“An’ pickled peaches—”
“Golly! I’m ’bout busted!” chuckles Billy, complacently.
Standing companionably by, Snoopie harkens and grins, but says little. Only from a bulging pocket he extracts another orange and drills into it. One may be certain that he, at least, has missed nothing.
Prudence might dictate a period of quiescence as a tribute to digestion. But the day is short, and a half a bun skimming into your midst—that is, into the midst of the group, not into your own midst, where it would have hard work to find lodgment—arouses you to retaliation. Back and forth and across fly the remnants from the various tablecloths, and applause greets every hit. Snoopie introduces a popular feature by plastering against a tree-trunk a fragment of a custard pie. Forthwith custard and lemon pie are at a premium, these being the kinds that stick. Then, interrupting the pleasant pastime, charge upon your ranks horrified witnesses, suddenly awakening to the crisis.
“Boys! Stop it! Stop it at once! The idea!”
Expostulating, they drive you all, shame-faced but sniggering, from the premises. You leave the plot looking as though a caisson laden with cartridges of lunch had exploded there!
The principal event of the day being over, your elders relax into a state more or less lethargic. The women sit and crochet and chat. The minister goes to sleep with a handkerchief on his face, and even some of your juniors follow suit—members of the infant class seeking the pillow of their mothers’ laps. The Bible-class wanders off in couples. The superintendent, only, is kept active by demands of “Swing me, Mr. Jones; please swing me!” from the little girls.
Naturally the inspiration for you and yours is to follow the Bible-class couples and spy upon them; when they think themselves nicely secluded and comfortably ensconced, to steal upon them; and in the midst of their innocent confidences to hoot upon them (with such delicate insinuations as “Aw, Mr. Johnson’s Miss Saxby’s beau!”—or “Say, Miss Lossing, Mr. Pugsley wants to kiss you!”)—and then to flee, riotously giggling.
It is four o’clock. Prolonged shouts from the throats of the superintendent and assistants echo through the woods, calling together the stragglers. The ’buses have arrived. Home-going must be accomplished early, on account of the “little ones.”
All right. If the day is done, another day is coming. You rush down, and you and Hen again secure the end seats. The ’bus fills, its load, on the whole, not so sprightly, nor so enthusiastic, nor so clean as in the morning.