Chapter 9

"Then I'm going back too." Alexia gave a frantic dive to get down from the barge.

Miss Salisbury saw it; and as she had planned to give Alexia just that very pleasure of riding on the front seat, she was naturally somewhat disturbed. "No, no, my dear," seeing Alexia's efforts to get down, "stay where you are."

"Oh dear me!" Alexia craned her long neck around the side of the vehicle, to spy Polly's movements. "I don't want to be mewed up here," she cried discontentedly. But Miss Salisbury, feeling well satisfied with her plan for making Alexia happy, had moved off. And the babel and tumult waged so high, over the placing of the big company, all the girls chattering and laughing at once, that Alexia, call as she might, began to despair of attracting Polly's attention, or Cathie's either for that matter.

"You better set down," said the driver, an old man whom Miss Salisbury employed every year to superintend the business, "and make yourself comfortable."

"But I'm not in the least comfortable," said Alexia passionately, "and I don't want to be up here. I want to get down."

"But you can't,"--the old man seemed to fairly enjoy her dismay,--"'cause she, you know," pointing a short square thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Miss Salisbury, "told ye to set still. So ye better set."

But Alexia craned her neck yet more, and called insistently, "Polly--oh, Polly!"

Miss Anstice looked up from the bevy of girls she was settling in another barge. "Alexia Rhys," she said severely, "you must be quiet; it is impossible to get started unless all you girls are going to be tractable and obedient."

"Miss Anstice,"--Alexia formed a sudden bold resolve,--"please come here. I want you very much," she said sweetly.

Miss Anstice, pleased to be wanted very much, or indeed at all, left her work, and went over to the front barge where Alexia was raging inwardly.

"Miss Anstice, I need Polly Pepper up next to me," said Alexia, "oh, so much. She knows all about my arm, you know; her father fixed it for me. Will you please have her come up here? Then if I should feel worse, she could help me."

Miss Anstice peered here and there in her nearsighted fashion. "I don't see Polly Pepper," she said.

"There she is; there she is," cried Alexia, trembling in every limb, for her plan could not be said to be a complete success yet, and pointing eagerly to the end of her barge; "she's the fourth from the door, Miss Anstice. Oh, how lovely you are!"

Miss Anstice, quite overcome to be told she was lovely, and especially by Alexia, who had previously given her no reason to suppose that she entertained any such opinion, went with great satisfaction down the length of the barge, and standing on her tiptoes, said very importantly, "Polly Pepper, I want to place you differently."

So Polly, quite puzzled, but very obedient, crawled out from her seat, where she was wedged in between two girls not of her set, who had been perfectly radiant at their good fortune, and clambering down the steps, was, almost before she knew it, installed up on the front row, by Alexia's side.

"Oh Polly, what richness!" exclaimed that individual in smothered accents, as Miss Anstice stepped off in much importance, and hugging Polly. "I'm so glad my sling is on, for I never'd gotten you up here without the old thing," and she giggled as she told the story.

"Oh Alexia!" exclaimed Polly, quite shocked.

"Well, I may get a relapse in it, you don't know," said Alexia coolly, "so you really ought to be up here. Oh my goodness me! I forgot this man," she brought up suddenly. "Do you suppose he'll tell?" She peered around anxiously past Polly.

"Ef you'll set still, I won't tell that teacher," said the old man with a twinkle in his eye, "but ef you get to carryin' on, as I should think you could ef you set out to, I'll up an' give the whole thing to her."

"Oh, I'll sit as still as a mouse," promised Alexia. "Oh Polly, isn't he a horrible old thing!" in a stage whisper under cover of the noise going on around them.

"Hush," said Polly.

"Well, I'm not going to hush," cried Alexia recklessly; "I'm going to have a good time at the picnic to-day, and do just everything I want to, so there, Polly Pepper!"

