They were nearing their destination when Anne suddenly exclaimed: "Look, girls. Some one is over at the old house. I just saw a man go around the corner!"
The girls looked quickly in the direction of the house. Just then a figure appeared, stared at the approaching girls and began waving his hat wildly, at the same time doing a sort of war dance.
"It's another lunatic," screamed Jessica. "Run, girls, run!"
"Run nothing," exclaimed Nora. "Don't you know Reddy Brooks when you see him? Just wait until I get near enough to tell him that you mistook him for a lunatic. Hurrah! David and Hippy are with him."
"Well, well, well!" exclaimed Hippy as the girls approached. "Here is Mrs. Harlowe's little girl and some of her juvenile friends. I'm very glad to see so many Oakdale children out to-day."
"How dare you take possession of the very spot we had our eye on?" asked Grace, as she shook hands with David.
"I came over to try my bird before I have it sent home for the winter,"
replied David. "I was just locking up."
"And the exhibition is all over," cried Grace in a disappointed tone.
"I'm so sorry. You see, I still have a hankering for aeroplanes."
"There wasn't any exhibition, after all," said David. "It wouldn't fly worth a cent to-day. I shall have to give it a complete overhauling when I get it back to my workshop. What are you girls doing out this way?"
"Oh, we just came out to walk, because it was too nice to stay indoors,"
said Anne. "And now we are particularly glad we came."
"Not half as glad as I am," replied David, looking at her with a smile.
"Speaking of walking," remarked Hippy, "I have decided to go in for a little on my own account. Object, to become a light weight. Is there any one who will encourage me in this laudable resolution, and beguile me while I go 'galumphing' over the ground?"
"Oh, I know something that would be perfectly fine!" exclaimed Nora, hopping about in excitement.
"Watch her," cried Hippy. "She is about to have a conniption. She always has them when an idea hits her. I've known her for years and----"
"Make him stop," appealed Nora to David and Reddy, "or I won't tell any of you a single thing."
"I'll desist, merely to please the Irish lady, not because I'm afraid of you two long, slim persons," said Hippy, cleverly dodging both David and Reddy.
"Suppose we go on a walking expedition," said Nora. "We can start early some Saturday morning, with enough lunch to last us all day, and walk to the other side of Upton Wood and back. My sister would be glad to go with us, so that will settle the matter of having an older person along.
We can have the whole day in the woods, and the walk will do us all good. We won't have many more chances, either, for winter will be upon us before we know it. It's a shame to waste such perfect days as these."
"What a perfectly lovely stunt!" exclaimed Grace. "We'll write to Tom Gray, and see if he can't come, too. The walking expedition wouldn't be complete without him."
"I'll write to him to-night," said David. "I certainly should like to see the good old chap."
"Will there be plenty to eat?" asked Hippy. "I always feel hungry after such strenuous exercise as walking. I am not very strong, you know."
"Hear him," jeered Reddy. "One minute he vows to walk until he reaches the skeleton stage, and the next he threatens to kick over all his vows by overeating."
"I didn't say anything about overeating," retorted Hippy. "I merely stated that there are times when I feel the pangs of hunger."
"Stop squabbling," said Jessica, "and let's lay some plans."
"Where shall we lay them?" innocently asked Hippy.
"Nowhere, if you're not good," said Nora eyeing him severely.
Then an animated discussion began, and the following Saturday was agreed upon, the weather permitting, as the best time to go.
Saturday turned out fair, and by nine o'clock the entire party were monopolizing the Harlowe's veranda.
"Well, are we all ready?" said Tom Gray, as he glanced at his watch.
"Everybody scramble. One, two, three, walk."
Eight highly excited boys and girls accompanied by Miss Edith O'Malley, hustled down the steps, waving good-bye to Mrs. Harlowe as she stood on the veranda and watched them out of sight.
The lunch had been divided into four packages and each boy strapped a package to his shoulder. Grace wore a little knapsack fitted to her back with two cross straps. "There's nothing in it but some walnut fudge that I made last night, but I couldn't resist wearing it. It belonged to my grandfather," she confided to the girls when they had exclaimed over it.
"My, but it's great to be here," said Tom Gray to Grace as they entered Upton Wood. "I'm so glad I could come."
"So are we," she replied. "A lark in the woods wouldn't be half the fun with our forester missing."
"Back to nature for me, every time," he exclaimed, taking a deep breath and looking about him, his face aglow with forest worship.
"I love the woods, too," said Grace, "almost enough to wish I were a gypsy."
On down the shady wood road they traveled, sometimes stopping to watch a squirrel or a chipmunk or to knock down a few burrs from the chestnut trees they occasionally found along the way. Once they stopped and played hide and seek for half an hour. By one o'clock they were ravenously hungry. Hippy clamored incessantly for food.
"Let us feed him at once, and have peace," exclaimed Nora. "I'm hungry, too. It seems an age since breakfast."
A halt was made and the contents of two of the lunch packages were arranged on a little tablecloth at the foot of a great oak. The hungry young folks gathered around it and in a short time nothing remained of the lunch excepting the packages reserved for supper.
"I move we all take a half hour's rest and then go on," said David. "We still have a mile to go before we are through the wood. We'll feel more like walking after we've rested a little."
"Let us all sit in a row with our backs against this fallen tree and tell a story," said Grace. "Hippy, you are on the end, so you can begin it, then after you have gone a little way, Nora must take up the narrative, and so on down the line until the story is finished."
"Fine," said Hippy. "Here goes:"
"Once upon a time, in the heart of a deep forest, there lived a most beautiful prince. He had all that heart could wish; still he was not happy, for, alas, he was too fat."
At this statement there was a shout of laughter from his listeners, at which Hippy, pretending anger, glared ferociously and vowed that he would not continue. Nora thereupon took up the narrative and convulsed her hearers with the remedies tried by the fat prince to reduce his weight. Then the story was passed on to Anne. With each narrator it grew funnier, until the party screamed with laughter over the misfortunes of the ill-starred prince.
Hippy ended the tale by marrying the hero to a princess who was a golf fiend and who forced the poor prince to be her caddy.
"From the day of his marriage he chased golf balls," concluded Hippy, "and the habit became so firmly fixed with him that he even rose and chased them in his sleep. He lost flesh at an alarming rate, and three months after his wedding day they laid him to rest in the quiet churchyard, with the touching epitaph over him, 'Things are not what they seem.'"
Hippy buried his face in his handkerchief and sobbed audibly until David and Reddy pounced upon him and he was obliged to forego his lamentations and defend himself.
"It's time to move," said Tom Gray, consulting his watch. "I don't believe we'd better go on through the wood. We'll have to about face if we expect to get home before dark."
So the start back was made, but their progress was slow. A dozen things beguiled them from the path. Tom's trained eye spied a wasp's nest hanging from a limb. It was as large as a Japanese lantern and a beautiful silver-gray color. Anne stopped to pick some ground berries she found nestling under the leaves. Then they all started in wild pursuit of a rabbit, and in consequence had difficulty in finding the road again. Finally they all grew so hungry they sat down and disposed of the remaining food.