“The boy?” Mrs. Pepper looked very puzzled.
“There’s a boy over there,” Jimmy pointed off in the direction of the big red cart standing in the field, “and he keeps looking and looking at us—and I guess he’s hungry.”
Mrs. Pepper turned a swift eye in that direction. “Jimmy,” she said, “I think you are right. Wouldn’t you like to carry your cake to him now?”
“Wouldn’t I just!” exclaimed Jimmy, finding a ready tongue, and springing off on just as ready feet.
“Oh!” screamed Joel, “look at Jimmy—running off with his cake! See, Mamsie, Jimmy is—”
“Joel!” Mother Pepper didn’t need to say more, as everybody whirled around to see the Badgertown boy skim over the grass clutching his slices of cake that he had been tucking under the table-cloth.
Joel ducked, and everybody else was quiet except Miss Susannah.
“That Badgertown boy is jest as bad as th’ rest o’ you,” she said, between the bites on her own piece of cake, as Jimmy slipped back and into his seat, but not to eat any cake.
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Pepper, when everything was cleaned up neatly, and the big basket had been handed to Simmons, who appeared at the right time, “we’ll start to see the animals.”
Joel screamed, “The bears—the bears! Oh, let’s see the bears first.”