"Have you got everything, Winnie?" asked Helen anxiously, as they met
half-way between Winnie's gate and Helen's, about ten o'clock on
Saturday morning.
"I think so," answered Helen a little uncertainly. "Marie told me to
bring a pound of bacon--that's all. What are you bringing?"
"Two dozen humble, necessary rolls," said Winnie, "and salt. I had to
buy a knife, because Tom lost his yesterday. He loses it regularly, once
a week."
"Pity he picked out to-day," commented Helen as they fell into step. "Do
you suppose we'll be late?"
"Mercy, no!" said Winnie, "We're more likely to be the first!"
"We won't be"--and Helen laughed--"Louise is always the earliest
everywhere. She says she's lost more perfectly good time being punctual
than any other way she knows."
"Well, we'll be ahead of Edith, anyway," Winnie remarked cheerfully. She
adjusted the two dozen rolls more easily, for that many rolls, when you
have far to carry them, have a way of feeling lumpy.
"It's a good thing it isn't far to the trolley!" said Helen. "I didn't
know how nubbly this bacon was going to be."
"So are my rolls! Let's trade," suggested Winnie brilliantly.
"Almost human intelligence!" gibed Helen; so they traded, and each found
her load much more comfortable than the one she'd had before--which says
a good deal for the powers of imagination.
"Don't let's sit up on the benches of that trolley-station--they're the
most uncomfortable things in town!" objected Winnie. "Come on, Helen.
Let's be real sports, and sit on the grass."
"I do believe we're the first!" was Helen's sole reply, as she eyed the
little trolley-station worriedly.
"Oh, we _can't_ be," said Winnie confidently, "unless Louise has died or
gone West. If she's in the land of the living I know she's here. Once I
asked the crowd over in the afternoon to make fudge, and she got there
just as I was in the middle of sweeping out the kitchen, at one
o'clock!"
"You never told me about that!" reminded Helen interestedly. "What did
you do?"
Winona laughed. "Do! I didn't have to do anything. Louise did the
doing--she took the broom out of my hands, and sent me flying upstairs
to dress, and did the sweeping herself! Oh, and there she is!
Lou-i-ise!"
"Here I am!" Louise answered placidly, rising up in her white blouse
from the very centre of the field by the station, and looking, with the
sun shining on her brilliant hair, like a large white blossom with a red
centre. "I got here long ago. Come on over here on the grass. It's
horrid on the benches, and I'm making friends with the nicest little
brown hoptoad."
"Ugh--no!" shuddered Helen, who did not care for hoptoads. "Here's
Nannie, with Adelaide and Dorothy."
So the girls ran over to meet their Guardian, and the hoptoad was
averted. Just behind the newcomers arrived Marie and Edith, Marie
dignified and neat, as usual, in her dark-blue sailor-suit, and Edith in
a fluffy pink dress that did not look as if it could stand much
strenuous picnicking.
"Did you bring the rolls, Winnie?" called Marie.
"Certainly I did, and Helen has the bacon."
"And I have the hard-boiled eggs," said Louise gayly, "and here is the
trolley--it sounds like a French lesson. We mount the trolley that we
may go to the picnic. Come on, girls."
The girls were bound for a little wood, five miles out, where nearly
everybody that went on picnics had them. They sat down on a rear seat in
a giggling row, while Marie went ruthlessly on counting supplies.
"Adelaide, did you bring condensed cream? And who was to bring
cake--were you, Edith? Dorothy has knives and forks and a kettle."
"Cake?" from Edith blankly. "Why, no, Marie, I brought eggs. I thought
you said to--I thought we were going to fry them with the bacon."
A howl of laughter went up, in which Edith joined in spite of herself.
"How did you think we'd do it, dear?" Mrs. Bryan asked at last, trying
to straighten her face.
"That's easy," promised Louise cheerfully. "You just peel the eggs
carefully, throw away the shell, poke the raw egg on the point of a
stick, and toast it over the fire till it's all gone."
Edith giggled. "Well, I don't see how you could expect me to get it
straight over the 'phone, anyway. If I'd known you expected me to bring
a cake--I don't believe it was me you--ow!"
