“Well, you know my father’s grandfather and grandmother started out West from New England early in the game. I guess they got tired of hearing Hugh’s great-grandfather tell about the doings of his great-grandfather who came over in the Mayflower! Well, they traveled the way the pioneers did, in a prairie schooner, you know—a big wagon drawn by oxen, with all their furniture and ploughs and pigs and chickens aboard; besides a lot of kids. That’s how they went all the way across the country; because there weren’t any railroads, of course. They had a terrible time. There were wolves and Indians, and floods on the great rivers. One time the food gave out. And they couldn’t find water for days. Some of them were taken sick with a fever, and the littlest baby died. They buried him out in the middle of the prairie, and nobody knows where his grave is to this day. But I think it was somewhere near Chicago, Anne.”
“Well?” said Nancy. “Is that all the story?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Dick pretending to be hurt. “It’s the history of my patriotic ancestors.”
“But what’s the point?” asked Victor poking Reddy in the ribs.
“The point is,” said Dick, getting to his feet ready to make a hasty retreat to his tent—“that I am descended from that little kid who died!”
The uproar that followed this anti-climax ended the story-telling for the evening. Nelly Sackett refused to let Reddy go home with her after such a fake ending to a real story. Instead it was Victor who had that honor, and the two departed under one umbrella to the tune of “Seeing Nelly Home,” chorused by the Round Robin and derisive Dick.
CHAPTER VII
SAL SEGUIN
It was a week before Sal Seguin kept her promise, or threat, to bring her baskets to Round Robin.
One hot afternoon Anne Poole had retired to the Fairy Ring, presumably to write letters. Beverly, who tried to give Anne full possession of the tent as often as she wished it, was swinging in the Gloucester hammock on the piazza, with Nancy and Gilda. They were all lazily watching Cicely who was arranging the flowers she had gathered that morning in her daily “prowl.”