[Illustration]
It was all old Joe Wilkings's notion, every ounce of it: you see, there
never was anybody anywhere to compare with old Joe for "go." He _was_
goey, was old Joe--but I'll tell you.
Old Joe had been laid up with rheumatism and gout--ah! and asthma,
that's more--for a matter of eleven weeks; pretty bad he'd been too, and
everybody had said he would never pull through, being, you see,
ninety-seven, and a wooden leg in, that he'd lost in the Crimean War; at
least, not the wooden one, for he'd found that in the loft over the
stable years ago and taken to it.
Well, old Joe was sunning himself in his wicker chair in the front
garden, propped up with pillows and things; and he'd just finished his
beef-tea, when he begins to chuckle so, in an internal kind of manner,
that the last drop going down got startled and separated from the others
on ahead, and tried to turn back, and got in a panic, so that it nearly
choked old Joe, who got purple in the face, and had to be thumped.
He'd no sooner got right than he began to chuckle again, but luckily
that last drop had got further down now, and wedged in among its
comrades, so that it only heard the chuckles faintly, and kept quiet
this time.
"Whatever _is_ the matter, grandfather?" said Kate.
"Matter?" said old Joe. "Nothing's the matter. You don't understand the
ways of young 'uns, nor their methods neither. When youth chuckles, it's
a sign of good spirits and healthy. If you _must_ know, I was thinking
we might have a picnic--just like we used to have sixty years back--"
"Ah! that _would_ be nice," said Kate.
"Not _you_," said old Joe. "No young 'uns in it--they're too slow. No; I
and Georgie Worble, and his aunt Susan, and her mother, and--"
"Why," said Kate, "Mr. Worble hasn't walked from one room to another
without assistance for--"
"I know--seven years," said old Joe, "and he's seventy-six; and his aunt
Susan's seventy-one; and his aunt Susan's mother's ninety-two, and
bedridden--but I tell you what: it's all fudge and the undue influence
of imagination--that's the whole story. Georgie W. can get up if he
likes; and his aunt Susan's bronchitis and paralytic strokes are all
fudge; and as to her mother being bedridden--pooh! we'll just see; and
if she doesn't dance just as well as me----"
"Dance!"
"Ah--we'll have a dance, of course--we _used_ to have a dance always;
finished up with a dance. I've been thinking--and I don't mind telling
you--that this imagination and fudge is making us all old before our
time; and I'm not going to stand any more of it, and that's all about
it."
With that old Joe Wilkings waved his stick and jumped up--that's what he
did; and he ninety-seven years and nine weeks! Talk about greyness!
Kate stared, and all the neighbours stared, and Mrs. Widdlcombe's pug
next door stared so that its eyes nearly fell out, as old Joe trotted
quickly out of the garden and down the street, and trotted up Mr.
Worble's steps, and tapped at the door like a boy that means to run
away; and when they opened the door, up he ran to old Worble's room, and
toddled in.
[Illustration: "OLD JOE TROTTED QUICKLY OUT OF THE GARDEN."]
And now comes in old Joe Wilkings's other remarkable quality--his
influence over others. It was all the outcome of his wonderful
determination--the influence of mind over matter. He could bamboozle
anyone, could Joe--it was for all the world like magic.
Old Worble was drooping over the fire in his big chair, into which he
had been put hours before.
What did old Joe do but go right up and slap him on the back in that
hearty way that old Worble went as near screaming as his weak state
would let him!
"Get up, Georgie Worble," shouted old Joe," and come round with me to
Sam Waggs to arrange about that picnic!"