Quicksilver Sue

"Aren't we going to play something?" asked Lily, plaintively. Lily could never understand why big girls spent so much good time in talking.

"Oh, yes!" cried Sue. "We must play, to get up an appetite for dinner; I've got one already, but I'll get another. What would you like to play, Clarice?"

"I don't care," said Clarice. "Anything you like."

"Oh, but do care, please!" cried Sue, imploringly; "because this is your picnic, really. We got it up for you; and we want you to have everything just as you like it; don't we, Mary?"

Mary assented civilly, and pressed Clarice to choose a game.

"Oh, but I really don't care in the least!" said Clarice. "I don't know much about games; my set of girls don't play them; but I'll play anything you like, dear!" She opened her eyes and smiled again, and again Sue embraced her ardently.

"You dear, sweet, unselfish thing!" she cried. "I think you are an angel; isn't she, Mary? Perhaps we needn't play anything, after all. What would you like to do, Clarice?"

But Clarice would not hear of this – would not choose anything, but would graciously play any game they decided on. A game of "Plunder" was started, but somehow it did not go well. Plunder is a lively game, and must be played with ardor. After two or three runs, Clarice put her hand to her side and gasped for breath.

"Only a stitch!" she murmured; and she sank down on the mossy bank, while the others gathered round her with anxious faces.

"It will go off in a minute. I'm afraid I am not strong enough to play this any more, girls. Rough games never suit me."

Mary flushed and looked at Sue; but Sue's gaze was fixed on Clarice, all contrition. "My dear! I am so sorry! You see, we've never been delicate, and we don't know how; we don't even know what it's like. Lie down, dear, and rest again! Oh, Mary, I feel as if we were murderers. See how white she is! Do you think she is going to die?"

This was more than Mary could stand. "I think you would be better, Clarice," she said bluntly, "if you loosened your dress a little. Sha'n't I let out your belt for you?"

But Clarice cried out, and declared her dress was too loose already. "I never wear anything tight," she said – "never! See, I can put my whole hand up under my belt." And so she could, when she drew her breath in. "No," she said; "it is my heart, I fear. I suppose I shall never be strong like some people. But don't mind me! Go on playing, and I will watch you."

But three were not enough for Plunder; and besides, the heart for playing seemed to be gone out of them all, except Lily, who pouted and hung her head, and thought this a very poor kind of picnic indeed. Clarice lay on the bank and fanned herself, looking utterly bored, as indeed she was. Sue regarded her with wide, remorseful eyes, and wondered what she ought to do. In desperation, Mary proposed lunch.

"I am getting hungry!" she said. "Aren't you, girls? It will take a little time to get the things out and trim the table; let's begin now."

All agreed with alacrity, and there was some animation as the baskets were unpacked and their contents spread on the "table," which was green and smooth, and had no legs. The platters were made of oak-leaves neatly plaited together. The chicken-pie was set out, the cakes and turnovers beside it, with doughnuts and sandwiches at convenient intervals. Sue tumbled the bananas and the cocoanut out of her blouse, and piled them in an artistic pyramid, tucking in fern-fronds and oak-leaves.

"There!" she said, surveying the effect with her head on one side. "That is pretty, isn't it, Mary – I mean Clarice?"

Mary pressed her lips together and squeezed Lily's hand hard. Clarice said it was "perfectly alegant," and then asked again if the gentlemen were coming.

"Gentlemen!" said Sue. "Oh, how funny you are, Clarice! Mary, isn't she funny? The idea of calling the boys gentlemen!"

"I hope they are!" was on the tip of Mary's tongue; but she refrained, and only said it was time they were here. As if in answer to her words, a joyous whoop was heard, and a scuttling among the branches. Next moment Tom and Teddy burst into the open, out of breath, as usual, tumbling over each other and over their words in their eagerness.

"Hallo! Hallo, Quicksilver! Are we late?"

"I say! we stopped to get some apples. Did you remember apples? I knew you wouldn't, so we – "

"And we found a woodchuck – "

"Oh, I say, Mary, you should have seen him! He sat up in the door of his hole, and – "

"Salt! you forgot the salt, Ballast, and Mammy sent it. Saccarappa! it's all spilled into my pocket. Do you mind a few crumbs?"

"Boys! boys!" said Mary, who had been trying in vain to make herself heard, "do be quiet! I want to introduce you to Miss Packard. Clarice, these are my brothers, Tom and Teddy."

