THE PICNIC
Jud went off whistling, and soon after they had finished breakfast the
four little Blossoms saw a tall, stout man drive in. His horse was a
beautiful, shiny black animal, evidently groomed and tended with great
care.
"That's Mr. Sparks," Linda informed the children.
The children ran out to see the calves being herded together, and Jud
embarrassed Meg and Bobby very much by introducing them as the little
people who had heard the calves in the night and gone downstairs after
them.
"Meg heard 'em," said Bobby modestly.
"Well, well, well!" almost shouted Mr. Sparks, though that was his
natural way of talking; he couldn't speak low. "I do certainly admire
a girl with spunk enough to get up in the middle of the night and
chase live-stock. You ought to be a farmer's daughter."
He paused and smiled at the children. It was impossible not to like
this bluff, red-faced man with the loud voice.
"I had intended to give a little reward to the person who did me this
service," went on Mr. Sparks. "Finding there's two of 'em, rightly I
should double it. But Mrs. Hayward, I hear, doesn't want you to take
money--good notion, too, in a way, I guess. Suppose I give you one of
these little calves now. How would that do?"
"One of those darling little calves?" cried Meg.
"To keep?" echoed Bobby.
"To keep, of course," assented Mr. Sparks. "You pick the critter you
want, and I guess Mrs. Hayward will pasture it for you."
"Sure she will," promised Jud, who was standing by with a delighted
smile. "And after you go back to Oak Hill, I'll take good care of it
and next summer you can come up and see your own cow."
Aunt Polly and Linda and Peter all had to be summoned, and then, with
every one's help and advice, not forgetting the twins', Bobby and Meg
selected a handsome cream-colored little calf that Mr. Sparks assured
them would grow into a Jersey bossy cow like Mrs. Sally Sweet.
"What you going to call her?" he asked curiously.
Bobby looked at Meg.
"You name her," he suggested.
"All right. Let's call her Carlotta," said Meg promptly. "I think that
is the loveliest name." So Carlotta the calf was named.
Carlotta did not seem to mind at all when her friends and relatives
were driven off by Mr. Sparks. Apparently she liked Brookside farm and
was glad she was going to live there.
"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Sparks," said Meg and Bobby for the
twentieth time, as he drove out of the gateway after his recovered
property.
A day or two after the finding of the calves Aunt Polly came out on
the porch where the children were cutting up an old fashion magazine
for paper dolls, and sat down in the porch swing with her mending
basket.
"Do you know, honeys," she began, "if we don't have our picnic pretty
soon, vacation is going to be over. Though what I am to do this long
cold winter without any children in my house I don't see."
"Bobby and I have to go to school," said Meg. "But Dot and Twaddles
could stay."
"We're going to school, too," declared Dot, with such a positive snap
of her blunt scissors that she snipped off a paper doll's head.
"Of course," affirmed Twaddles, with maddening serenity.
"Well, I think we'd better talk about the picnic," interposed Aunt
Polly. "When to have it, and whom to invite and what to have to eat."
"Sandwiches!" cried Meg, answering the last question first. "Let me
help make 'em, Auntie?"
"Oh, of course," promised Aunt Polly. "And it seems to me that we had
better go to-morrow. This spell of fine dry weather can't last
forever, and when the rain does come we may have a week of it."
"Can Jud come?" asked Bobby.
"Yes, indeed," answered Aunt Polly, who had the happiest way of
saying "yes" to nearly everything her nephews and nieces asked of
her.
"And Linda?" asked Twaddles.
"Linda, too," agreed Aunt Polly.
"Where'll we go?" demanded the practical Dot.
"Over in the woods," said Aunt Polly.
"Let's get ready," proposed Meg, who knew a picnic meant work
beforehand.
Every one scattered, Meg and Aunt Polly to the kitchen to help Linda
pack the lunch boxes, as far as they could be packed the day before
the picnic; Bobby to tell Jud that he was expected; and Dot and
Twaddles on an errand of their own.
They were gone some time, and when they returned acted so mysteriously
that Meg was quite out of patience.
"Be sure you have enough sandwiches," advised Twaddles, swinging on
the kitchen screen door, a thing which always made Linda nervous.
"There might somebody come at the last minute," chimed in Dot.
Then she and Twaddles giggled.
"Those silly children," said Meg with her most grown-up air. "I
suppose they think they sound funny."
Dot and Twaddles apparently did not care how they sounded, and they
stayed in the kitchen, stirring and tasting, till Linda flatly
declared that she'd put pepper in the pressed chicken instead of salt
if they didn't stop bothering her. Jud came just at that moment and
asked the twins to help him see if the new catch on the chicken yard
gate worked all right, and the two little torments readily followed
him.
Nearly everything was ready for the picnic by that night, and every
one went to bed hoping for a clear day.
"The sun is shining, Meg! Meg, get up!" shouted Dot early the next
morning. "We're going on a picnic!"
She made so much noise that she woke up Aunt Polly and Linda, as well
as Bobby and Twaddles, and then, of course, there was nothing to do
but to get up and have breakfast.
The four little Blossoms found Peter and Jud busy in the barn, putting
clean straw in the bottom of the box wagon that was used to haul logs
and brushwood in in the winter.
"Be ready in two jerks of a lamb's tail," announced Peter, using one
of his favorite expressions.
When the heavy wagon rattled up to the front door, the four little
Blossoms were already sitting on the straw. Aunt Polly and Linda were
helped in by Jud, who also lifted in the boxes of lunch, and then
Peter clucked to Jerry and Terry, and away they went, over the meadow
into the woods, and up the narrow wagon road.
"See, isn't this pretty?" asked Aunt Polly, as the road suddenly came
out into a clearing, and they saw the brook a bit ahead of them.
They all jumped out, and Peter turned the horses' heads toward home at
once. He was anxious to get back to his work, but was coming for them
at half-past four.
"We must get some flowers for the table," said Aunt Polly, after she
had helped Linda put the boxes in a low branch of a tree where nothing
could touch them. "Come, children, let's get a bouquet of flowers."
They gathered wild flowers, and also found some late blackberries
which, placed on a wide green leaf as a dish, looked very pretty.
Linda spread a white cloth presently, and was opening the boxes when
the sound of a rattling wagon attracted her attention.
"If that doesn't sound like Mr. Sparks' old rig," said Linda
curiously.
"It is," announced Dot complacently. "Twaddles and me asked him to
come to the picnic, 'cause he gave Meg and Bobby the calf."
Although Aunt Polly murmured helplessly, "what will those children do
next!" they were all very glad to see Mr. Sparks when he finally
rattled up. And there was plenty of everything to eat--trust Aunt
Polly and Linda for that.
Mr. Sparks brought a freezer of ice-cream with him, which his wife had
made, as his contribution to the picnic, and though he had to go as
soon as lunch was over, he assured the children that he had had a
splendid time.
When the crumbs were all scattered for the birds, and the papers and
boxes neatly buried, except one box of sandwiches they had not eaten
and which they saved for Peter, Aunt Polly declared that she wanted to
sit quietly for an hour and knit. Linda, too, had her embroidery, but
the four little Blossoms wanted to go wading.
"I'll watch 'em," promised Jud.
So Meg and Bobby and Dot and Twaddles took off their shoes and
stockings and pattered over the pine needles that covered the grass
down to the edge of the brook.
Bobby dipped one foot in to test the water.
"Wow, it's cold!" he said. "Just like ice, Jud."
"You won't mind it after you've been in a little while," Jud assured
him. "Now when I say come out, you're to come. No teasing to stay in!
Is that agreed?"
"All right," promised the four little Blossoms. "Oh, ow! isn't it
cold?"