“Down on Rod! Why for?”
“Only because he’s too fond of little Betty.”
“Who is? Rod or your father?”
Betty laughed. “Both of ’em! But, I mean, Dad is down on any young man who’s specially interested in me.”
“Oh, I know. So is my father. I don’t let it bother me. Fathers are all like that. Most of the girls I know say so.”
“Yes, I know it’s a fatherly failing; but Dad is especially rabid on the subject. There you take the basket of cakes and I’ll carry the tray.”
It was nearly five o’clock when the picnic party was finally ready to start for its junketing.
Mrs Blackwood had arrived, bringing her two promised young men, Ted Landon and John Clark.
Rearrayed in picnic garb, the house guests were ready for the fun, and the Frederick Varians were getting together and looking over the baskets of supper.
“If we could only have kept one helper by us,” bemoaned Minna Varian, her speech accompanied by her usual wringing of her distressed hands. “I begged Kelly to stay but he wouldn’t.”