The Merryweathers

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

  CHAPTER IV.

  AFTER THE PICNIC

  "AND what comes next on the programme?" asked the Chief.

  "Coma, I should say," replied Colonel Ferrers. "After that watermelon, Isee nothing else for it. It's my avowed belief that my nephew therecould not stir if his life depended on it; it stands to reason. The boyhas eaten more than his own weight. Monstrous!"

  "What a frightful calumny!" cried Jack, laughing. "Really, Uncle Tom,you cannot expect me to sit still under that."

  He rose lightly to his feet, and grasping a branch of the tree above hishead, drew himself up, and after kicking his long legs several times inthe air, finally twisted them round the branch, and in another momenthad disappeared in the shadowy depths of the great hemlock.

  "Oh! I say!" his voice floated down. "This is a great tree to climb.You'd better come up, Uncle Tom, if you feel the slightest symptoms ofcoma."

  The other lads did not wait to be invited, but flung themselves at thetree, and were soon lost to sight, though not to sound. Colonel Ferrersturned to his hostess with a frown which tried hard not to turn into asmile.

  "Now, did you ever hear of such impudence as that?" he asked. "Theseyoung fellows of to-day are the most impudent scoundrels I ever cameacross. Time was, though, when we could have climbed a tree with thebest of them; eh, Merryweather?"

  "I have no doubt you could now, Colonel," said his host, "if you wereput to it; but I confess it is more comfortable under a tree than init, nowadays, especially after a Gargantuan feast like this."

  It had indeed been a great picnic. The boys, while on a tramp, haddiscovered a grove of pines and hemlocks, huge old trees, which hadunaccountably escaped the woodman's axe. The pines shot up straight andtall for a hundred feet and more, their trunks seamed and scarred, theirclouds of dusky green plumes tossing far overhead; the hemlocks were noless massive in girth, but they were twisted into all manner ofgrotesque shapes, and their feathery branches hung low, making a densecanopy over the heads of the picnickers. Here, under one of thesehemlocks, the cloth had been laid, and decorated with ferns and hemlocktassels. Then the baskets were unpacked, and the campers feasted as onlydwellers in the open air can feast. Ham and pasty, sandwiches and rolls,jam and doughnuts--nothing seemed to come amiss; and they finished offwith a watermelon of such mighty proportions that it took all theunited energies of the boys to dispose of it.

  But it was finally disposed of, and now came the hour that is apt to bea little difficult at picnics; the hour between the feast and the goinghome.

  "I have a new game," said Mrs. Merryweather. "Perhaps you would like totry it presently; but first, Colonel Ferrers, while the boys areskylarking, or rather tree-larking, up there, I want to hear the storyyou were telling Miles on the drive over. I could not hear very well onthe back seat, and besides, I was making up my game. It was someadventure of yours when you were a boy."

  "Capital story!" said Mr. Merryweather. "Do tell it, Colonel; I want tohear it again."

  The Colonel smiled, and puffed meditatively at his cigar.

  "Story of the barrel, eh?" he said. "Upon my word, now, I think it ispretty hard to make me tell that story before all these young people.What do you say, Gertrude? you don't want to hear about your oldfriend's being a young fool, do you?"

  "Oh! Colonel Ferrers," said Gertrude; "a story that makes your eyestwinkle so must be one that we all want to hear. Do begin, please!"

  And all the girls, who had been putting away the table-cloth and"tidying-up" generally, gathered about the Colonel in an eager group.

  "Well! well!" he said, glancing from one bright face to another. "Afterall, what are we old fogies for, but to point a moral and adorn a tale?Listen, then. This happened when I was a young jackanapes of about mynephew's age; I knew everything in the world then, you understand, andnobody else knew much of anything. That was my belief, as it is thebelief of most young men."

  "Uncle," said a voice from above, "there are three young men up here whoare prepared to drop things on your head if you slander theirgeneration."

  "Slander your generation, sir?" cried the Colonel, "by likening it to myown? Of all the monstrous insolence I ever heard--you may be thankful,sir, that I name yours in the same breath with it. Be good enough tohold your tongue, sir, and attend to your business, which is that oflistening to me. Well, my dear madam, at the period of which I speak, Iwas in the office of my uncle, Marmaduke Ferrers, India merchant,importer of tea, silks, that sort of thing. Learning the trade, youunderstand; though, as I say, I was not aware that there was anything inparticular to learn. This is one of the lessons I did learn. One day Iwas sent to the warehouse to count some barrels, and see them stowedaway in the vault where they belonged. They were a special thing,barrels of minerals for some collection museum, I forget what. Out ofour own line, but we had undertaken to store and keep them for a time.The vault was directly under the warehouse, which was some way from theoffice. So! I went down and found no one there; The men were at theirdinner, you understand. They may have been a little in a hurry, may havestarted a few minutes before the bell rang; I don't know how it was. Atany rate, I was in a towering passion; thought the whole business wasgoing to the dogs for want of discipline, wanted to dismiss every man inthe warehouse. Men who had been there before I was born, and knew moreabout tea than I was likely to know in my lifetime. Well, sir, it cameinto my ass's head that I would give these men a lesson, show them thatthere was some one in the place that meant to have things done when hewanted them done. I would stow those barrels myself. I was strong as abull, you remember--I beg ten thousand pardons! you and your husbandwere infants when this happened; not out of long clothes, I am positive.But I was uncommonly strong, and thought Milo and Hercules would havefound me a tough subject to tackle. Well--speaking of tackle--there wasthe rope and pulley, all ready for lowering; block up at the ceiling,rope dangling,--just over the trap that led into the vault. There werethe barrels; nothing was easier, I thought. Child's play; I would haveevery one of the barrels lowered and stowed before those scoundrels cameback from their dinner. I pushed the first barrel to the edge of thetrap (lifted the trap-door first, you understand), hooked on the 'fall,'pleased as Punch with myself--the only man in the world, I give you myword; then I got a good hold on the rope, and--kicked the barrel overthe edge."

