A sudden accession of courage seized me, and I caught it very gently. It was not withdrawn, and my heart went up with a bound, though she was answering Ben.
"You'll come home with us now. Coax her, Norme. Ther' was the grandest chicken potpie for dinner, an' some left, an' I picked berries for Mr. Kinzie, an' ther's lots of 'em left. They're lickin' good."
"Don't be so economical with your letters, Ben," she returned drolly. "And what is lickin' good?"
"As if any one with half a wit couldn't guess!" returned Ben with a very red face. "Why, when you want to lick off your lips and your fingers, maybe," emphasizing the words he seldom took the trouble to pronounce correctly. "And—the batter left in the cake dish, though Chris always seizes on that now."
She gave a soft ripple of laughter.
"Say—" Bessie Hale pushed in front of us, a big, energetic girl with reddish hair and flaming red cheeks, fanning herself with the skirt of her frock—"ther's goin' to be a frolic out in the woods if they can git things and folks together. Take your dinner an' swings put up, an' race an' run, an' have a good time. I heard Mis' Eastman talkin'. It'll be all planned out by next Sunday an' word give out. All the boys an' girls an' mothers an' gran' ma'ams, and jes' to have fun all day long."
I had heard a whisper of it, and some dissenting voices among the stricter ones as to whether it really was religious. Camp meetings had been held, but a picnic!
All the group of children talked at once and kept going on in a huddle until a few discovered they were in the wrong direction, and then thinned out reluctantly. We kept so close to Ruth that, in a manner, we impelled her to turn up our street, though it looked not much more than a lane.
Mother sat out on the bench in a white sort of short gown with a ruffle about the neck, and a rather coarse white muslin apron, but she looked cool and sweet.
"Oh, Ruth," she exclaimed. "I was afraid you were sick or something. What happened?"