The boys had no hats to take off, – they wore hats on Sunday, though! – but they bowed with the short, decisive duck of fourteen (indeed, Tom was fifteen, but he did not look it), and tried to compose their features. "Do!" they murmured; then, at a severe look from Mary, they came forward, and each extended a grimy paw and shook Clarice's gloved hand solemnly, leaving marks on it. The ceremony over, they breathed again, and dropped on the grass.

"Isn't this jolly?" they cried. "Ready for grub? We are half starved."

Clarice's look was almost tragic as she turned upon Sue. "Are these the boys you meant?" she asked in a whisper that was fully audible. "These – little – ragamuffins?"

Fortunately, Mary was talking to Teddy, and did not hear. Sue did, and for the first time her admiration for Clarice received a shock. She raised her head and looked full at Clarice, her hazel eyes full of fire. "I don't understand you," she said. "These are my friends; I invited them because you asked me to."

Clarice's eyes fell; she colored, and muttered something, Sue did not hear what; then she put her hand to her side and drew a short, gasping breath.

In an instant Sue's anger was gone. "Boys!" she cried hastily. "Tom, bring some water, quick! She's going to faint."

Clarice was now leaning back with closed eyes. "Never mind me," she murmured softly; "go on and enjoy yourselves. I shall be – better – soon, I dare say."

Splash! came a shower of water in her face. Tom, in eager haste, had stumbled over Sue's foot, and his whole dipperful of water was spilled over the fainting maiden. She sprang to her feet with amazing agility.

"You stupid, stupid boy!" she cried, stamping her foot, her eyes blazing with fury. "You did it on purpose; you know you did! Get away this minute!"

Then, while all looked on in silent amaze, she burst into tears, and declared she would go home that instant. She would not stay there to be made a fool of by odious, rude, vulgar boys.

There was dead silence for a moment. Then Tom said, slowly and solemnly (no one could be so solemn as Tom when he tried): "I beg your pardon, Miss Packard; I am very sorry. I will go away if you wish it, but I hope you will stay."

Sue wanted to hug Tom, but refrained. (She had decided a little while ago that she was getting too big to hug the boys any more.) "Tom, you are a darling," she whispered in his ear – "a perfect dear duck! And you can use the telephone all you like to-morrow. Clarice," she added aloud, "he has apologized; Tom has apologized, and that is all he can do, isn't it? You are all right now, aren't you?"

Clarice hesitated. Her dignity was on the one hand, her dinner on the other; she was hungry, and she yielded.

"If he didn't really mean to," she began ungraciously; but Mary cut her short with what the boys called her full-stop manner.

"I think there has been quite enough of this foolishness," she said curtly. "Sue, will you pass the sandwiches? Have some chicken-pie, Clarice!"

A sage has said that food stops sorrow, and so it proved in this case. The chicken-pie was good, and all the children felt wonderfully better after the second help all round. Tongues were loosed, and chattered merrily. The boys related with many chuckles their chase of the woodchuck, and how he finally escaped them, and they heard him laughing as he scuttled off.

"Well, he was laughing – woodchuck laughter; you ought just to have heard him, Mary."

Sue made them all laugh by telling of her encounter with Katy and the milk-pan. Even Clarice warmed up after her second glass of shrub, and told them of the picnics they had at Saratoga, where she had been last year.

"That was why I was so surprised at this kind of picnic, dear," she said to Sue, with a patronizing air. "It's so different, you see. The last one I went to, there were – oh, there must have been sixty people at the very least. It was perfectly alegant! There were two four-in-hands, and lots of drags and tandems. I went in a dog-cart with Fred. You know – the one I told you about." She nodded mysteriously and simpered, and Sue flushed with delighted consequence.

"What did you take?" asked Lily, her mouth full of chicken.

"Oh, a caterer furnished the refreshments," said Clarice, airily. "There was everything you can think of: salads, and ice-cream, and boned turkey, and all those things. Perfectly fine, it was! Everybody ate till they couldn't hardly move; it was alegant!"

"Didn't you do anything but just gob – I mean eat?" asked Mary.

"Oh, there was a band of music, of course; and we walked about some, and looked at the dresses. They were perfectly alegant! I wore a changeable taffeta, blue and red, and a red hat with blue birds in it. Everybody said it was just as cute! The reporter for the 'Morning Howl' was there, and he said it was the handsomest costume at the picnic. He was a perfect gentleman, and everything I had on was in the paper next day."

"This is soul-stirring," said Tom (who did sometimes show that he was fifteen, though not often), "but didn't I hear something about toasts?"