Even more than the rest of the young folks, Shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. She had never known anything before like it. It was very different, certainly, from the studio life in New York, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. They were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again--some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up.
And her father was content, too, else how could she have been so? It was doing him no end of good. Painting a little, sketching a little, reading and idling a good deal, and through it all, immensely amused at the enthusiasm with which his daughter threw herself into the village life. "I shall begin to think soon, that you were born and raised in Winton," he had said to her that very morning, as she came in fresh from a conference with Betsy Todd. Betsy might be spending her summer in a rather out-of-the-way spot, and her rheumatism might prevent her from getting into town--as she expressed it--but very little went on that Betsy did not hear of, and she was not one to keep her news to herself.
"So shall I," Shirley had laughed back. She wondered now, if Pauline or Hilary would enjoy a studio winter, as much as she was reveling in her Winton summer? She decided that probably they would.
Cherry time _was_ merry time that afternoon. Of course. Bob fell out of one of the trees, but Bob was so used to tumbling, and the others were so used to having him tumble, that no one paid much attention to it; and equally, of course, Patience tore her dress and had to be taken in hand by Mrs. Boyd.
"Every rose must have its thorns, you know, kid," Tracy told her, as she was borne away for this enforced retirement. "We"ll leave a few cherries, "gainst you get back."
Patience elevated her small freckled nose, she was an adept at it. "I reckon they will be mighty few--if you have anything to do with it."
"You"re having a fine time, aren"t you, Senior?" Shirley asked, as Mr.
Dayre came scrambling down from his tree; he had been routed from his sketching and pressed into service by his indefatigable daughter.
"Scrumptious! Shirley, you"ve got a fine color--only it"s laid on in spots."
"You"re spattery, too," she retorted. "I must go help lay out the supper now."
"Will anyone want supper, after so many cherries?" Mr. Dayre asked.
"Will they?" Pauline laughed. "Well, you just wait and see."
Some of the boys brought the table from the house, stretching it out to its uttermost length. The girls laid the cloth, Mrs. Boyd provided, and unpacked the boxes stacked on the porch. From the kitchen came an appetizing odor of hot coffee. Hilary and Bell went off after flowers for the center of the table.
"We"ll put one at each place, suggestive of the person--like a place card," Hilary proposed.
"Here"s a daisy for Mrs. Boyd," Bell laughed.
"Let"s give that to Mr. Boyd and cut her one of these old-fashioned spice pinks," Hilary said.
"Better put a bit of pepper-gra.s.s for the Imp," Tracy suggested, as the girls went from place to place up and down the long table.
"Paul"s to have a pansy," Hilary insisted. She remembered how, if it hadn"t been for Pauline"s "thought" that wet May afternoon, everything would still be as dull and dreary as it was then.
At her own place she found a spray of belated wild roses, Tom had laid there, the pink of their petals not more delicate than the soft color coming and going in the girl"s face.
"We"ve brought for-get-me-not for you, Shirley," Bell said, "so that you won"t forget us when you get back to the city."
"As if I were likely to!" Shirley exclaimed.
"Sound the call to supper, sonny!" Tom told Bob, and Bob, raising the farm dinner-horn, sounded it with a will, making the girls cover their ears with their hands and bringing the boys up with a rush.
"It"s a beautiful picnic, isn"t it?" Patience said, reappearing in time to slip into place with the rest.
"And after supper, I will read you the club song," Tracy announced.
"Are we to have a club song?" Edna asked.
"We are."
"Read it now, son--while we eat," Tom suggested.
Tracy rose promptly--"Mind you save me a few sc.r.a.ps then. First, it isn"t original--"
"All the better," Jack commented.
"Hush up, and listen--
""A cheerful world?--It surely is.
And if you understand your biz You"ll taboo the worry worm, And cultivate the happy germ.
""It"s a habit to be happy, Just as much as to be sc.r.a.ppy.
So put the frown away awhile, And try a little sunny smile.""
There was a generous round of applause. Tracy tossed the sc.r.a.p of paper across the table to Bell. "Put it to music, before the next round-up, if you please."
Bell nodded. "I"ll do my best."
"We"ve got a club song and a club badge, and we ought to have a club motto," Josie said.
"It"s right to your hand, in your song," her brother answered. ""It"s a habit to be happy.""
"Good!" Pauline seconded him, and the motto was at once adopted.
CHAPTER VIII
SNAP-SHOTS
Bell Ward set the new song to music, a light, catchy tune, easy to pick up. It took immediately, the boys whistled it, as they came and went, and the girls hummed it. Patience, with cheerful impartiality, did both, in season and out of season.
It certainly looked as though it were getting to be a habit to be happy among a good many persons in Winton that summer. The spirit of the new club seemed in the very atmosphere.
A rivalry, keen but generous, sprang up between the club members in the matter of discovering new ways of "Seeing Winton," or, failing that, of giving a new touch to the old familiar ones.
There were many informal and unexpected outings, besides the club"s regular ones, sometimes amongst all the members, often among two or three of them.
Frequently, Shirley drove over in the surrey, and she and Pauline and Hilary, with sometimes one of the other girls, would go for long rambling drives along the quiet country roads, or out beside the lake.
Shirley generally brought her sketch-book and there were pleasant stoppings here and there.
And there were few days on which Bedelia and the trap were not out, Bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much as her companions.
Hilary soon earned the t.i.tle of "the kodak fiend," Josie declaring she took pictures in her sleep, and that "Have me; have my camera," was Hilary"s present motto. Certainly, the camera was in evidence at all the outings, and so far, Hilary had fewer failures to her account than most beginners. Her "picture diary" she called the big sc.r.a.p-book in which was mounted her record of the summer"s doings.
Those doings were proving both numerous and delightful. Mr. Shaw, as an honorary member, had invited the club to a fishing party, which had been an immense success. The doctor had followed it by a moonlight drive along the lake and across on the old sail ferry to the New York side, keeping strictly within that ten-mile-from-home limit, though covering considerably more than ten miles in the coming and going.
There had been picnics of every description, to all the points of interest and charm in and about the village; an old-time supper at the Wards", at which the club members had appeared in old-fashioned costumes; a strawberry supper on the church lawn, to which all the church were invited, and which went off rather better than some of the sociables had in times past.