"Not so very. We've often been there. You go get your lunch and put it in a tin bucket, or a basket, so you will have something to carry your blackberries home in. We'll wait here for you if you hurry."
Much excited, Marian ran back to the house. This came of having schoolmates. A picnic this very first Saturday, and the blackberrying thrown in. She set down the little basket on the kitchen table and exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. Hunt, what do you think? Marjorie Stone and Alice Evans want me to go on a picnic with them. They're going blackberrying and it isn't very far, but I'll have to take my lunch in something to gather the blackberries in, and——" She paused for breath.
"Just those two going?"
"No, Alice's big sister, Stella, is going."
"Oh!" Mrs. Hunt nodded her head in a satisfied way.
"Do you think I would have time to go home?" Marian asked anxiously. "They said they were in a great hurry."
"What is the use of your going home? I can put you up a little lunch easy as not. Here's these cookies, and I've baked turnovers, too. There's a basket of nice good apples in the pantry; you can have one of those, and I'll whisk together some sandwiches in the shake of a sheep's tail."
"Oh, that would be perfectly fine. Do you think grandma would mind?"
"She oughtn't to. She's done the same thing lots of times herself."
"Oh!" This fact certainly set things all right, for surely no grown person could be so absolutely unjust and inconsistent as to blame a child for doing what she had done, not once, but often herself. So Marian was quite assured, and smilingly watched Mrs. Hunt's kind hands pack a lunch for her.