“Do you know I think it would be fine if we went off some day this week on a picnic,” Laura said unexpectedly one morning. “I just love to go on picnics. And we haven’t had one yet.”
“Oh Laura!” Maida agreed ecstatically, “What a wonderful idea! I love picnics too! I adore picnic food and I never yet have had all the hard-boiled eggs I want. How did you come to think of it?”
“I thought of it last night just before I fell asleep.” Laura’s voice sparkled with pride. “It was all I could do to keep from going in your rooms and waking you and Rosie up to tell you about it. I was so excited that I couldn’t fall asleep and so I made a perfectly beautiful plan. I thought we might put up lunches; then get into our bathing suits; paddle across the Magic Mirror to the other side and spend the day there—we have never really explored the other side. I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely there and we’ll have a wonderful time.”
“Let’s do it to-morrow,” Rosie took up with Laura’s plan immediately. “We can get up early; cook the eggs and make the sandwiches. There’ll be enough cake left over. And don’t let’s—oh listen, everybody! Remember not to forget the salt. People always forget the salt on picnics.”
“It’s ice cream day to-morrow,” Harold said sadly. “We’ll miss it if we are not home to freeze it.”
“No, if you boys will get up early and make it, we can take it along in the freezer with us,” Rosie suggested daringly.
“Sure!” Arthur was highly enthusiastic. “I don’t care how early I have to get up to make ice cream. I’d rather do that than go without it.”
All other conversation was banished for the day. They kept thinking of things they would like to take with them—and stopped only short of the bicycles.
“I should think,” Maida said once, “that we were going to Africa for six months at least. Remember one thing though—don’t forget the salt!”
They were so afraid that they wouldn’t wake in time that they wound their alarm clocks to the very last notch. They did wake in time however. In fact they had to put the alarm clocks under the bed clothes and pile pillows on top of them to keep from waking the rest of the household. With much whispering and many half-suppressed giggles the girls managed to get into bathing suits; went down stairs and began their work in the kitchen. Although the exact number of eggs and sandwiches had been decided on the day before, they held many low-toned colloquies on the subject.