d in Judy.

"Stoopids!" said Bunty, in a voice of great scorn. "Doesn't Mr.
Gillet keep the store keys--just think those currants and figs."

CHAPTER XVIII

The Picnic at Krangi-Bahtoo

Esther had gone to a ball, not in a dress of delicate colour with
great puffed sleeves, and a dazzling neck bare and beautiful under its
wraps, not through the darkness to a blaze of lights and swinging
music.

She had gone, in the broad light of the morning, in a holland suit
with a blue Henley shirt, a sailor hat, and a gossamer.

Under the front buggy seat where Mr. Hassal sat was a box containing
a beautiful gown, all daffodil silk and delicate wavelets of chiffon.
And there were daffodil shoes and stockings, a plume fan in a hat-box
on her knee, and a lovely trained white underskirt with billowy
frills of torchon, the very sight of which made Meg wild to
be grown up.

But none of these things were to be donned for many an hour yet.

The ball was a neat little matter of fifty-five miles away, across
country, so she had to start tolerably early, of course, in order to
have comfortable time to "titivate," as Pip expressed it.

The children, as compensation for having no part in this pleasure,
were to have a very, out-of-the-way kind of picnic all to themselves.

In the first place, the picnic ground was fourteen miles away;
in the second, the journey was to be made, not in everyday buggies,
or on commonplace horses, but on a dray drawn by a team of twelve
yoked bullocks.

A boundary-rider had reported that a magnificent blue gum that
they had long called King Koree had been blown down during a violent
gale, and Mr. Hassal immediately declared that, whatever the
trouble, it must be brought for the foundation of a kind of dam
across the creek at Krangi-Bahtoo, the picnic spot. The fallen
bush monarch lay twenty miles away from the station, and six beyond
the place chosen for the picnic; so it was arranged the trolly
should carry the party for the fourteen miles, leave them to
picnic, go forward for the tree, bring it back, and deposit it near
the creek ready for future operations, and bring the children
back in the cool of the evening.

But for escorting his daughter to the ball, Mr. Hassal would have
gone himself to the place and seen about it in person. As it was, he
placed the great trolly in the charge of four men, with instructions
to pick up a couple of men from distant huts to help in the task.

Krangi