Part 45

"Why, my dears!" she exclaimed, quite overcome. "Oh, how pretty! and how did you think of it?"

"It was Polly Pepper who thought of it," said a parlor boarder. And Polly, blushing rosy red, a new girl as she was, was led up, and Miss Salisbury set a kiss on her round cheek. Polly never forgot how happy she was that day.

And afterward, when the girls were busy in various little groups, Miss Salisbury had beckoned Polly to her side where she reposed on her throne; for it was beautiful and stately enough for one, and quite worthy of royalty itself.

"Polly," said Miss Salisbury, in quite a low tone only fitted for Polly's ear, "do you think you could find a seat, like this beautiful one of mine, for sister? I should really enjoy it so very much more if sister had one also and she would prize the attention very much, Polly, from you girls."

So Polly, fired with the laudable desire to find one exactly like Miss Salisbury's very own, for "sister," at last was just so fortunate. So that was also flower-trimmed, with trailing vines to finish it off with. And every year, the first thing the girls did after dancing around a bit to rest their feet after the long drive, was to set to work to collect the vines and ferns, and decorate the two stone seats.

Then with quite a good deal of pomp and ceremony, the girls escorted the two teachers to their thrones, unpacked the little bag of books and magazines, and arranged some cushions and shawls about them. And then Miss Salisbury always said with a sweet smile, "Thank you, my dears." And Miss Anstice said the same; although, try as hard as she would, her smile never could be sweet like Miss Salisbury's. And then off the girls would go to "exploring," as they called rambling in the Glen, the under-teachers taking them in charge.

And now Polly Pepper ran to her hamper, which she saw in a pile where the baskets had been heaped by the maids. "There it is," pointing to the tag sticking up; "oh, help me,--not you, Alexia," as Alexia ran up as usual, to help forward any undertaking Polly Pepper might have in mind. "Dear me! you might almost kill your arm."

"This old arm," cried Alexia,--"I'm sick and tired of it."

"Well, you better take care of it," cried Polly gaily, "and then it won't be an old arm, but it will be as good as brand new, Alexia. Oh, one of the other girls, do come and help me."

"What do you want, Polly?" cried some of the girls, racing up to her.

"I want to get out my hamper," said Polly, pointing to the tag sticking up "high and dry" amid a stack of baskets. "My tin botany case is in it; I must get the ferns I promised to bring home to Phronsie."

"You stand away, all of ye." The old man Kimball, his horses out of the shafts, and well taken care of, now drew near, and swept off with his ample hand the bunch of girls. "Which one is't? Oh, that ere one with the tag," answering his own question. "Well, now, I'll git that for you jest as easy as rolling off a log. One--two--three--there she comes!"

And, one, two, three, and here she did come! And in a trice Polly had the cover up, and out flew the little green tin botany case; and within it being an iron spoon and little trowel, off flew Polly on happy feet to unearth the treasures that were to beautify Phronsie's little garden; a bunch of girls following to see the operation.

The magazine fell idly to the lap of Miss Salisbury. She sat dreamily back, resting her head against the boulder. "Sister," she said softly, "this is a happy custom we have started. I trust nothing will ever prevent our holding our annual picnic."

"Yes," said Miss Anstice absently. She was very much interested in a story she had begun, and she hated to have Miss Salisbury say a word. Although she had on a stiff, immaculate white gown (for on such a festival as the annual picnic, she always dressed in white), still she was not in the same sweet temper that the principal was enjoying, and she held her thumb and finger in the place.

"Yes, the picnic is very good," she said, feeling that something was expected of her, "if we didn't get worms and bugs crawling over the tablecloth."

"Oh sister!" exclaimed Miss Salisbury, quite shocked; "it is no time to think of worms and bugs, I'm sure, on such a beautiful occasion as this."

"Still, they are here," said Miss Anstice; "there is one now," looking down at the hem of her gown. "Ugh! go right away," slapping her book at it. Then her thumb and finger flew out, and she lost her place, and the bug ran away, and she added somewhat tartly, "For my own taste, I should really prefer a festival in the schoolroom."

When it came to spreading the feast, not one of the maids was allowed to serve. They could unpack the hampers, and hand the dishes and eatables to the girls, and run, and wait, and tend. But no one but the Salisbury girls must lay the snowy cloth, dress it up with flowers, with little knots at the corners, concealing the big stones that kept the tablecloth from flapping in any chance wind. And then they all took turns in setting the feast forth, and arranging all the goodies. And some one had to make the coffee, with a little coterie to help her. The crotched sticks were always there just as they had left them where they hung the kettle over the stone oven. And old man Kimball set one of the younger drivers to make the fire--and a rousing good one it was--where they roasted their corn and potatoes. And another one brought up the water from the spring that bubbled up clear and cold in the rocky ravine, so when all was ready it was a feast fit for a king, or rather the queen and her royal subjects.

And then Miss Salisbury and "sister" were escorted with all appropriate ceremonies down from their stone thrones,--and one had the head and the other the foot of the feast spread on the grass,--to sit on a stone draped with a shawl, and to be waited on lovingly by the girls, who threw themselves down on the ground, surrounding the snowy cloth. And they sat two or three rows deep; and those in the front row had to pass the things, of course, to the back-row girls.

"Oh, you're spilling jelly-cake crumbs all down my back," proclaimed Alexia, with a shudder. "Rose Harding," looking at the girl just back of her, "can't you eat over your own lap, pray tell?"

"Well, give me your seat then," suggested Rose, with another good bite from the crumbly piece in her hand, "if you don't like what the back-row girls do."

"No, I'm not going to," said Alexia, "catch me! but you needn't eat all over my hair. Ugh! there goes another," and she squirmed so she knocked off the things in her neighbor's as well as her own lap.

"Oh dear me! Keep your feet to yourself, Alexia Rhys," said the neighbor; "there goes my egg in all the dirt--and I'd just gotten it shelled."

"All the easier for the bugs," observed Alexia sweetly; "see, they're already appropriating it. And I guess you'd kick and wriggle if some one put jelly cake down your back," returning to her grievance,--"slippery, slimy jelly cake," twisting again at the remembrance.

"Well, you needn't kick the things out of my lap. I didn't put the jelly cake down your back," retorted the neighbor, beginning to shell her second egg.

Oh dear! was ever anything quite so good in all this world as that feast at the "Salisbury picnic!"

"I didn't suppose those baskets could bring out so much, nor such perfectly delicious things," sighed Polly Pepper, in an interval of rest before attacking one of Philena's chocolate cakes.