To-morrow they must start homeward; and just because they were exhausted with one and another game, they are, at the commencement of our story, resting and talking on Aunt Mary’s front piazza.
Ernest is rubbing his right arm meanwhile, for he says, “It has pained me dreadfully ever since that last catch at the ball.”
And Aunt Mary has just joined them, carrying with her a big tin waiter on which is a large molasses cake, so fresh that it is yet hot from the oven, and a four-quart pitcher of milk, which Bessie, the brown-eyed Alderney, had given at the morning milking hour. At sight of their aunt thus laden, three cheers were laughingly and loudly given, for if there is one way quicker than another to young people’s hearts, perhaps it is by the way of hot molasses cake and ice-cold fresh milk, as rich as many city folks have their cream.
Jo, who was eighteen years old on his last birthday, is considered the young man of the party. He has always been a gentleman, and he at once rushed to the sitting-room for his aunt’s favorite rocking-chair. As Ernest has already disposed of the tray by putting it on a spruce-bark covered table which stands for all sorts of convenient purposes on the piazza, Aunt Mary is comfortably placed in her easy-chair before she realizes that Jo had gone for it. “Oh, what delicious cake!” “How kind you are!” “I must have another glass of that milk.” “Isn’t this lots better than being in school?” etc., were the pleasing comments and ejaculations which any stranger might have heard passing on the other side of the road from the house, or, indeed, a quarter of a mile beyond it.
After awhile, however, the eating and drinking were over, and “What shall we do now?” was the question. “I’m tired out, for one,” said Ernest, and “I for another,” continued Madge; “still, these are our last hours and we must do something; we cannot afford to lose a moment. Aunt Mary, you tell us what to do.”
“Will you promise to do what I tell you?”
“We will,” answered Madeline. “Of course we will,” continued Ernest; “a likely thing we could say no, now, of all times, after the way this cake and milk have disappeared.”
“Well, it’s agreed, then,” said Aunt Mary. “I want you to entertain me awhile by telling a story.”