"Very well," said Polly, "then when we get to the Glen, I shall go off with the other girls, Alexia," which had the desired effect. Alexia curled up into her corner, and hanging to Polly Pepper's arm, was just like a mouse for quiet. And off they went; the old man's whip going crack--_snap_! as he led the way with a grand flourish, as much better than his efforts of former years, as was possible!

The road led through winding, woodsy paths, redolent of sweet fern; the girls never tired of its delights, exclaiming at all the sights and sounds of country life at all such moments as were not filled to the brim with the songs that ran over from their happy hearts. So on and up they went to the Glen, a precipitous ravine some fifteen miles out from the city.

When the barges finally drew up with another grand flourish at the entrance, a smooth grassy plateau shaded by oaks and drooping elms, they simply poured out a stream of girls from each conveyance; the old man and his companion drivers laughing to see them tumble out. "Pretty quick work, eh, Bill?" said old man Kimball, "no screaming for first places now."

"It's the same beautiful, dear old Glen!" exclaimed Polly, with kindling eyes and dancing feet. "Oh Alexia, come on!" and seizing the well hand, they spun round and round, unable to keep still, having plenty of company, all the other girls following suit.

Polly looked at her little watch. "In five minutes we must stop. It'll be time to get the flowers."

"Oh, can we?" cried Alexia. "Misery me! I'm so tired cooped up in that barge, I feel stiff as a jointed doll, Polly Pepper."

"Well, I don't," said Polly, dancing away for dear life. "Oh Alexia, when Miss Salisbury gives the signal to explore, won't it be just fun!"

"I should say," cried Alexia, unable to find words that would just express the case.

There was always one routine to be observed in the annual picnic of the "Salisbury School," and no one thought for a moment of deviating from it. The maids collected the baskets taken from the wagons, and set them in a cool, shady place among the rocks just within the Glen. The girls ran hither and thither to collect flowers and ferns to drape Miss Salisbury's seat of honor, and one as near like it as possible for Miss Anstice. These were big crevices in the rocks, that were as comfortable as chairs, and having backs to them in the shape of boulders, they were truly luxurious. Indeed, Miss Salisbury had declared, when the seats were discovered by Polly Pepper at the first picnic after she joined the "Salisbury School," that she never sat in one more comfortable; and she was so pleased when she was led to it and inducted therein, all flower-trimmed with little vines trailing off, and arching over her head.

"Why, my dears!" she exclaimed, quite overcome. "Oh, how pretty! and how did you think of it?"

"It was Polly Pepper who thought of it," said a parlor boarder. And Polly, blushing rosy red, a new girl as she was, was led up, and Miss Salisbury set a kiss on her round cheek. Polly never forgot how happy she was that day.

And afterward, when the girls were busy in various little groups, Miss Salisbury had beckoned Polly to her side where she reposed on her throne; for it was beautiful and stately enough for one, and quite worthy of royalty itself.

"Polly," said Miss Salisbury, in quite a low tone only fitted for Polly's ear, "do you think you could find a seat, like this beautiful one of mine, for sister? I should really enjoy it so very much more if sister had one also and she would prize the attention very much, Polly, from you girls."

So Polly, fired with the laudable desire to find one exactly like Miss Salisbury's very own, for "sister," at last was just so fortunate. So that was also flower-trimmed, with trailing vines to finish it off with. And every year, the first thing the girls did after dancing around a bit to rest their feet after the long drive, was to set to work to collect the vines and ferns, and decorate the two stone seats.

Then with quite a good deal of pomp and ceremony, the girls escorted the two teachers to their thrones, unpacked the little bag of books and magazines, and arranged some cushions and shawls about them. And then Miss Salisbury always said with a sweet smile, "Thank you, my dears." And Miss Anstice said the same; although, try as hard as she would, her smile never could be sweet like Miss Salisbury's. And then off the girls would go to "exploring," as they called rambling in the Glen, the under-teachers taking them in charge.

