ont seat to the
rapturous discomfort of Miss Penny, whose fat leg was thereby squeezed
against the gear-shifting lever where it was in Joe's way for the
remainder of the trip.

Just before they started, Mrs. Macomber came out of the house carrying
a small package which she brought round and entrusted to Joe's care.
She was wearing a stiffly starched apron and her hair had been
plastered down and her face scrubbed so that the deep rings in the
flabby flesh below her eyes were thereby accentuated. Very pointedly
she looked at Joe and very definitely she spoke:

"You'll see that they get back at a decent hour? And don't let 'em go
in the water." It might have been the tone with which she exhorted Mr.
Macomber. At any rate, Miss Penny pursed her lips and looked at Joe
and then significantly at Miss Ardle, and ever after that made highly
cryptic remarks half aloud, to herself, to the general effect that
some folks' families always were so good to them and how unhappy it
was to be an orphan.

They went to a hot, stuffy little grove by the side of a disconsolate
stream where mosquitoes hummed and tiny gnat creatures were vulgarly
familiar. Joe carried the baskets down a steep and rocky path to the
very edge of the brook, scratching his face with stinging briars and
tough, elastic little switches from ubiquitous bushes. The two young
men in the back seat ostentatiously assisted the ladies in the descent
with much demonstration and much unnecessary pawing. Joe sat down and
waited for Myrtle, who was coming with Hawkins, a look of resignation
on his face.

When at length she finally arrived she paid him no attention in spite
of the fact that he had not seen her for over a whole day. Later on
she gave him some directions in the arranging of the lunch and the
building of the fire, in a strictly impersonal tone, very much the
same as she had used with her mother. Joe was a bit puzzled, but he
complied.

They went straight to the business of the lunch. Everything was spread
out on a white tablecloth, Mrs. Macomber's second best. There was a
baffling variety of sandwiches, olive and peanut-butter, lettuce and
cucumber--quite soggy and dangerous--devilled ham, thin bread and
butter, and a small pile whose filling was made up chiefly of
discarded chicken scraps. There was a highly indigestible chocolate
cake sodden enough to serve as a boat's anchor, a great quantity of
jumbo pickles, and a dozen bottles of near beer. This last M