To add to this, great branches of leaves were thrust behind sofas or tables. Some leaves were green and some had already turned to autumn tints, so it was almost like a real wood.
Chairs and tables had been taken away, and to sit on, the children found some big logs of wood, like trunks of fallen trees, and some large, flat stones.
James, the coachman, and Thomas, the gardener, had been working at the room all the time the children were making candy, and even now they were peeping in at the windows to see the young people enjoying themselves.
In the middle of the room was what looked like a big, flat rock. As it was covered with an old, gray rubber waterproof, it was probably an artificial rock, but it answered its purpose. Real stones, twigs, leaves, and even clumps of moss were all about on the green floor cloth, and overhead were the children's birds, which had been brought down from the playroom, and which sang gaily in honor of the occasion.
"Isn't it wonderful?" said Dorothy Adams, a little awed at the transformation scene; "how did you do it, Mr. Maynard?"
"I told my children," he replied, "that since they couldn't go to the picnic the picnic should come to them, and here it is."
Rosy Posy discovered a pile of hay in a corner, and plumped herself down upon it, still holding tightly her beloved Boffin.
Then James and Thomas came in carrying big, covered baskets.
"The picnic! The picnic!" cried Rosy Posy, to whom a picnic meant chiefly the feast thereof.
After the baskets were deposited on the ground near the flat rock, James and Thomas went away, and none of the servants remained but Nurse Nannie, who would have gone to the picnic in the wood, and who was needed to look after little Rosamond.