And now Polly Pepper ran to her hamper, which she saw in a pile where the baskets had been heaped by the maids. "There it is," pointing to the tag sticking up; "oh, help me,--not you, Alexia," as Alexia ran up as usual, to help forward any undertaking Polly Pepper might have in mind. "Dear me! you might almost kill your arm."

"This old arm," cried Alexia,--"I'm sick and tired of it."

"Well, you better take care of it," cried Polly gaily, "and then it won't be an old arm, but it will be as good as brand new, Alexia. Oh, one of the other girls, do come and help me."

"What do you want, Polly?" cried some of the girls, racing up to her.

"I want to get out my hamper," said Polly, pointing to the tag sticking up "high and dry" amid a stack of baskets. "My tin botany case is in it; I must get the ferns I promised to bring home to Phronsie."

"You stand away, all of ye." The old man Kimball, his horses out of the shafts, and well taken care of, now drew near, and swept off with his ample hand the bunch of girls. "Which one is't? Oh, that ere one with the tag," answering his own question. "Well, now, I'll git that for you jest as easy as rolling off a log. One--two--three--there she comes!"

And, one, two, three, and here she did come! And in a trice Polly had the cover up, and out flew the little green tin botany case; and within it being an iron spoon and little trowel, off flew Polly on happy feet to unearth the treasures that were to beautify Phronsie's little garden; a bunch of girls following to see the operation.

The magazine fell idly to the lap of Miss Salisbury. She sat dreamily back, resting her head against the boulder. "Sister," she said softly, "this is a happy custom we have started. I trust nothing will ever prevent our holding our annual picnic."

"Yes," said Miss Anstice absently. She was very much interested in a story she had begun, and she hated to have Miss Salisbury say a word. Although she had on a stiff, immaculate white gown (for on such a festival as the annual picnic, she always dressed in white), still she was not in the same sweet temper that the principal was enjoying, and she held her thumb and finger in the place.

"Yes, the picnic is very good," she said, feeling that something was expected of her, "if we didn't get worms and bugs crawling over the tablecloth."

"Oh sister!" exclaimed Miss Salisbury, quite shocked; "it is no time to think of worms and bugs, I'm sure, on such a beautiful occasion as this."

"Still, they are here," said Miss Anstice; "there is one now," looking down at the hem of her gown. "_Ugh!_ go right away," slapping her book at it. Then her thumb and finger flew out, and she lost her place, and the bug ran away, and she added somewhat tartly, "For my own taste, I should really prefer a festival in the schoolroom."

When it came to spreading the feast, not one of the maids was allowed to serve. They could unpack the hampers, and hand the dishes and eatables to the girls, and run, and wait, and tend. But no one but the Salisbury girls must lay the snowy cloth, dress it up with flowers, with little knots at the corners, concealing the big stones that kept the tablecloth from flapping in any chance wind. And then they all took turns in setting the feast forth, and arranging all the goodies. And some one had to make the coffee, with a little coterie to help her. The crotched sticks were always there just as they had left them where they hung the kettle over the stone oven. And old man Kimball set one of the younger drivers to make the fire--and a rousing good one it was--where they roasted their corn and potatoes. And another one brought up the water from the spring that bubbled up clear and cold in the rocky ravine, so when all was ready it was a feast fit for a king, or rather the queen and her royal subjects.

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.

"Yes, indeed," answered Polly; "why, where are they?" peering up and down the festal, not "board," but tablecloth.

"Don't tell me they are gone," cried the girl, leaning over to look for herself.

"I'm afraid they are," said Polly; "oh, I'm so sorry, Agatha!"

"You should have spoken before, my child," said a parlor boarder, who had eaten only three of Mrs. Fisher's tarts, and adjusting her eyeglasses.

"Why, I've only just gotten through eating bread and butter," said Agatha. "I can't eat cake until that's done."

"A foolish waste of time," observed the parlor boarder; "bread and butter is for every day; cake and custards and flummery for high holidays," she added with quite an air.

