“Let’s see who has picked the most,” said Peggy, as she examined the pails. “Oh, mother has a lot more than anybody. Mother, you’ll have to keep some for yourself, and Alice and I can help you eat them.”
Miss Rand had a great many, and so had Mrs. Carter, but her brother Joe had the fewest of all the grown people, for he had been building a fire in the hut, so that Mrs. Owen could fry bacon and heat cocoa for dinner.
When they all took a recess in picking and sat down on the piazza of the camp for their dinner, Peggy thought she had never tasted anything so good in her life as the bread and butter and hard-boiled eggs and crisp bacon. For dessert they had saucers of blueberries and cups of cocoa, and some cake and doughnuts, which Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Horton had contributed to the feast.
As they were resting after dinner, Mrs. Carter read a story aloud to them. Then they all picked blueberries again. Diana and Clara soon got tired, and Miss Rand fixed a comfortable place for them to lie down on the window-seats in the hut. Mrs. Owen took some gray blankets out of one of the lockers and covered them up carefully.
At night, when Dr. Carter came for them with the automobile, they had the large pails Mrs. Owen had brought filled with blueberries as well as the quart pails. Peggy had never seen so many blueberries together in her life. The automobile had seats for seven. There were four grown people at the picnic, and Dr. Carter made five. And there were six children.
“I’ll come back for a second load,” Dr. Carter said.
“I’d rather walk,” said their Uncle Joe, “and I am sure the boys would.”
“We’ll go down by the short cut,” said Tom.
“All right. I can stow the rest of you in.”
The three ladies got in on the back seat, Diana was in front with her father, and Alice and Clara were in the side seats.