“Let’s serenade the eggs, girls!” she said. “Just follow me!”
And the people in the front seats of the trolley heard a hearty chorus of young voices ringing out from the two back seats:
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye—
Don’t cry, little eggs, don’t cry;
Although you break for our sweet sake
While we’re marching away upon a picnic—
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye—
By and bye, little eggs, by and bye
We’ll be eating up our lunch, but we won’t have
you to crunch—
Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye!
The girls were in fits of laughter by the time they had done singing Louise’s doggerel.
“And yet—it really is silly!” said Marie consideringly when they were done.
“Don’t insult my beautiful, high-brow pome,” said Louise cheerfully, hopping out of the trolley, for they were at their journey’s end. “Who’s going to fetch water? Don’t all speak at once.”
“We’ll get the water,” Edith promised, speaking for herself and Marie. “It won’t be as hard on my poor clothes as frying bacon.”
So the two of them took the kettle and started off.
The place the girls had chosen for their bacon-bat was a little wood at the end of the trolley-line, which possessed a spring, and an open, sheltered sort of ravine where picnickers were wont to build their fires. The girls sauntered along in ones and twos till they reached this ravine, set down the things they carried, and scattered to look for sticks.
Winnie and Helen, peacefully gathering wood as they went, suddenly heard screams, and dropped their wood and ran toward the sound.