o know how long we're to sit here, standing in the middle of
the road," said Julius.

Again everybody laughed. When grammar-school boys and girls are on
a picnic, a thing needn't be very witty or very funny to make them
laugh. From the ease with which this party exploded into laughter,
it may be perceived that in spite of the high words and the pop-gun
firing, there was no deep-seated ill-humor among them.

"To Crow Roost and be done with it!" said Dick.

"All right," assented several voices.

"Crow Roost, Bob, by the lightning express," said Dick, with
enthusiasm.

"But, as you were so particular," said Sarah to Bob, "we're going to
be, too. We aint going to give you any lunch unless you pay for it."

"Not a mouthful," said Clara.

"Not even a crumb," said Constance.

Nobody saw any dismay in Bob's face.

I don't intend to tell you about all the sayings and all the laughter
of those boys and girls on their way to Crow Roost. They wouldn't like
to have me, and you wouldn't. Bob Trotter ran over a good many grubs
and way-side stumps, and at every jolt Constance screamed, and Dick
scolded and then laughed. Mat Snead spoke three words. She and
Valentine had been sitting as though in profound meditation for some
forty minutes, when he said: "Quite a ride!"

"Very; no, quite," she answered, in confusion.

Sarah Ketchum said everything that Mat didn't say. She was Mat's
counterpart.

All grew enthusiastic as they approached the woods, and when the wagon
stopped they poured over the side in an excited way.

"What shall we do with the lunch-basket?"

"Leave it in the wagon," said Sarah Ketchum, whose counsel, Kit said,
was as free as the waters of the school pump.

Clara objected to leaving it. Bob would eat everything up. "Let's take
it along."

"Why, no," said Julius.

He was the largest of the boys, and, according to the knightly code,
he remembered the carrying of the basket would devolve upon him.

"Yes, we must carry it along," Sarah Ketchum insisted. "Bob sha'n't
have a chance at that basket if I have to carry it around on my back."

Constance, too, said, "Take it along."

"It's easy enough for you girls to insist on having the basket toted
around," said Dick, "because girls can't carry anything when there are
boys along; but suppose you were a poor little fellow like Jule."

"I wont have to climb the trees with it on my back, will I?" said
Julius. "I'll tell you," he continued, lowering his to