Tess and Dot were squeezed in beside Neale on the front seat. Ruth and Agnes occupied the back of the carriage with wraps and boxes and baskets of eatables. This was to be an all day outing with a picnic dinner in the chestnut woods.
"All aboard?" queried Neale, flourishing the whip. "Got everything? Haven't left anything good to eat behind, have you?"
"Oh, you boys!" groaned Ruth. "Always thinking of your stomachs."
"Well! why were stomachs put in front of us, if not to be thought of and considered?" Neale demanded. "If not, they might as well have been stuck on behind like a knapsack, or like our shoulder-blades.
"I say, Mrs. MacCall," proceeded the irrepressible boy. "Plenty of baked beans and fishcakes for supper to-night. I see very plainly that these girls have brought very little to eat along of a solid character. I shall be hungry when we get back."
At that moment Tess cried: "Oh, poor Tom Jonah!" And Dot echoed her: "Poor Tom Jonah!"
"Look how eager he is!" cried Agnes.
The big dog stood at the gate. Old as he was, the idea of an outing pleased him immensely. He was always delighted to go picnicking with the Corner House girls; but as the legend on his collar proclaimed, Tom Jonah was a gentleman, and nobody had invited him to go on this occasion.
"Oh, Ruth! let him come!" cried the three younger girls in chorus.
"Why not?" added Agnes.