  "Oh! Colonel Ferrers!" cried the girls.

  "Ha! ha! ha!" roared the boys in the tree.

  "Loaded with minerals, you understand! stone, metal, I don't know what.The barrel went down, and I went up."

  "_Oh!_ Colonel Ferrers!"

  "Up to the ceiling, I give you my word. High room, too, great warehouse,twenty feet if it was one. There I hung, and there I swung, a spectaclefor gods and men."

  "What _did_ you do?" asked Mrs. Merryweather, as soon as she couldcontrol her laughter. "Dear friend, it is most heartless to laugh, buthow can we help it? How did you ever get down? did you have to wait tillthe men came back?"

  "No, madam. My pride would not allow that. I learned my lesson, or apart of it, while I hung there like Mahomet's coffin; I learned thatGravitation did not trouble itself about superior young men; but I didnot learn all that there was to learn; that took the sequel. Well, Ihung there, as I say, revolving slowly; centrifugal force, youunderstand; I was really exemplifying the workings of natural forces;interesting demonstration, if there had been any one there to see. Mycrumb of comfort was that there was no one. I must get down before thosemen came back from dinner; that was the one thing necessary in the worldat that moment. I measured the space of the trap as I swung; I pridedmyself on my correct eye; you see I was a most complete ass: I have seenonly a few completer. I thought I could jump down astride of the trap,so to speak, and get no harm. I came down the rope, hand over fist, tillI got to the end of it; only about six feet between me and safety: thenI jumped."

  "And did you--"

  "No, my dear madam, I did not. I went down into the cellar, on top ofthe barrel, and I carry the mark of the edge of that barr
el on myshoulders to this day, and shall to my latest day. And the moral of thisstory," the Colonel concluded, glancing up into the depths of the greathemlock, "the moral, my young friends, is: wait till you know somethingbefore you decide that you know everything."

  When the laughter had subsided, Mr. Merryweather said: "Your story,Colonel, reminds me of a scrape that Roger and I once got into, yearsago. No, it wasn't Roger, it was my brother Will. My children all knowit, but it may be new to you and our other guests. It happened when wewere out sailing one day, on this very pond. The water was pretty lowthat year, and we got over into a cove on the north side, where weseldom went, and didn't know the ground thoroughly. Indeed, in very lowwater, one is apt to find that one doesn't know any ground thoroughly.New ledges and rocks are constantly cropping out--as you shall hear.Well, we were sailing along in fine style, before a fair wind, whensuddenly--we ran aground."

  "On the shore?" asked the Colonel.

  "No; on a rock. It was getting dark, and we could not see very well, butI could see a nose of rock, and it looked like the end of a ledge. 'I'llget out and shove her off!' said I. I sounded with an oar, and found thewater barely ankle-deep on the ledge. So I took off my shoes andstockings, rolled up my trousers a little, and stepped in--up to myneck!"

  "Ha! ha!" roared the Colonel. "Ho! ho! that was sport. I wish I had seenyou."

  "Wait a moment!" said the Chief. "The picture is not ready forexhibition yet. When Will had got through laughing at me, he went towork--I found I could not stir the boat alone--he went to work and gotready. Stripped to the skin--he had on a new suit, and was something ofa dandy in those days--stepped carefully overboard--and landed in waterthree inches deep."

  "Merryweather, you are making this up!"

  "Indeed I am not, my dear sir. There we stood, I up to my chin, he withhis toes under water, and laughed till we were so weak that we had to goashore and sit down before we had strength to push that boat off. Thereis my Roland for your Oliver, Colonel. And now, Miranda, I think we areready for your game. Come down, boys!"

  The boys came scrambling down, still laughing over the stories, and soonall were seated on the carpet of dry, fragrant pine-needles. The girlshad found some oak-leaves ("It is my belief," said Mr. Merryweather,"that if Bell went to a picnic in a coal-mine or on a sand-bank, shewould still manage to find oak-leaves somewhere!"), and were busilytwining garlands for the heads of the company.

