lotta 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