"Hush up, do," cried Alexia, who had small respect for the parlor boarders and their graces, "and eat what you like, Penelope. I'm going to ransack this table for a tart for you, Agatha."

She sent keen, bird-like glances all up and down the length of the tablecloth. "Yes, no--yes, it is." She pounced upon a lemon tart hiding under a spray of sweet fern, and handed it in triumph across. "There you are, Agatha! now don't say I never did anything for you."

"Oh, how sweet!" cried Agatha, burying her teeth in the flaky tart.

"I should think it was sour," observed Amy Garrett; "lemons usually are."

"Don't try to be clever, Amy child," said Alexia, "it isn't expected at a picnic."

"It's never expected where you are," retorted Amy sharply.

"Oh dear, dear! that's pretty good," cried Alexia, nowise disconcerted, as she loved a joke just as much at herself as at the expense of any one else, while the others burst into a merry laugh.

"There's one good thing about Alexia Rhys," the "Salisbury girls" had always said, "she can take any amount of chaff, and not stick her finger in her eye and whimper."

So now she smiled serenely. "Oh dear, dear! I wish I could eat some more," she said. "I haven't tasted your orange jelly, Clem, nor as much as looked at your French sandwiches, Silvia. What is the reason one can eat so very little at a picnic, I wonder?" She drew a long breath, and regarded them all with a very injured expression.

"Hear that, girls!" cried Silvia; "isn't that rich, when Alexia has been eating every blessed minute just as fast as she could!"

"I suppose that is what we all have been doing," observed Alexia placidly.

Miss Salisbury had been a happy observer of all the fun and nonsense going on around her, and renewing her youth when she had dearly loved picnics; but it was not so with Miss Anstice. At the foot of the festal tablecloth, she had been viewing from the corners of her eyes the inroads of various specimens of the insect creation and several other peripatetic creatures that seemed to belong to no particular species but to a new order of beings originated for this very occasion. She had held herself in bravely, although eating little, being much too busy in keeping watch of these intruders, who all seemed bent on running over her food and her person, to hide in all conceivable folds of her white gown. And she was now congratulating herself on the end of the feast, which about this time should be somewhere in sight, when a goggle-eyed bug, at least so it seemed to her distraught vision, pranced with agile steps directly for her lap, to disappear at once. And it got on to her nerves.

"Oh--_ow_! Take it off." Miss Anstice let her plate fly, and skipped to her feet. But looking out for the goggle-eyed bug, she thought of little else, and stepped into some more of the jelly cake--slipped, and precipitated herself into the middle of the feast.

XIV MISS SALISBURY'S STORY

"Oh Miss Anstice!" cried the "Salisbury girls," jumping to their feet.

"_Sister!_" exclaimed Miss Salisbury, dropping her plate, and letting all her sweet, peaceful reflections fly to the four winds.

"I never did regard picnics as pleasant affairs," gasped Miss Anstice, as the young hands raised her, "and now they are--quite--quite detestable." She looked at her gown, alas! no longer immaculate.

"If you could wipe my hands first, young ladies," sticking out those members, on which were plentiful supplies of marmalade and jelly cake, "I should be much obliged. Never mind the gown yet," she added with asperity.

"I'll do that," cried Alexia, flying at her with two or three napkins.

"Alexia, keep your seat." Miss Anstice turned on her. "It is quite bad enough, without your heedless fingers at work on it."

"I won't touch the old thing," declared Alexia, in a towering passion, and forgetting it was not one of the girls. "And I may be heedless, but I _can_ be polite," and she threw down the napkins, and turned her back on the whole thing.

"Alexia!" cried Polly, turning very pale; and, rushing up to her, she bore her away under the trees. "Why, Alexia Rhys, you've talked awfully to Miss Anstice--just think, the sister of our Miss Salisbury!"

"Was that old thing a Salisbury?" asked Alexia, quite unmoved. "I thought it was a rude creature that didn't know what it was to have good manners."

