It had indeed been a great picnic. The boys, while on a tramp, had discovered a grove of pines and hemlocks, huge old trees, which had unaccountably escaped the woodman's axe. The pines shot up straight and tall for a hundred feet and more, their trunks seamed and scarred, their clouds of dusky green plumes tossing far overhead; the hemlocks were no less massive in girth, but they were twisted into all manner of grotesque shapes, and their feathery branches hung low, making a dense canopy over the heads of the picnickers. Here, under one of these hemlocks, the cloth had been laid, and decorated with ferns and hemlock tassels. Then the baskets were unpacked, and the campers feasted as only dwellers in the open air can feast. Ham and pasty, sandwiches and rolls, jam and doughnuts—nothing seemed to come amiss; and they finished off with a watermelon of such mighty proportions that it took all the united energies of the boys to dispose of it.
But it was finally disposed of, and now came the hour that is apt to be a little difficult at picnics; the hour between the feast and the going home.
"I have a new game," said Mrs. Merryweather. "Perhaps you would like to try it presently; but first, Colonel Ferrers, while the boys are skylarking, or rather tree-larking, up there, I want to hear the story you were telling Miles on the drive over. I could not hear very well on the back seat, and besides, I was making up my game. It was some adventure of yours when you were a boy."
"Capital story!" said Mr. Merryweather. "Do tell it, Colonel; I want to hear it again."
The Colonel smiled, and puffed meditatively at his cigar.
"Story of the barrel, eh?" he said. "Upon my word, now, I think it is pretty hard to make me tell that story before all these young people. What do you say, Gertrude? you don't want to hear about your old friend's being a young fool, do you?"
"Oh! Colonel Ferrers," said Gertrude; "a story that makes your eyes twinkle so must be one that we all want to hear. Do begin, please!"
And all the girls, who had been putting away the table-cloth and "tidying-up" generally, gathered about the Colonel in an eager group.
"Well! well!" he said, glancing from one bright face to another. "After all, what are we old fogies for, but to point a moral and adorn a tale? Listen, then. This happened when I was a young jackanapes of about my nephew's age; I knew everything in the world then, you understand, and nobody else knew much of anything. That was my belief, as it is the belief of most young men."
"Uncle," said a voice from above, "there are three young men up here who are prepared to drop things on your head if you slander their generation."