They piled out of the wagon. John, the woodsman of the crowd, busied himself making a fire, demanding that the two “extra men” should come and chop wood, determined that they should not get in too many words with the beautiful Miss Hunt while he was working. Miss Hunt then exercised her fascinations on Jimmy Lufton, on whom she had had her eye ever since they left Chatsworth. Jimmy was polite, but had a “nothing-doing” expression which quite baffled the practiced flirt. Poor Molly’s foot had gone so fast asleep that she was forced to hop around for at least five minutes before she could get out of the wagon and begin to make herself useful. Kent, who had driven, with Judy on the front seat with him, was busy taking out the four horses to let them rest for the heavy pull home. The other young men were occupied in various ways, lifting the hampers out of the wagon and getting water from the beautiful spring at the foot of the huge black rock. Professor Green came to Molly’s assistance.
“I was afraid your foot would go to sleep. You are too good to let that girl crowd you so. She was the most deliberately selfish person I ever saw.”
“Oh, there is always somebody like that on a hay ride. I have never been on one yet that there wasn’t some girl along with a headache who took up more than her share of room. I am too long to double up; but it is all right now. The tingle has stopped, and I can bear my weight on it, I see.”
“Did you ever see anything more beautiful than this valley? How clever Miss Kean is in hitting off a description! I haven’t thought of the Doone Valley for years, and now I can’t get it out of my head; these overhanging cliffs and this green grass, green even by moonlight; and the sensation of being in an impenetrable fortress! And the great black rock might be Carver Doone petrified and very much magnified, left here forever for his sins. It must be a magnificent sight when the creek is full.”
“So it is; but I hope we shall not see that sight to-night. Lorna Doone in the big snow was in a safe place to what we would be in a big freshet up this valley with no way to get back but by the creek bed,” said Molly, jumping out of the hay wagon and beginning to make ready the supper.
Such a supper it was, with appetites to match after the long ride and good jolting! Mrs. Brown was an old hand at picnic suppers and knew exactly what to put in and how to pack the baskets in the most appetizing way. There were different kinds of sandwiches, thin bread and butter, all kinds of pickles, apple turnovers and cheese cakes; but the crowning success of one of these camp picnics was always the hot coffee and bacon cooked on John’s fire. The Browns kept a skillet and big coffee pot to use only on such occasions. The cloth was soon spread and the cold lunch arranged on it, and then in an incredibly short time the coffee was boiling and the bacon sizzling.
“Oh, what a smell is this?” said Jimmy Lufton, emerging from behind Black Rock, where Miss Hunt had been doing her best to captivate him. (Kent said he bet on Jimmy to give her as good as he got.) “Mark Twain says, ‘Bacon would improve the flavor of an angel,’ and so it would.”
“Well, I’m no angel, but I certainly do smell like bacon,” said Molly with flushed face and rumpled hair as she knelt over the fire with a long stick turning the luscious morsels. “Sue and Cyrus are responsible for the coffee and the bacon is my affair.”
“As Todger’s boy says, ‘Wittles is up,’” called Jimmy to the strolling couples, who lost no time in hurrying to the feast. Mrs. Brown was installed at the head of the cloth, but not allowed to wait on any one. “For once, you shall be a guest at your own table,” said Kent, taking the coffee pot out of her hands. “Miss Judy, don’t you think we can serve this?”
“Mostly cream for me and very little coffee,” drawled Miss Hunt.