"To keep?" echoed Bobby.
"To keep, of course," a.s.sented Mr. Sparks. "You pick the critter you want, and I guess Mrs. Hayward will pasture it for you."
"Sure she will," promised Jud, who was standing by with a delighted smile. "And after you go back to Oak Hill, I"ll take good care of it and next summer you can come up and see your own cow."
Aunt Polly and Linda and Peter all had to be summoned, and then, with every one"s help and advice, not forgetting the twins", Bobby and Meg selected a handsome cream-colored little calf that Mr. Sparks a.s.sured them would grow into a Jersey bossy cow like Mrs. Sally Sweet.
"What you going to call her?" he asked curiously.
Bobby looked at Meg.
"You name her," he suggested.
"All right. Let"s call her Carlotta," said Meg promptly. "I think that is the loveliest name." So Carlotta the calf was named.
Carlotta did not seem to mind at all when her friends and relatives were driven off by Mr. Sparks. Apparently she liked Brookside farm and was glad she was going to live there.
"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Sparks," said Meg and Bobby for the twentieth time, as he drove out of the gateway after his recovered property.
A day or two after the finding of the calves Aunt Polly came out on the porch where the children were cutting up an old fashion magazine for paper dolls, and sat down in the porch swing with her mending basket.
"Do you know, honeys," she began, "if we don"t have our picnic pretty soon, vacation is going to be over. Though what I am to do this long cold winter without any children in my house I don"t see."
"Bobby and I have to go to school," said Meg. "But Dot and Twaddles could stay."
"We"re going to school, too," declared Dot, with such a positive snap of her blunt scissors that she snipped off a paper doll"s head.
"Of course," affirmed Twaddles, with maddening serenity.
"Well, I think we"d better talk about the picnic," interposed Aunt Polly. "When to have it, and whom to invite and what to have to eat."
"Sandwiches!" cried Meg, answering the last question first. "Let me help make "em, Auntie?"
"Oh, of course," promised Aunt Polly. "And it seems to me that we had better go to-morrow. This spell of fine dry weather can"t last forever, and when the rain does come we may have a week of it."
"Can Jud come?" asked Bobby.
"Yes, indeed," answered Aunt Polly, who had the happiest way of saying "yes" to nearly everything her nephews and nieces asked of her.
"And Linda?" asked Twaddles.
"Linda, too," agreed Aunt Polly.
"Where"ll we go?" demanded the practical Dot.
"Over in the woods," said Aunt Polly.
"Let"s get ready," proposed Meg, who knew a picnic meant work beforehand.
Every one scattered, Meg and Aunt Polly to the kitchen to help Linda pack the lunch boxes, as far as they could be packed the day before the picnic; Bobby to tell Jud that he was expected; and Dot and Twaddles on an errand of their own.
They were gone some time, and when they returned acted so mysteriously that Meg was quite out of patience.
"Be sure you have enough sandwiches," advised Twaddles, swinging on the kitchen screen door, a thing which always made Linda nervous.
"There might somebody come at the last minute," chimed in Dot.
Then she and Twaddles giggled.
"Those silly children," said Meg with her most grown-up air. "I suppose they think they sound funny."
Dot and Twaddles apparently did not care how they sounded, and they stayed in the kitchen, stirring and tasting, till Linda flatly declared that she"d put pepper in the pressed chicken instead of salt if they didn"t stop bothering her. Jud came just at that moment and asked the twins to help him see if the new catch on the chicken yard gate worked all right, and the two little torments readily followed him.
Nearly everything was ready for the picnic by that night, and every one went to bed hoping for a clear day.
"The sun is shining, Meg! Meg, get up!" shouted Dot early the next morning. "We"re going on a picnic!"
She made so much noise that she woke up Aunt Polly and Linda, as well as Bobby and Twaddles, and then, of course, there was nothing to do but to get up and have breakfast.
The four little Blossoms found Peter and Jud busy in the barn, putting clean straw in the bottom of the box wagon that was used to haul logs and brushwood in in the winter.
"Be ready in two jerks of a lamb"s tail," announced Peter, using one of his favorite expressions.
When the heavy wagon rattled up to the front door, the four little Blossoms were already sitting on the straw. Aunt Polly and Linda were helped in by Jud, who also lifted in the boxes of lunch, and then Peter clucked to Jerry and Terry, and away they went, over the meadow into the woods, and up the narrow wagon road.
"See, isn"t this pretty?" asked Aunt Polly, as the road suddenly came out into a clearing, and they saw the brook a bit ahead of them.
They all jumped out, and Peter turned the horses" heads toward home at once. He was anxious to get back to his work, but was coming for them at half-past four.
"We must get some flowers for the table," said Aunt Polly, after she had helped Linda put the boxes in a low branch of a tree where nothing could touch them. "Come, children, let"s get a bouquet of flowers."
They gathered wild flowers, and also found some late blackberries which, placed on a wide green leaf as a dish, looked very pretty.
Linda spread a white cloth presently, and was opening the boxes when the sound of a rattling wagon attracted her attention.
"If that doesn"t sound like Mr. Sparks" old rig," said Linda curiously.
"It is," announced Dot complacently. "Twaddles and me asked him to come to the picnic, "cause he gave Meg and Bobby the calf."
Although Aunt Polly murmured helplessly, "what will those children do next!" they were all very glad to see Mr. Sparks when he finally rattled up. And there was plenty of everything to eat--trust Aunt Polly and Linda for that.
Mr. Sparks brought a freezer of ice-cream with him, which his wife had made, as his contribution to the picnic, and though he had to go as soon as lunch was over, he a.s.sured the children that he had had a splendid time.
When the crumbs were all scattered for the birds, and the papers and boxes neatly buried, except one box of sandwiches they had not eaten and which they saved for Peter, Aunt Polly declared that she wanted to sit quietly for an hour and knit. Linda, too, had her embroidery, but the four little Blossoms wanted to go wading.
"I"ll watch "em," promised Jud.
So Meg and Bobby and Dot and Twaddles took off their shoes and stockings and pattered over the pine needles that covered the gra.s.s down to the edge of the brook.
Bobby dipped one foot in to test the water.