Net waiting for an answer she turned her head to find her little brother Claude standing at her shoulder, balancing in his out-stretched palm a slice of brown bread from which he had just taken a huge bite, whose b.u.t.tered and jellied traces were seen on his plumped-out cheeks.

Not far away was Lois with a monster pickle. At a distance, with backs discreetly turned, were two other small sinners whom Ivy eyed suspiciously, and she turned at last with a hopeless shake of her head to Laura, whom she suspected was to be blamed. But she was mistaken in her surmise for Alene was the real offender. Not being used to the always hungry state of a half dozen small brothers and sisters, she could not withstand the children's pathetic glances.

"You don't suppose it will spoil their appet.i.te for dinner?" she inquired anxiously, when the truth was disclosed.

"I haven't the faintest fear that it will," returned Ivy, in a dry tone.

"The wisdom of the innocents! Wish I had tackled Alene instead of you," deplored Mat.

At that moment he was hailed by Hugh:

"Come along, Mat! We boys are going to pick some wild strawberries for dessert. I noticed some vines up there over the hill as we came along."

"That will be lovely; run along, little boy," said Ivy, and Mat, with a last despairing glance at the feast, was gone, leaving her free to resume her task.

Although there was quite a crowd, almost a dozen young people to feed, the baskets seemed to disgorge enough for twenty. But then they were Happy-Go-Lucky baskets!

"Leagues and Clubs someway have a selfish sound--as though everyone outside didn't count for anything," Ivy said one day. "We mustn't let ourselves get narrow that way," and they did not, for as Laura remarked later, "When it came to picnics and good times generally, the Happy-Go-Luckys was very 'stretchible'--it took in all the kids!"

While the girls proceeded blithely to get lunch, helped or hindered by the younger children, loud voices were heard and presently a crowd of ragged boys appeared on the upper road.

The girls, expecting them to go on their way, paid no attention to them, but the lads attracted by the bounteous display of dainties, at once gave notice of the find, and with whoops of delight came running down the hillside and attacked the spread.

The girls were alarmed but stood their ground n.o.bly.

"You had better go! Hugh Bonner and the other boys will soon be here!"

said Laura warningly.

"I've heard of the redoubtable Hughie--we ain't goin' to force our company, we just want them cakes an' things! Come on, boys! Hurry!"

Laura stood guard over the table and Ivy raised a crutch to strike the foremost but both girls were swept aside.

Some of the little ones turned to Laura for protection, while the others ran screaming in the direction of the berry-patch, and a moment later the berry-pickers were seen on the side of the hill.

Hugh, being somewhat in advance, saw the whole engagement.

When Laura and Ivy were routed, he noticed Alene turning as if for flight. However, instead of running away as he had expected, she stooped, picked up the pail of water left by Mat, and, turning back with a sudden movement, dashed the fluid into the boys' faces.

Choked and blinded by the unexpected a.s.sault, they fell back.

The smallest boy, who had been in the rear, was the first to recover from the sudden bath. With uplifted hand he made an angry dash at Alene.

"Don't you dare to strike that girl!" cried a boy who came running down from the road. He evidently belonged to the gang but had only appeared on the scene in time to witness their rout. He was a well-built lad of fifteen, with a bearing that showed him to be above his a.s.sociates, of whom he proclaimed himself the leader by collaring the angry boy who had made the attack on Alene. Then the berry-pickers came hurrying along with cries of, "A rescue, a rescue!" and the strange boys fled, leaving the girls mistresses of the field.

Alene was surprised to find herself a heroine. The girls declared the day lost but for her, and the boys, who had all witnessed the last of the engagement, were loud in her praises.

"I heard that big boy say you were a brave little thing and I agree with him," declared Hugh, who had experienced a sudden compunction for his hasty judgment in the caterpillar affair.

Whereupon the last vestige of Alene's resentment vanished.

"I think I'm ent.i.tled to some of the glory," remarked Mat modestly, joining the group around the re-arranged feast. "Didn't I, with remarkable foresight, provide the pail of water for Alene to drown the enemy in?"

CHAPTER IX

TISSUE-PAPER HATS

Blame it all on those tissue-paper hats; the surprise and horror of good Mrs. Ramsey when she beheld Alene Dawson among that madcap crowd, skipping along gaily intent on her play, un.o.bserving the pained expression of the portly lady who was coming up the other side of the street. Mrs. Ramsey had stopped suddenly, "so fl.u.s.trated by the sight," as she said later, that she had not the strength to hail Alene and when her breath came it was too late, the happy crowd had pa.s.sed from sight around the corner leading to the fields, and her feeble, "Why, Alene Dawson, I'll tell your Uncle about this!" sounded no farther than her own ears.

Panting with indignation and the heat of the day, she resumed her way up the steep street and in due time reached her home, a showy, buff brick house with fancy turrets and pointed roofs and tiny windows with wooden ornamentations, that gave warning of the interior, where none of the rooms was of good size or well proportioned. Most of the s.p.a.ce on the first floor was taken by the reception hall which was not often used and the whole gave the impression of being built to show off the hall, of which its owner was very proud.

She was also very proud of her two daughters, Hermione and Vera, whom she found on this occasion sitting in the study, a tiny alcove on the second story, which overlooked the garden. They were apparently deep in the mysteries of a French grammar which Vera had seized on hearing the click of the gate announcing Mrs. Ramsey's return, while Hermione busied herself in hiding under the cushion of her chair two borrowed books of fairy tales which their mother had denounced and forbidden and banned and would have burned with a zeal like to that which animated the burners of the witches.

"When I was your age I never cared for reading. I knew most books were lies from beginning to end. You couldn't hire me to read about goblins and witches," she often declared.

"What a dull, tiresome girl mamma must have been," said Vera in a low aside.

"But she didn't have to play exercises on the piano!" returned Hermione.

"No, nor try to _parlez vous_ with a gibbering foreigner."

"I don't see any use for foreign babbling. As the nurse in the French tale says to the little girl who is studying English, 'Since the _bon dieu_ wrote the Bible in French, it shows that he thought it good enough for anybody,'" said Hermione, laughing, and Vera continued,

"Grandpa was too poor to pay for extras, I guess."

"I almost wish we could say the same of Pa Ramsey, only I'd hate to be poor--I don't see how poor people can stand it!"

"Oh, they are used to it. They don't mind it," returned Vera with a yawn.

"Tissue-paper hats!" they cried when their fond parent, sinking on a lounge, had recovered sufficient breath to relate her adventure; "Tissue-paper hats!"

Hermione's thoughts flew to her own room where, reposing in a box, was her best hat, a huge affair of fine white straw, with ribbons and flowers galore, whose glories made Alene's headgear appear the more offensive. She was wishing she had been along with Alene, wearing her own hat, of course, until her mother went on to say:

"That wasn't the worst of it! What can Frederick Dawson mean to allow Alene to a.s.sociate with the town children!"

"Town children, mamma! Do you mean from the poorhouse?"

"No, Miss Density, mamma means that Lee girl and Ivy Bonner and--"

"Oh, them! They go to our room! That Bonner girl is awfully bright but so sarcastic, and Laura Lee is all right!"

Mrs. Ramsey shook her head.

"This comes of the public schools, where the president's child is made to rub shoulders with the miner's!"

"And the miner's child often beats him in his lessons and the rest of the scholars are apt to remark and remember it," said Hermione. "Only for that, the rich boys could pose as being extra smart!"