Sure enough, as soon as he saw them coming, Pablo sprang to open the gate, smiling and showing his white teeth as they passed through, while old Aaron took off his nondescript hat and bowed to the ground. “Howdy, Pablo! Howdy, Unc’ Aaron,” cried Joanne standing up and waving to the two.
But the pair were soon left behind and the car sped on to draw up presently outside a little rustic fence beyond which was the bungalow. Joanne was the first to hop out, stumbling over her grandfather’s feet in her eagerness to reach the ground. Once there she danced about in sheer delight, treading the new, up-springing grass beneath her feet, exclaiming, questioning, and finally hugging her cousin as he came forward. “Oh, isn’t it the dearest spot?” she cried. “Look at that shining river! Listen to the rapids! Oh, there is a bird! Where are the wild violets? Oh, there’s a canal boat. Are we going to eat here or up at the farmhouse?”
“For an animated visitor commend me to Joanne,” said her cousin, going up the steps to open the door. “Which would you rather do, Jo, have a picnic supper here or go to Mrs. Clover’s?”
Joanne considered this for a moment, hesitating between the prospect of Mrs. Clover’s abundant table heaped with products of the farm, and the simpler fare the picnic supper suggested. “I tell you what I think would be best,” she finally decided, “to have our breakfast and supper here and our dinner at Mrs. Clover’s.”
“Wise old owl,” declared Cousin Ned. “I’ll look over the larder and see what we can have.”
Joanne followed him to the kitchen where he opened a cupboard and looked over the contents. “Let me see,” he said; “here’s a lot of canned stuff and groceries. I tell you what, Jo, I think we’d better have ham and eggs with some griddle cakes. Unc’ Aaron is a jim dandy at baking griddle cakes.”
“But that isn’t picnicking,” said Joanne.
“No more is it, but it is the kind of picnicking we generally have up here, for I’ll have you to know that nobody is a better cook than old Aaron. How does the bill of fare strike you?”
“I think it is great,” replied Joanne, “and I am so hungry I could eat it raw.”
“Good! I’ll tell Aaron to give us a double supply. Here he comes now and Pablo with him. That boy is Unc’ Aaron’s shadow. They have taken the greatest shine to each other, and Pablo is beginning to talk the darkiest English you ever heard.”