For a lurch of the car had sent the satchel in which Dorothy had the
knives and forks smashing against the raw eggs they had been talking
about; and as Stevenson said of the cow when they asked him the immortal
question about the cow meeting the locomotive--it was "so much the worse
for the eggs." They broke promptly, and one fatal corner of the bag that
held them began to leak on Edith's pretty pink dress.
Dorothy tried to repair damages with her handkerchief, but there was a
yellow smear on the front breadth, for all they could do. As it proved
afterwards, it was poor Edith's hoodoo day.
"Poor little eggs!" Louise lamented pensively. "Nobody's wasting any
sympathy on them--and they're all broken up."
"Oh, what an awful pun!" cried everybody; but Louise went on. She lifted
the limp bag gingerly, and looked at it as if she was very sorry for it
indeed.
"Let's serenade the eggs, girls!" she said. "Just follow me!"
And the people in the front seats of the trolley heard a hearty chorus
of young voices ringing out from the two back seats:
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye--
Don't cry, little eggs, don't cry;
Although you break for our sweet sake
While we're marching away upon a picnic--
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye--
By and bye, little eggs, by and bye
We'll be eating up our lunch, but we won't have
you to crunch--
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye!
The girls were in fits of laughter by the time they had done singing
Louise's doggerel.
"And yet--it really is silly!" said Marie consideringly when they were
done.
"Don't insult my beautiful, high-brow pome," said Louise cheerfully,
hopping out of the trolley, for they were at their journey's end. "Who's
going to fetch water? Don't all speak at once."
"We'll get the water," Edith promised, speaking for herself and Marie.
"It won't be as hard on my poor clothes as frying bacon."
So the two of them took the kettle and started off.
The place the girls had chosen for their bacon-bat was a little wood at
the end of the trolley-line, which possessed a spring, and an open,
sheltered sort of ravine where picnickers were wont to build their
fires. The girls sauntered along in ones and twos till they reached this
ravine, set down the things they carried, and scattered to look for
sticks.
Winnie and Helen, peacefully gathering wood as they went, suddenly heard
screams, and dropped their wood and ran toward the sound.
"It's--it's near the spring," panted Winona to Helen. "Oh, I do hope
nobody's fallen in!"
They arrived at the spring just as Adelaide Hughes and Mrs. Bryan
reached it from another direction.
Now the spring was not an untouched, wildwood affair at all. The
authorities had done things to it which made its water a great deal
better for drinking purposes, but much less picturesque--and deeper. Its
bed had been widened and lined with concrete, and barred across at
intervals, whether to keep the earth back or the concrete solid nobody
but the Town Council that had done it knew. And although falling between
the bars didn't seem very easy even for a slim, small girl, Edith seemed
to have accomplished it. She was wedged between two of the bars across
the water, and what was more, she had managed to drag Marie Hunter down
with her in her fall. Marie only had one foot in the water, and she was
struggling to get out, though the force of the stream was making it hard
for her, for the pool was about four feet deep. But Edith, wedged
between the bars, was devoting her energies exclusively to screaming for
help. The reason was apparent when the rescuing parties came closer. One
arm was caught down beside her, so that she could balance herself, but
not get out. Winona took one look at the situation.
"We'll get Edith out!" she called to Mrs. Bryan. "Can you manage Marie?"
Mrs. Bryan was a slender, delicate-looking woman, but she was stronger
than Winona realized.
"Certainly!" she encouraged. And Helen and Winona began eagerly trying
to extricate their friend.
It was impossible to reach Edith and take her free hand to pull her out
by--the bank each side the sluice, or stream, or whatever you choose to
call it, was too deep. Winnie thought a minute. Then she took off the
long, strong blue silk scarf she wore in a big bow at the neck of her
blouse.
"Can I have yours, too, Helen?" And Helen handed hers over promptly.
Either alone was long enough, but Winnie wanted the two to twist
together, for fear one would not bear Edith's weight.
"Can you get around to the other side with your end, Helen?" she said.
Helen scurried around up back of the source. Then she and Winnie, each
holding an end of the scarf-rope, walked down either side of the stream
till they were parallel with Edith. They knelt down and lowered the
scarf till Edith could slip her free arm over it, and pull herself up.
