"O, he isn't lonely now," Pearl said, "thank you all the same—but I'm going to bring him over in the holidays, for he needs to play with boys of his own age."
"Danny better not run over him, and stand on his neck, though—he ain't used to it—the way we are," Patsy said, but was promptly advised to forget it, and let Pearl go on with the story, by Danny himself, to whom the subject was growing painful.
"His grandfather and grandmother came out when we did," Pearl said, "and they're staying at Purple Springs, and Jim and his grandfather are together all the time. Mrs. Gray—her real name is Mrs. Graham now—doesn't want her boy brought up in the city, and his grandfather is tired of the city too, so they're all living in the brown house, and every day's a picnic day."
"But oh! say we did have one of the grandest picnics a week after we got home from the city. On Mrs. Graham's farm there's a little stream which runs down to the river, and we got it cleaned out, and a big, long table made, and seats and all. Jim and his grandfather did the work—he was brought up on a farm, and can do anything. And the two women cooked for days, and I went round and asked every one to come to the picnic—and I told them who Mrs. Gray was, and all about it."
"Told each one in a secret, I suppose, and told them not to tell," said her father, smiling.
"I hope you rubbed it in, good and plenty," said Mary, "about them bein' so mean and full of bad thoughts."
"I did my best," said Pearl, "especially with some of them who had had so much to say, and they were keen to come, I tell you, to meet the Premier. That's what he'll always be called, too, and he sure looked that day when he sat at the head of the table, with the sunshine dappling the long table, with its salads and jellies and plates of sliced ham, and all the people sitting around kind of humble and sheepish. He wore his Prince Albert coat and his silk hat. He didn't want to—he thought it wasn't the thing for a picnic, but I held him up to it, for I didn't want the people to see him in his corduroy hunting suit. I know how impressed they would be with the fine clothes, and I was determined they should have every thrill.
"So he put on all his good clothes, even to his gray spats. I had to argue a long time to get them on him. He said they looked foppish, but I just got the button-hook and put them on him while he was arguing, and asked him who thought of this picnic anyway! and he just laughed and said he guessed he had to pass under the rod.
"And after all the people had been introduced, and the men were standing back, pretty hot and uncomfortable in their white shirts, he got up and asked every one to have a seat at the table, for he wanted to say a few words before we began to eat.
"You could have heard a leaf fall, it was so still, and then he told them all about his son, and how he didn't understand him, and never made a chum of him, and how he was so taken up with politics he forgot to be a father to his own boy. And he told about his son's marriage, and the whole story, right up to the time I went to see him in the city."