“I always said she was a little saint,” added Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it.
“I haven’t heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long,” said Grace to Amy, as they sat discussing dolls and making tea sets out of the acorn cups.
“My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl, when she likes to be,” said Amy, well pleased at Beth’s success. She meant ‘facinating’, but as Grace didn’t know the exact meaning of either word, fastidious sounded well and made a good impression.
An impromptu circus, fox and geese, and an amicable game of croquet finished the afternoon. At sunset the tent was struck, hampers packed, wickets pulled up, boats loaded, and the whole party floated down the river, singing at the tops of their voices. Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain:
“Alone, alone, ah! Woe, alone,”
and at the lines-
“We each are young, we each have a heart,
Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart?”
he looked at Meg with such a lackadiasical expression that she laughed outright and spoiled his song.
“How can you be so cruel to me?” he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus. “You’ve kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day, and now you snub me.”
“I didn’t mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn’t help it,” replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach, for it was quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and the talk after it.
Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her rather pettishly, “There isn’t a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?”
“Not a particle, but she’s a dear,” returned Sallie, defending her friend even while confessing her shortcomings.
“She’s not a stricken deer anyway,” said Ned, trying to be witty, and succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.
On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with cordial good nights and goodbys, for the Vaughns were going to Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate looked after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice, “In spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice when one knows them.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Mr. Brooke.
Chapter Thirteen
Castles in the Air
Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke’s patience to the utmost, displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up into the green gloom of the horse-chestnut trees above him, he dreamed dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of voices brought him ashore in a flash. Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition.
“What in the world are those girls about now?” thought Laurie, opening his sleepy eyes to take a good look, for there was something rather peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors. Each wore a large, flapping hat, a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder, and carried a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book, Beth a basket, and Amy a portfolio. All walked quietly through the garden, out at the little back gate, and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and river.
“Well, that’s cool,” said Laurie to himself, “to have a picnic and never ask me! They can’t be going in the boat, for they haven’t got the key. Perhaps they forgot it. I’ll take it to them, and see what’s going on.”
Though possessed of half a dozen hats, it took him some time to find one, then there was a hunt for the key, which was at last discovered in his pocket, so that the girls were quite out of sight when he leaped the fence and ran after them. Taking the shortest way to the boathouse, he waited for them to appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets.
“Here’s a landscape!” thought Laurie, peeping through the bushes, and looking wide-awake and goodnatured already.
It was a rather pretty little picture, for the sisters sat together in the shady nook, with sun and shadow flickering over them, the aromatic wind lifting their hair and cooling their hot cheeks, and all the little wood people going on with their affairs as if these were no strangers but old friends. Meg sat upon her cushion, sewing daintily with her white hands, and looking as fresh and sweet as a rose in her pink dress among the green. Beth was sorting the cones that lay thick under the hemlock near by, for she made pretty things with them. Amy was sketching a group of ferns, and Jo was knitting as she read aloud. A shadow passed over the boy’s face as he watched them, feeling that he ought to go away because uninvited; yet lingering because home seemed very lonely and this quiet party in the woods most attractive to his restless spirit. He stood so still that a squirrel, busy with its harvesting, ran down a pine close beside him, saw him suddenly and skipped back, scolding so shrilly that Beth looked up, espied the wistful face behind the birches, and beckoned with a reassuring smile.
“May I come in, please? Or shall I be a bother?” he asked, advancing slowly.
Meg lifted her eyebrows, but Jo scowled at her defiantly and said at once, “Of course you may. We should have asked you before, only we thought you wouldn’t care for such a girl’s game as this.”
“I always like your games, but if Meg doesn’t want me, I’ll go away.”
“I’ve no objection, if you do something. It’s against the rules to be idle here,” replied Meg gravely but graciously.
“Much obliged. I’ll do anything if you’ll let me stop a bit, for it’s as dull as the Desert of Sahara down there. Shall I sew, read, cone, draw, or do all at once? Bring on your bears. I’m ready.” And Laurie sat down with a submissive expression delightful to behold.
“Finish this story while I set my heel,” said Jo, handing him the book.
“Yes’m.” was the meek answer, as he began, doing his best to prove his gratitude for the favor of admission into the ‘Busy Bee Society’.
The story was not a long one, and when it was finished, he ventured to ask a few questions as a reward of merit.
“Please, ma’am, could I inquire if this highly instructive and charming institution is a new one?”
“Would you tell him?” asked Meg of her sisters.
“He’ll laugh,” said Amy warningly.
“Who cares?” said Jo.
“I guess he’ll like it,” added Beth.
“Of course I shall! I give you my word I won’t laugh. Tell away, Jo, and don’t be afraid.”
“The idea of being afraid of you! Well, you see we used to play Pilgrim’s Progress, and we have been going on with it in earnest, all winter and summer.”