hum!” said Cousin Margaret loudly. “I’ll make the Thermos bottles for
you,—one quart size, and one pint. I’d love to!”
“How are you going to make them, Cousin Margaret?” asked Tom
respectfully.
“If you children will come down street with me, and show me the nearest
gum machine,—the kind where the gum is done up in silver paper, you
know,—I’ll let you watch me!” bargained Cousin Margaret, determined now
to make a perfectly wonderful article.
“What does she want gum for?” giggled Betsey, scurrying down-stairs
behind Tom.
“She wants the silver paper,” said Tom wisely.
And that was exactly what she did want at the time, but when the happy
trio stood before the red machine in the grocery store, and the thin
stick of gum came shooting out into Cousin Margaret’s hands, she had
another idea.
“Come, we’ll buy three sticks, and I’ll hire you to chew one apiece,”
she said. “Peel off the silver paper without tearing it.”
“I don’t like gum after the wintergreen flavor goes,” said Betsey,
chewing hard.
“You can’t have it anyway,” said Cousin Margaret severely. “Didn’t I buy
it for my quart bottle?”
“You’re going to _mold_ it!” cried Betsey, skipping along the sidewalk.
“Aren’t you clever!”
Mother smiled when she saw them go upstairs again, and she went quietly
out to the pantry without saying a word.
Cousin Margaret sat down at Mr. Betts’ work-table with a mighty puff.
She smoothed away on the bright tin-foil until it shone like solid
silver. Then she molded her soft chewing-gum carefully into a tiny pint
bottle. She clipped off a long strip of tin-foil and wound it around the
bottle, pinched the top a little, and glued on a paper label.
“Keeps cold twenty-four hours!” she cried, holding it out for
inspection.
“Good!” shouted Tom and Betsey.
“Hand over your gum, children,” said Cousin Margaret. “It takes two for
a quart. You can be making the lunch-basket.”
“Weren’t you going to play tennis this afternoon?” asked Betsey
thoughtfully. “Mother said I mustn’t bother you.”
“I was, but I’m _not_,” replied Cousin Margaret recklessly. “I’d rather
play picnic, and sail your canoe in the bathtub.”
Tom slipped quietly down-stairs at mention of the bathtub, and neither
the little girl nor the big girl noticed.
“O William, here come Prudence and John!” cried Cousin Margaret in Mrs.
Delight’s silvery voice, rushing Mrs. Delight to the front door.
“Here we are!” shouted Betsey for Mr. Darling. “It’s so much fun to have
somebody else manage all these dolls, Cousin Margaret!”
“Suppose you manage the Delights,” suggested Cousin Margaret in an
undertone, “and let me have the company.”
“I’d rather,” said Betsey, joyfully, taking charge at once of Mr.
Delight, who was not helping his guests properly.
“Keep your dog off!” said Cousin Margaret, making Mr. Darling rush at
Dumpling in the most ridiculous manner.
“Are you tired, Prudence?” asked Mrs. Delight.
“Tired? No!” said Mrs. Darling.
Betsey made Mr. and Mrs. Delight look at each other.
“Why, what’s up?” questioned Mr. Darling, sitting down on the tiny piano
stool.
“We thought,” began Betsey in Mrs. Delight’s most charming manner, “that
we might go on a picnic.”
“Hoo-ray!” cried Cousin Margaret, making Mr. Darling turn a splendid
handspring across the little parlor.
“Why, John, I am ashamed of you,” said Betsey, sternly, for his wife,
and trying in vain to stop laughing.
“I brought my camera that has legs,” said Mr. Darling, “and I’ll take
your pictures.”
“We haven’t really a camera with legs, have we?” whispered Betsey.
“Down in my trunk,” said Cousin Margaret. “You begin to dress them in
picnic clothes, and I’ll get it. I meant to save it until I went home,
but I know you’d rather have it now.” She struggled to her feet, and
left Betsey tying a soft blue ribbon around Mrs. Delight’s fluffy head.
The camera proved to be a fascinating tin one, with a front part that
pulled in and out beautifully.
[Illustration: “TAKE UP A SANDWICH AND LOOK PLEASANT,” SAID MR. DARLING]
“Let’s hurry. I’m hungry already!” said Cousin Margaret, piling
everything into the little touring-car,—basket, dog, Dinah, and shawls,
helter-skelter. The car whizzed around the room a few times, and stopped
with a jolt at the picnic grounds.
“Spread the shawl on the ground about here,” directed Mrs. Delight,
pointing with the tip of her slipper to a little clearing. “Strew the
cushions around, and—”
“Open up the lunch!” interrupted Mr. Darling, setting up his camera. “I
don’t want to take my picture until the eating begins, and the sun is
about right now.”
“His old picture is just an excuse to eat”, remarked Mrs. Darling.
“Better give de ole dog sump’in to eat. Den he won’t be boddering so
much,” said Dinah.
“Well, let me see,—he’s had twelve cookies,” reflected Mrs. Delight.
“Give him three more and let him go over on that little hill to eat
them.”
“Can’t he hab apple dumpling?” asked Dinah anxiously.
“Give Dumpling Delight a delightful dumpling,” sang Mr. Darling. “Now,
all ready! Take up a sandwich, Mrs. D., and look pleasant!”
“Now let’s take them down to the lake,” suggested Betsey, poking the
last crumb under Dumpling’s muzzle.
When they reached the big, white-tiled bathroom, they found the bathtub
filled with water, a wharf across it, and a beautiful, dark green
sailboat floating gracefully up and down with the waves. And the waves
were so very lively that it seemed as if someone must be quite near.
Betsey glanced behind the door.
“O here’s the Mr. Wind that made the waves,” she said gaily, pulling Tom
down to the lake.
“Will somebody kindly notice the boat-house?” said Tom, kneeling down
good-naturedly.
There was a plank across the tub, wide enough to drive the little
motorcar along, and at the further end stood a tiny cardboard
ticket-window. Behind the little bars, made of toothpicks, stood a paper
ticket-man in a blue cap. And overhead was printed:
“CANOES $1.00 AN HOUR
SAILBOATS $5.00 AN HOUR”
“Isn’t that grand?” cried Cousin Margaret. “_We_ can afford the green
sailboat as long as the Delights are millionaires.”
Tom grinned, and watched the big girl and the little girl seat the happy
dolls safely in the big boat. And when it was finally untied and sailed
slowly off down the lake, it looked exactly like a real boat party of
sober grown-up people.
“It actually made me sort of hungry,” said Cousin Margaret at last, “to
see them eat at the picnic. Let’s go down and get a gingersnap.”
Tom grinned again. “Mother said when you were through playing, to come
to her upstairs piazza.”
With one accord the two girls carefully placed the picnic party safely
on the wharf and skipped for the piazza. There sat Mother, in her
prettiest company dress of soft white crêpe, smiling at nobody in
particular, but looking at the green wicker tea-table.
“Wow!” cried Tom. “If Dumpling were here, he’d say ‘Woof!’”
On the tea-table were pink plates of thin sandwiches, and a huge glass
pitcher of strawberry-ade with real strawberries floating in it.
“I wish you would pour, Margaret,” said Mother, smiling.
So Cousin Margaret, with a sly wink at Betsey, took her place very
sedately and poured the frosty glasses full, and passed the sandwiches.
And she did it so very well, and with such a grown-up air, that Betsey
wondered how in the world Cousin Margaret could be a little girl so
easily.