The pickles had tumbled into the butter, and the spoons had been
forgotten, and the Tremletts' basket had been left on their front
door-step. But nobody seemed to mind. Everybody was hungry,
and everything they ate seemed of the best. The little boys were
perfectly happy, and ate of all the kinds of cake. Two of the
Tremletts would stand while they were eating, because they were
afraid of the ants and the spiders that seemed to be crawling
round. And Elizabeth Eliza had to keep poking with a fern leaf to
drive the insects out of the plates. The lady from Philadelphia was
made comfortable with the cushions and shawls, leaning against a
rock. Mrs. Peterkin wondered if she forgot she had been forgotten.
John Osborne said it was time for conundrums, and asked: "Why is
a pastoral musical play better than the music we have here?
Because one is a grasshopper, and the other is a grass-opera!"
Elizabeth Eliza said she knew a conundrum, a very funny one, one
of her friends in Boston had told her. It was, "Why is" It began,
"Why is something like"
no, "Why are they different?" It was something about an old
woman, or else it was something about a young one. It was very
funny, if she could only think what it was about, or whether it was
alike or different.
The lady from Philadelphia was proposing they should guess
Elizabeth Eliza's conundrum, first the question, and then the
answer, when one of the Tremletts came running down the hill,
and declared she had just discovered a very threatening cloud, and
she was sure it was going to rain down directly.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95