With its aid as a brace, she managed to free the caught arm, jammed
against her side. After that it was easy enough, and in a few minutes
she extricated herself entirely, and half dragged, half pulled herself
up the steep bank. By the time the girls were done pulling her out she
and they were pretty well worn out, and they dropped on the grass, Helen
and Edith on one side and Winnie on the other, and took time to find
their lost breaths.
Mrs. Bryan and Marie came up to them now--getting Marie out of the water
had been a fairly easy matter--and made the others get up.
"Edith and Marie must go straight and get off their wet things!" the
older woman advised. "And Adelaide's feet are wet, too."
"Where had we better go?" asked Marie, calm as ever, though nobody could
have been much wetter than she was up to her waist.
"Old Mary's is the quickest place," said Mrs. Bryan. "Hurry, now--run,
or you'll catch cold. Adelaide and I are coming, too."
The whole party--for Winnie and Helen wanted to see the finish--set off
at a brisk trot for Old Mary's.
Old Mary was an elderly Irishwoman who earned her living mostly by
taking in washing, but also by selling ginger-ale, cookies and
sandwiches to such picnics and automobile parties as came her way. Her
little house was close to the picnic-woods.
"They're sure of a good fire to change their things by, that's one
comfort," said Winnie to Helen as they ran along in the rear of their
dripping friends.
"Yes, but----" Helen began to laugh. "What are they going to change to?"
she inquired. "We didn't any of us bring our trunks--it isn't done on
picnics!"
"They'll have to go to bed!" was Winnie's solution, and they both began
to laugh again.
"It's a shame, though, to have them miss all the picnic," said Winnie,
sobering down.
But when they arrived on the scene they found the victims hadn't the
least intention of going to bed.
"Sure, I'll iron their bits of clothes dry," said Old Mary, "an' who'll
be the worse if they borry a few clothes from me ironin' horse till the
others are dry? The people that own 'em 'd never mind--I've an elegant
trade in the washin' of clothes, an' there's plenty to fit yez all on
the horse."
It was not half-past eleven yet, and the girls would not be going home
for some hours, so there would be plenty of time for the things to dry.
So Edith and Marie accepted Old Mary's offer on the spot. Among the
various family washes that she was doing were some things of their own.
They managed to pick out enough dry clothing for all their needs--all
but dresses. There were shirtwaists and blouses galore, but it was too
early for many wash-skirts to be going to the laundress.
However, there was an ample red cotton wrapper, the property of Mary
herself, which at least covered Marie. But Edith was little, and there
was nothing which came near fitting her but an expensively trimmed white
organdy party-dress, which Mary said frankly she did not feel she could
lend.
"What shall I do?" asked Edith in desperation. "I can't sit here all day
till my dress dries!"
"I dunno, darlin'. Sure 'tis too bad. Wait a minute, though." She
hurried out of the room, and presently returned waving something blue.
"If ye wouldn't mind these overalls, now," she said, "they're just
washed an' ironed for little James Dempsey to wear. An' the beauty of
overalls is they fit anybody."
"_Overalls!_" said Edith mournfully.
But overalls were better than a day in bed, and the end of it was, that
out of Old Mary's hospitable cottage walked a tall Irishwoman with two
long braids over her trailing red wrapper, and a small Irishman with
yellow curls over very baggy and much turned-up overalls, instead of
neat Marie and fluffy Edith. They and Adelaide had put on dry stockings,
and had many thicknesses of newspaper on their shoes till they could get
to the fire to dry them.
"Good-mornin'!" said Marie cheerfully to her astonished friends, as she
sailed majestically up to the freshly-made fire.
"Sure we're the world-renowned vaudeville team, Hunter an' Hillis."
"Just back from doing their justly-famous diving stunt!" added Winnie.
"Better come near the fire, girls, and try to get your shoes dry."
The fire, which the rest had made during the "diving-stunt," was burning
beautifully. The girls laid down waterproofs and blankets, and disposed
themselves comfortably around it, for the fire-makers were tired, and
the rescuers and rescued were particularly glad to lie down and be warm
and dry and limp.
"Two long hours to dinner-time!" from Winnie presently in a very sad
voice. "I don't feel as if I could stand it."
"Nor I!" several voices chimed in.
"Then why do you?" suggested Mrs. Bryan sensibly. "If everybody's hungry
we might as well have dinner now!"