"Alexia, Alexia!" mourned Polly, and for the first time in Alexia's remembrance wringing her hands, "to think you should do such a thing!"

Alexia, seeing Polly wring her hands, felt quite aghast at herself. "Polly, don't do that," she begged.

"Oh, I can't help it." And Polly's tears fell fast.

Alexia gave her one look, as she stood there quite still and pale, unable to stop the tears racing over her cheeks, turned, and fled with long steps back to the crowd of girls surrounding poor Miss Anstice, Miss Salisbury herself wiping the linen gown with an old napkin in her deft fingers.

"I beg your pardon," cried Alexia gustily, and plunging up unsteadily. "I was bad to say such things."

"You were, indeed," assented Miss Anstice tartly. "Sister, that is quite enough; the gown cannot possibly be made any better with your incessant rubbing."

Miss Salisbury gave a sigh, and got up from her knees, and put down the napkin. Then she looked at Alexia. "She is very sorry, sister," she said gently. "I am sure Alexia regrets exceedingly her hasty speech."

"Hasty?" repeated Miss Anstice, with acrimony, "it was quite impertinent; and I cannot remember when one of our young ladies has done such a thing."

All the blood in Alexia's body seemed to go to her sallow cheeks when she heard that. That she should be the first and only Salisbury girl to be so bad, quite overcame her, and she looked around for Polly Pepper to help her out. And Polly, who had followed her up to the group, begged, "Do, dear Miss Anstice, forgive her." And so did all the girls, even those who did not like Alexia one bit, feeling sorry for her now. Miss Anstice relented enough to say, "Well, we will say no more about it; I dare say you did not intend to be impertinent." And then they all sat down again, and everybody tried to be as gay as possible while the feast went on.

And by the time they sang the "Salisbury School Songs,"--for they had several very fine ones, that the different classes had composed,--there was such a tone of good humor prevailing, everybody getting so very jolly, that no one looking on would have supposed for a moment that a single unpleasant note had been struck. And Miss Anstice tried not to look at her gown; and Miss Salisbury had a pretty pink tinge in her cheeks, and her eyes were blue and serene, without the tired look that often came into them.

"Now for the story--oh, that is the best of all!" exclaimed Polly Pepper, when at last, protesting that they couldn't eat another morsel, they all got up from the feast, leaving it to the maids.

"Isn't it!" echoed the girls. "Oh, dear Miss Salisbury, I _am_ so glad it is time for you to tell it." All of which pleased Miss Salisbury very much indeed, for it was the custom at this annual festival to wind up the afternoon with a story by the principal, when all the girls would gather at her feet to listen to it, as she sat in state in her stone chair.

"Is it?" she cried, the pink tinge on her cheek getting deeper. "Well, do you know, I think I enjoy, as much as my girls, the telling of this annual story."

"Oh, you can't enjoy it _as much_," said one impulsive young voice.

Miss Salisbury smiled indulgently at her. "Well, now, if you are ready, girls, I will begin."

"Oh, yes, we are--we are," the bright groups, scattered on the grass at her feet, declared.

"To-day I thought I would tell you of my school days when I was as young as you," began Miss Salisbury.

"Oh--oh!"

"Miss Salisbury, I just love you for that!" exclaimed the impulsive girl, and jumping out of her seat, she ran around the groups to the stone chair. "I do, Miss Salisbury, for I did so want to hear all about when you were a schoolgirl."

"Well, go back to your place, Fanny, and you shall hear a little of my school life," said Miss Salisbury gently.

"No--no; the whole of it," begged Fanny earnestly, going slowly back.

"My dear child, I could not possibly tell you the whole," said Miss Salisbury, smiling; "it must be one little picture of my school days."

"Do sit down, Fanny," cried one of the other girls impatiently; "you are hindering it all."

So Fanny flew back to her place, and Miss Salisbury without any more interruptions, began: