CHAPTER XVIII
A WINTER PICNIC
"Aunt Rose," exclaimed Tom Gray, several mornings after the Christmasdance, "I have a scheme; but, before I ask your permission to carry itout, 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," repliedTom, giving the old lady an affectionate squeeze. "Is it granted, littleLady Gray?" he asked.
"I am merely groping about in the dark, my boy, but I trust to your goodsense 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 nutshell. I want to give apicnic."
Mrs. Gray groaned.
"A picnic, boy? Whoever heard of a picnic in mid-winter. What mad notionis this?"
"But you have given your consent, aunty, and no honorable woman can goback on her word."
"So I have, child, but explain to me quickly what a winter picnic is sothat I may know the worst at once."
"A winter picnic is a glorious tramp in the woods, with a big camp-fireat 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 andJessica are not giants for strength. You must not walk them too far, orlet them get chilled; and, if you find they are growing tired, you mustbring 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 niceraw bacon for cooking and eating purposes."
"You shall have everything you want," said Mrs. Gray, "but who willcarry the lunch?"
"We will distribute it on the backs of our four pack mules," repliedGrace. "But Hippy must carry the coffee-pot. He's not to be trusted withfood."
"Now, wouldn't it be a remarkable sight to see a pack mule eating offhis own back!" observed Hippy. "There are several animals that can turntheir 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 muffled and mittened, startedoff toward the open country. It was a clear, cold day and thesnow-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 earlyspring, 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 isresponsible for my good behavior two thirds of the year. If I lived in awarm climate all the year around, every respectable notion I had wouldmelt 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. "Arethey very beautiful?"
"One of the finest sights in the world," cried Tom enthusiastically, hiswholesome 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 andseveral miles across.
"It is beautiful," said Anne as she gazed up and down the wooded aislescarpeted in white. "It is like a great cathedral. I could almost kneeland pray at one of these snow covered stumps. They are like altars."
"The fault I find with the woods in winter," observed Grace, "is thatthere is nothing to do in them, no birds and beasts to make thingslively, no flowers to pick, no brooks to wade in. Just an everlastingstillness."
"I admit there's not much social life," replied Tom. "The inhabitantseither go to sleep or fly south, most of them. But don't forget therabbits and squirrels and----"
"And an occasional bear," interrupted Reddy. "They have been seen inthese parts."
"Worse than bears," said Hippy. "Wolves!"
"Goodness!" ejaculated Tom. "You are doing pretty well. I didn't knowthis country was so wild. But that's going some."
"Oh, well, as to that," said David, "nobody has ever really seenanything worse than wildcats, and we have to take old Jean's word for itabout the wolves. He claimed to have seen wolves in these woods threeyears ago. As a matter of fact they chased him out, and he was obligedto 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 forestfor years. He comes into town occasionally, looking like Daniel Boone,dressed in skins with a squirrel cap, and carrying a bunch of rabbitsthat 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 hesped along the fields faster than David's motor cycle."
They had been walking for some time over the hard-packed snow and werenow well into the forest, which hemmed them in on every side and seemedto stretch out in all directions into infinite space.
"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 oppressedthem; perhaps the vast loneliness of the place, where nothing wasstirring, not even a rabbit.
"We're all right," returned Reddy. "My compass tells me. We go due northtill we want to start home and then we can either turn around and goback due south or turn west and go home by the road."
"I have neither compass nor watch," said Hippy, "but nature's timepiecetells me that it's lunch time. This cold air gives me an appetite."
"Gives you one?" cried David. "You old anaconda, you were born with anappetite. You started eating boiled dumplings when you were two yearsold."
"Who told you so?" demanded Hippy.
"Never mind," said David. "It's an old story in Oakdale."
"Let's feed the poor soul," interposed Grace. "It would be wantoncruelty to keep him waiting any longer."
"He'll have to make the fire, then," said Reddy. "Make him pay for hisdumplings if he wants 'em so early."
"All right, Carrots," cried Hippy. "I'll gather fagots and make a fire,just to keep you from talking so much."
"I'll help you, Hippy," said Nora. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I amvery hungry too. It's the people who are never able to eat at the table,and then go off and feed up in the pantry, who always manage to shirktheir work."
The others all laughed.
"Let's make a fair division of labor," put in Grace, "so as to preventfuture talk."
While some of them gathered sticks and dried branches, the others beganclearing away the snow in an open space, where the fire could be built.
Anne and Jessica unpacked the luncheon and poured some coffee from aglass jar into a tin pot to be heated, while Tom peeled several longswitches and impaled pieces of bacon on the ends to be cooked over thefire, which was soon blazing comfortably.
"How do you like this, girls?" he asked presently, when the broilingbacon began to give out an appetizing smell and the hot coffee added itsfragrance to the air. "How's this for a winter picnic?"
"I like it better than a summer picnic," interposed Hippy. "The food isbetter and there are no gnats."
"Gnats are very fond of fat people," said Reddy. "They drink down theirblood like--circus lemonade."
"Get busy and give me some coffee, Red-head," said Hippy, who sat on astump and ate energetically, while the others were broiling their slicesof bacon.
"Here, Hippy," said Nora, pouring out a steaming cupful, "i
f it wasn'tinteresting to watch you store it away, perhaps I wouldn't wait on youhand and foot like this."
"This is the best way in the world to cook bacon," said Tom, holding hiswand over the fire with several pieces of bacon stuck on the forkedends.
"A very good method, if your stick doesn't burn up," replied Anne."There! Mine fell into the fire. I knew it would."
Meantime, Jessica and Grace were frying the rest of the slices in a pan.
"That's good enough, but this is better and quicker," said Grace."There's no reason for dispensing with all the comforts of a home justbecause you choose to be a woodsman, Tom."
They never forget how they enjoyed that luncheon, devouring everythingto the ultimate crumb and the final drop of hot coffee.
Although it was bitterly cold, they did not feel the chill. The briskwalk, the warm fire and their hearty meal had quickened their blood, andeven Anne, the smallest and most delicate of them all, felt something ofTom's enthusiasm for the deep woods.
At last it was time to start again.
The boys were trampling down the fire while the girls began stowing thecups and coffee-pot into a basket. The woods seemed suddenly to havegrown very quiet.
"How still it is," whispered Anne. "I feel as if everything in the worldhad stopped. There is not a breath stirring."
"Perhaps it has," answered Grace. "But we mustn't stop, even ifeverything else has, now that the fire is out, or we'll freeze todeath."
She was just about to call the others briskly, for the air was beginningto nip her cheeks, when something in the faces of the four boys made herpause.
They were standing together near the remains of the fire, and seemed tobe listening intently.
Not a sound, not even the crackling of a branch disturbed the stillnessfor a moment and then, from what appeared to be a great distance, came along, howling wail, so forlorn, so weird, it might have been the cry ofa spirit.
"What is it?" whispered the other girls, creeping about Grace.
"I think we'd better be hurrying along, now, girls," said David in anatural voice. "It's getting late."
"You can't deceive us, David," replied Grace calmly. "We know it'swolves."