  "Are we all ready?" asked Mrs. Merryweather. "Well! my game--a verysimple one--is called _Vocabulary_. It came from my reading the otherday an admirable little book written by a wise professor, in which hedeplores the poverty of our vocabularies, and makes a suggestion for ourenlarging them. He advises us to add two or three words to our listevery week. The first time we use a new word, he says, it will beembarrassing to us and, it may be, amusing to our hearers; but if wehave courage and patience, we shall be doing a good work not only forourselves, but for all our generation and the generations that are tocome. Well, this naturally appealed to me, and I was thinking ofproposing it to you all this evening; and then, as we were driving over,it occurred to me that it might be made into a rather amusing game."

  "Miranda," said her husband, "is there anything in life that you do_not_ think can be made into a rather amusing game? But go on!"

  "Dear Mammy!" said Phil. "Do you remember when you and I both had thetoothache, and you thought it might be amusing to count the jumps andsee how many there were in a minute?"

  "Well, so it would have been," said his mother, "if we had only had alittle more fortitude. Now if you are all going to laugh at me, youshall not learn the game."

  "Oh, we will be good!" exclaimed the Merryweathers. "We truly will."

  "The game of _Vocabulary_," said Mrs. Merryweather, "is played thus.One--I, for example--begins to tell a story. I say, 'I went out to walkthis morning, and I met--' there I stop short, and you, in turn, give averb synonymous, more or less, with 'met.' This goes around the circletill some one cannot find a verb, and that some one must continue thestory, stopping at any word he likes. I fear this is not very clear;perhaps we can illustrate it best playing it. I will begin as Isuggested. I went out to walk this morning, and on my way I met--" shestopped.

  "Encountered!" said Mr. Merryweather.

  "Approached!" said the Colonel.

  "Ran up against!" said Gerald.

  "Fell afoul of!" said Phil.

  "Fell in with!" said Bell.

  "Peggy, you come next."

  "Oh! I can't!" cried poor Peggy. "They have said everything; Mrs.Merryweather, I can't _ever_ play anything of this kind, you know. I amtoo stupid."

  "Nonsense, my child; you are not in the least stupid. If you cannotthink of a word, go on with the story."

  "But I don't know how!" cried Peggy, her eyes growing large and round,with a look that Gertrude and Margaret knew only too well. The tearswere not far behind those round blue eyes; and Margaret hastened to therescue. "You met a man, dear!" she whispered. "That is all you needsay."

  "Well--I met a man!" said Peggy, with a gasp.

  "Person!"

  "Individual!"

  "Anthropoid ape!"

  "Masculine mortal!"

  "Chump!"

  "I object to the definition!" said Mrs. Merryweather. "In case of afalse definition, the falsifier takes up the thread. Go on, Jerry."

  "This man (he _was_ a chump, you'll see!) was so ugly that not a crowdared to stay in the same county with him, and so disagreeable that itgave one spasms to look at him; also, he had not the manners to take offhis hat--" he stopped short.

  "Cap!"

  "Hood!"

  "Helmet!"

  "Bonnet!"

  "Head-dress!"

  "Tam-o'-shanter!"

  "Mitre!"

  "Tiara!"

  "Fez!"

  "Turban!"

  "Beretta!"

  "I give in!" cried the Colonel. "I cannot think of another thing, so Icontinue the tale.

  "This odious person, after passing me in the unmannerly fashiondescribed, was about to proceed further; but I, seizing him by the coatcollar, lifted my stout stick, and gave him a good sound--"

  "Thrashing!"

  "Licking!"

  "Beating!"

  "Chastisement!"

  "Hiding!"

  "Walloping!"

  "Whipping!"

  "Scourging!"

  "Drubbing!"

  "Trouncing!"

  "Thwacking!"

  "Lashing!"

  "Flogging!"

  "Caning!"

  "Larruping!"

  "Fustigating!"

  "Basting!"

  "Leathering!"

  "Thumping!"

  "Whopping!"

  "Rib-roasting!"

  "Dear me!" cried Mrs. Merryweather. "This is rather terrible, I think.There seem to be more terms to express personal violence than anythingelse."

  "We haven't begun to give them all, either!" said Phil. "If we areallowed to use modern slang--I know you prefer ancient, Mammy--"

  "I know you are a saucy boy!" said his mother.

  "My dear friends," said the Chief, rising. "This is all very fine: butthe simple fact is, it is beginning to rain, and I think it advisablefor us to beat, fustigate, (where _did_ you get that, Miranda?) orwallop, a retreat!"

  Then there was scrambling up, and running to and fro, and gathering upof baskets and shawls. The good old horse, which had been grazingpeacefully in a clearing hard by, was harnessed, and Mr. and Mrs.Merryweather, Colonel Ferrers, and the _impedimenta_ bundled in and offas hastily as might be. Finally, as the rain began to pour down in goodearnest, the younger campers gathered into a solid phalanx and walkedhome across the fields, singing in chorus, and informing all whom itmight concern that they were

  "Marching along, Fifty score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!"