“Dear me! that was what he called his feather,—his goose,” said she. “I might have remembered.”
“Laula, Allie’s feets feel ’et.”
“Wet, child? I guess not,” said Laura, and chatted on.
They were nearing the woods as she spoke, and soon the loaded carriages turned into a wood so uninviting and full of underbrush that you looked again all over the party to see if they appeared crazy from anything but gay spirits.
No, they were sane, no doubt; and there must be an explanation for such a choice. The explanation was, that it was not choice at all, it was circumstance which guided them. Twenty-five years ago that very day, a party of four young married people, with their older children, had come to this wood to pick blackberries, which grew in great abundance upon its borders. It was half a frolic; but still it was no accident that sent them home with forty shining black quarts to enjoy by their firesides. The next year they went again, and the next, and the next; and every year the company grew larger. But, strange to say, as it grew larger the quarts grew smaller, and finally, somehow or other, “the blackberries are not worth picking this year;” or “the blackberries are all dried up this year,” became the continual complaint when the excursionists returned home with emptier and emptier baskets.
But the “Blackberry Party” grew as thick as its namesake fruit had been of old, and now, for twenty-five years, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, grandchildren and neighbors, gathered to the time-honored festival. To be sure, every year more of the elders stayed behind, because they missed one and another who were there “last year,” and life’s merriment was checked for them forever until they should follow.
But new ones had come to take the lead, and the merry scenes went on in the gnarled old forest. It was a strange fact that in all these years the day on which the picnic occurred had never been stormy. A glorious succession of bright days had spanned the quarter of a century, and it was taken as a sign that heaven smiled peculiarly upon the innocent joy which the day was sure to bring.
This was the quarter centennial, and the procession had picked up little Allie, as “big enough to go this year.” And so little Allie was very happy, although, in spite of Sister Laura’s assurance, he did think that his feet were “’et.”
Laura thought so too, in a minute; for she lifted a can that had once held six quarts from the “morning’s milking,” and found “only a stingy little pint or so,” left.
“Allie’s feet us ’et, Laula,” said the voice, which did not dream that it sounded like the silver trumpet of an unheeded angel.