“Well, of all tough specimens! Mamma, this can’t be your young man.”
Poor Kenneth! his broad-brimmed hat hung down his back, held around his chin by a soaking wet elastic cord, which left inky stains on his throat. His sticky curls stood up stiffly in plastered masses, all over his head. His face was begrimed with dirt and cider and tears. His kilts hung in festoons from his belt. His stockings were down, dropping over his shoes. His whole attire was soaking wet, and smelling like a lager-beer saloon, his father said.
“This is not your young man,” repeated papa, holding him at arm’s length, in spite of his struggles.
“I want my mamma!” wailed Kenneth. “I sought I was a big man, an’ I’se nossing but a little boy!”
And mamma hugged her bruised and dirty baby close to her dainty cambric dress, with a heart so filled with thankfulness as she learned of the real danger that the little fellow had been in, that she could not give the girls, then, the lecture that they certainly deserved for their disobedience, and which their father saw that they had, later.
CHAPTER XVII.
GOING BLACKBERRYING.
Unusual peace and quiet reigned at Kayuna for a time after the excitement of the runaway. It was an unusually warm summer, and so even Cricket, the tireless, was somewhat subdued. Hilda Mason went away for a visit, and her little friend missed her very much, for, as she said privately to Eunice, “Hilda was so much willinger to do things than she used to be.”
Eunice and Cricket had long planned a blackberrying party when the blackberries should be in their prime, and mamma said that now would be just the time to go. The girls had been expecting their little cousin, Edna Somers, the sister of Will and Archie, to visit them for a week, and as she arrived on Monday, they decided that the next Wednesday should be the important day.
The rest of the party was to consist of Edith Craig, from the Rectory, Ray Emmons, Phil Howard, and his sister Rose, and Daisy and Harry Pelham. They planned to get up very early on Wednesday,—oh, by five o’clock, say,—get an early breakfast of bread and milk from the cook, have luncheon enough packed for both dinner and supper, and then start for the blackberry pasture, which was nearly three miles away.
No one of the children but the Howards and Ray Emmons had ever been there, but they were sure that they could easily find the way again. They would go through the woods to the West Road, and then they were almost there. They would arrive on the spot long before the sun grew hot, and would pick blackberries for awhile. Then, when they chose, they would find a nice place and take their luncheon. Then they would rest awhile, and after that, pick more berries till their pails were full, and then, finally, start for home, and get there just in time for another supper, after a lovely, long day.