The girls, each one, had intended to suggest eating lunch the very first minute they got out of the car; but they couldn’t let a challenge like that go by. Off they raced, Alice leading easily as they neared the great tree which was the goal.
“Let’s give her a handicap,” Mrs. Merrill said, as they measured up how very much Alice had beaten; “she’s so old she needs one.” So they made Alice stand five feet behind as they raced back and then the race came out exactly a tie.
“I say the winners get a luncheon for a prize,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, laughingly; “I think that’s safe when we all won, don’t you?”
While they had been racing, Mrs. Berry and her friend had spread the white table cloth and had unpacked most of the tempting food, so each girl dropped down by the nearest napkin and prepared to be served. No wonder the ladies had wanted to keep that lunch basket for a surprise—it was a meal fit for a king and each hungry eater was loud in the praises of kind Mrs. Trudy who had given them such a feast. There was fried chicken, each piece frilled with white paper and rolled up by itself; and sandwiches and rolls and jelly and olives and pickles and salad and cake and, oh, just everything good a person could think of. And last of all the real surprise—a can of fine ice cream which not one had guessed was tucked in under the back seat; no one, that is, but the driver, whom Mrs. Trudy had let into the secret.
After lunch was over the girls gathered moss and shells and acorns; they played games and had such a good time that no one even thought of home or the sky or weather or anything like that till suddenly Mrs. Merrill noticed that the sun wasn’t shining.
“We should have brought wraps after all!” exclaimed Mrs. Berry in dismay, “but who’d have guessed that this fine day would end in a rain. Come quick, girlies, we’ll have to bustle our things into the car in a jiffy and make for home. I know these southern storms and this starts out like a bad one.”
Even as she spoke the sky grew suddenly blacker and a great flash of lightning lit up the woods with a weird light.
“I never saw anything so sudden!” cried Mrs. Merrill; “look! There’s a drop of rain now! Hadn’t we better put up the curtains on the car before we start? It would be a bad thing for us to get wet so far from home.”
The three ladies helped and the girls held curtains from the inside so the job didn’t take very long. But even that little time made a great difference. The great drops of water came faster and faster and the driver got soaked when he jumped out to lock the gate that led from woods to road.
“There’s no one on the road, driver,” said Aunt Sue, as they started north, “so let her out. The roads are good and we can get home through the woods if you drive fast so as to make it before the roads get too soaked.”