CHAPTER XVIII

A WINTER PICNIC

"Aunt Rose," exclaimed Tom Gray, several mornings after the Christmas dance, "I have a scheme; but, before I ask your permission to carry it out, I want you to grant it."

"Why do you ask it at all, then, Tom, dear?" answered his aunt.

"Because we want your seal and sanction upon the undertaking," replied Tom, giving the old lady an affectionate squeeze. "Is it granted, little Lady Gray?" he asked.

"I am merely groping about in the dark, my boy, but I trust to your good sense not to ask me anything too outrageous. Tell me what it is quickly, so that I may know exactly how deeply I am implicated."

"Well," said Tom, "here's the scheme in a nutsh.e.l.l. I want to give a picnic."

Mrs. Gray groaned.

"A picnic, boy? Whoever heard of a picnic in mid-winter. What mad notion is this?"

"But you have given your consent, aunty, and no honorable woman can go back on her word."

"So I have, child, but explain to me quickly what a winter picnic is so that I may know the worst at once."

"A winter picnic is a glorious tramp in the woods, with a big camp-fire at noon, for food, warmth and rest, and then a tramp back again."

"And can I trust to you to take good care of my four girls? Anne and Jessica are not giants for strength. You must not walk them too far, or let them get chilled; and, if you find they are growing tired, you must bring them straight back."

"On my word of honor, as a gentleman and a Gray, I promise," said Tom, solemnly.

"And you will all be in before dark?" continued Mrs. Gray.

"We promise," continued the young people.

"Wear your stoutest shoes and warmest clothing," she went on.

"We promise," they cried.

"And we want a lot of lunch, aunt," said Tom coaxingly, "and some nice raw bacon for cooking and eating purposes."

"You shall have everything you want," said Mrs. Gray, "but who will carry the lunch?"

"We will distribute it on the backs of our four pack mules," replied Grace. "But Hippy must carry the coffee-pot. He's not to be trusted with food."

"Now, wouldn't it be a remarkable sight to see a pack mule eating off his own back!" observed Hippy. "There are several animals that can turn their heads all the way around, I believe, but not the human animal."

"We had better start as soon as possible," broke in Tom. "Hurry up, girls, and get ready, while the servants fix the lunch."

In half an hour eight young people, well m.u.f.fled and mittened, started off toward the open country. It was a clear, cold day and the snow-covered fields and meadows sparkled in the sunshine.

"If I were a gypsy by birth, as well as by inclination," declared Tom, as they trudged gayly along, "I should take to the road in the early spring, and never see a roof again until cold weather."

"But being a member of a respectable family and about to enter college, you have to sleep in a bed under cover?" added David.

"It's partly that," said Tom, "and partly the cold weather that is responsible for my good behavior two thirds of the year. If I lived in a warm climate all the year around, every respectable notion I had would melt away in a week and I'd take to the open forever."

"I have never been in the woods in the winter time," said Anne. "Are they very beautiful?"

"One of the finest sights in the world," cried Tom enthusiastically, his wholesome face glowing from his exercise.

Just then they climbed an old stone wall and entered a forest known as "Upton Wood," which covered an area of ten miles or more in length and several miles across.

"It is beautiful," said Anne as she gazed up and down the wooded aisles carpeted in white. "It is like a great cathedral. I could almost kneel and pray at one of these snow covered stumps. They are like altars."

"The fault I find with the woods in winter," observed Grace, "is that there is nothing to do in them, no birds and beasts to make things lively, no flowers to pick, no brooks to wade in. Just an everlasting stillness."

"I admit there's not much social life," replied Tom. "The inhabitants either go to sleep or fly south, most of them. But don't forget the rabbits and squirrels and----"

"And an occasional bear," interrupted Reddy. "They have been seen in these parts."

"Worse than bears," said Hippy. "Wolves!"

"Goodness!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom. "You are doing pretty well. I didn't know this country was so wild. But that's going some."

"Oh, well, as to that," said David, "n.o.body has ever really seen anything worse than wildcats, and we have to take old Jean's word for it about the wolves. He claimed to have seen wolves in these woods three years ago. As a matter of fact they chased him out, and he was obliged to turn civilized for three months."

"Who is old Jean?" asked Tom, much interested.

"He is a French-Canadian hunter who has lived somewhere in this forest for years. He comes into town occasionally, looking like Daniel Boone, dressed in skins with a squirrel cap, and carrying a bunch of rabbits that he sells to the butchers."

"He's a great sight," said Grace. "I saw him on his snowshoes one day.

He was coming down Upton Hill, where we coasted, you know, Anne, and he sped along the fields faster than David's motor cycle."

They had been walking for some time over the hard-packed snow and were now well into the forest, which hemmed them in on every side and seemed to stretch out in all directions into infinite s.p.a.ce.

"Reddy, are you perfectly sure we won't get lost in this place?"

demanded Jessica at last.

They had been walking along silently intent on their own thoughts.

Perhaps it was the grandeur of the great snow-laden trees that oppressed them; perhaps the vast loneliness of the place, where nothing was stirring, not even a rabbit.

"We're all right," returned Reddy. "My compa.s.s tells me. We go due north till we want to start home and then we can either turn around and go back due south or turn west and go home by the road."

"I have neither compa.s.s nor watch," said Hippy, "but nature's timepiece tells me that it's lunch time. This cold air gives me an appet.i.te."

"Gives you one?" cried David. "You old anaconda, you were born with an appet.i.te. You started eating boiled dumplings when you were two years old."

"Who told you so?" demanded Hippy.

"Never mind," said David. "It's an old story in Oakdale."