Part 32 (1/2)

”Wake up, you two!” said Alice, tickling Hannah's plump cheek, while Frieda tweaked the pink bow from Catherine's bronze braids.

”Time to take off your pink bow, dear. It's daylight and it looks worse than goldenrod with red ribbon.”

”Ouch! You needn't have given that last yank. I'm awake. Hannah!”

Hannah sighed and turned over. ”Don't bother me,” she said. ”I didn't get to sleep last night until this morning.”

”Why aren't you in your own room and bed?” asked Frieda severely.

”I'll wager you two slept together, yourselves,” said Catherine. ”O, Hannah, do wake up! It's raining!”

”Yes, that's what we came to tell you,” said Alice. ”We've just been watching it wash away our beautiful moonlight picnic.”

Hannah sat up and looked out.

”Isn't it beastly?” she remarked.

”I should call it foul,” said Catherine, beginning to comb out her great braids.

”Why not fish-ous?” suggested Alice mischievously, whereupon Hannah pitched a pillow at her.

”Ow! Look out for my gla.s.ses!”

”Well, don't make such flat puns then. I believe you sleep with your gla.s.ses on. How funny they must look staring away in the dark. There goes the rising-bell. I'll beat every one of you to breakfast.”

Dr. Helen was not sorry to see the rain. An all afternoon picnic, with the evening and a late-rising moon added, did not seem to her a wise plan for the day before going back to college,--”though I do dislike putting a damper on your pleasure,” she said at breakfast.

”There's a damper on this one,” sighed Catherine. ”Alice has not been up the river yet, and the other girls haven't been to one real Boat Club picnic. Mother!” and an inspired look came into Catherine's eyes, ”why couldn't we have our picnic in the library instead? It would be as appropriate a way to end this summer as on the river, and this is one of the closed evenings. Don't you think we could?”

The other girls held their breath with eagerness, while Dr. Helen considered.

”I don't see any objection,” she said presently. ”I suppose that would be more fun than having them all come here?”

”O, heaps more,” cried Hannah. ”It would be the jolliest kind of a lark.”

”Would the Board be willing?” suggested Alice.

”I'm sure of that,” said Catherine. ”Algernon will be the hardest to persuade, for he feels as though the library were almost holy ground, but I'll interview him at once.”

The telephone was kept busy for the next half-hour; by its means everything was arranged, and every one notified, and the girls went to work making preparations for the supper. Polly and Dot came over in the afternoon and the time slipped quickly by, trunk-packing and sandwich-making being mingled in what seemed to the doctor, some of the time, an almost hopeless jumble. At last the sounds of talk and laughter and running up and down stairs ceased. The boys had arrived to carry baskets, and a rain-coated procession tramped gayly off, waving good-bys now and then to the two doctors standing in the window.

”It hardly seems as though Catherine could be the same girl,” said her father. ”She is so eager and full of fun.”

”But she keeps her quaint sweet dignity all the same,” answered Dr.

Helen softly. ”She will never lose her characteristic charm, and it is such a comfort to have her well enough to wish to eat a cold supper in that bare little room!”

”Can't they heat the place?” asked Dr. Harlow sharply.

”O, yes,” his wife a.s.sured him, ”and they have all solemnly promised me to dry their skirts as soon as they get there! Hannah always contrives to get into puddles.”

”_She's_ not much changed,” chuckled the little doctor. ”Her language is as funny now and then as Frieda's. She told me they were going to relegate themselves on watermelon this evening!”