So Randy untied the package and found a lot of huge pink and white peppermints, which Prue at once commenced to help her eat. Helen pronounced them to be very nice, but as she never liked peppermints, politely excused herself from eating them by saying that she must save her appetite for the spread at the picnic.
Along the dusty road they jogged, Randy never minding the heat, Helen feeling it intensely, even with the protection of her dainty ruffled parasol. Sometimes they rode under overhanging boughs which made long, cool shadows across the road, then over a sunny, dusty stretch with only a fringe of daisies by the roadside and a chain of hazy blue hills in the distance.
On the Way to the Picnic
The occupants of one wagon would chat merrily with those in the wagon behind them; and so, with sunny and shady roads, with laughter and song, they at last reached the grove.
The horses were unharnessed and tethered with a rope long enough to permit them to graze. The baskets of lunch were all placed in one large wagon which stood in the shade of a huge tree. Then intimate friends and neighbors formed little groups and sat under the trees and chatted together, delighted to have this little outing. The children played hide-and-seek behind the tree trunks, and those farmers who had left their work to enjoy the holiday talked over their crops, their cattle, and the price of produce when disposed of at the village store.
The Babson girls were each trying in an awkward fashion to win favor in the eyes of Reuben Jenks, who Phœbe Small declared “had a hull basketful of maple sugar stored away under the seat of his father’s wagon.”