To attempt to describe a children’s picnic would be as futile an undertaking as trying to describe childhood itself, for every moment and each hour something so new and novel developed, in the way of fun and good times, that even a picture of a period in the merry-making failed to record its actual happy spirit.
“And imagine!” babbled Rosa, while she spilled a whole dish of ice cream by allowing it to slip smoothly off the paper plate, “just imagine a photographer making a picture to be published! Did you notice, Nancy,” and she placed a neat pile of dry leaves over the crest-fallen ice cream, “how I looked? Did I look—thin?”
“You looked so happy surrounded by your flock,” Nancy assured her, “that weight couldn’t count. There, call that curly-head. She hasn’t had a balloon of her own yet and she’s exploded a half dozen of them. Give her one, Rosa, and tell her—that’s all!”
They were picnicking and frolicking around stately old Fernlode, and the sight was such a pleasant one that numbers of cars were drawn up, while their occupants witnessed the festivities.
“All our neighbors!” exclaimed Nancy. “There’s the Pickerings. Let Thomas bring them cream—”
“And they’ll tell Betty! There’s the Gormans! Oh, Nancy, why don’t we have a big folks party, too?” proposed the over-joyed Rosa.
“No, we couldn’t. That would spoil this,” Nancy pointed out, having a mind to correct standards. “We must do all we can to have this go off well, and that—”
“Will be plenty,” agreed Rosa, steering her tea cart of “empties” (the glasses, cups and real dishes) along the driveway toward the house.
Miss Geary and Dell found each other mutually attractive, their taste for work among children being alike, so that they not only took care of the little ones but had an exceptionally fine time doing so.
“Just look at Margot’s face. She hasn’t room for all the smiles,” Nancy took time to say to Rosa. She was on the lemonade staff and Thomas, the butler, had made the drink pink, “just to make the young ones think of a circus,” he explained. That may have accounted for the rush at Nancy’s booth, a kitchen table draped with the ends of the vines that formed a canopy above.