And then Miss Salisbury and “sister” were escorted with all appropriate ceremonies down from their stone thrones,—and one had the head and the other the foot of the feast spread on the grass,—to sit on a stone draped with a shawl, and to be waited on lovingly by the girls, who threw themselves down on the ground, surrounding the snowy cloth. And they sat two or three rows deep; and those in the front row had to pass the things, of course, to the back-row girls.
“Oh, you're spilling jelly-cake crumbs all down my back,” proclaimed Alexia, with a shudder. “Rose Harding,” looking at the girl just back of her, “can't you eat over your own lap, pray tell?”
“Well, give me your seat then,” suggested Rose, with another good bite from the crumbly piece in her hand, “if you don't like what the back-row girls do.”
“No, I'm not going to,” said Alexia, “catch me! but you needn't eat all over my hair. Ugh! there goes another,” and she squirmed so she knocked off the things in her neighbor's as well as her own lap.
“Oh dear me! Keep your feet to yourself, Alexia Rhys,” said the neighbor; “there goes my egg in all the dirt—and I'd just gotten it shelled.”
“All the easier for the bugs,” observed Alexia sweetly; “see, they're already appropriating it. And I guess you'd kick and wriggle if some one put jelly cake down your back,” returning to her grievance,—“slippery, slimy jelly cake,” twisting again at the remembrance.
“Well, you needn't kick the things out of my lap. I didn't put the jelly cake down your back,” retorted the neighbor, beginning to shell her second egg.
Oh dear! was ever anything quite so good in all this world as that feast at the “Salisbury picnic!”
“I didn't suppose those baskets could bring out so much, nor such perfectly delicious things,” sighed Polly Pepper, in an interval of rest before attacking one of Philena's chocolate cakes.
“Polly, Polly Pepper,” called a girl opposite, “give me one of your little lemon tarts. You did bring 'em this year, didn't you?” anxiously.