"THIS," said Bettie Tucker, one morning, with approving glances at the offerings heaped about her, "is certainly a pretty fine world. I'm glad I stayed in it, even if I haven't feet enough for eleven pairs of pink bed socks."
For an alarming number of weeks, Bettie's friends had feared that this most lovable of little girls might not remain in it; but now that all danger was past, she was able to sit for long hours by the window that afforded the best view of the Tuckers' front gate.
Ordinarily it was not much of a gate. So many little Tuckers had climbed upon it and tumbled off that it had grown shaky as to hinges and bald as to paint; though, if one used rope enough, it was still useful as a barrier between the world and the adventuresome Tucker babies.
But now this gate—or rather this gateway—had become a most interesting spot. Through it, at delightfully frequent intervals, came baskets, boxes, and bundles. Most of them contained offerings, more or less enjoyable, for convalescent Bettie; for all the members of Doctor Tucker's church loved the gentle, kindly, absent-minded clergyman. Now that a member of his household was recovering from a serious illness, it seemed, as Doctor Bennett, the family physician said, as if the parish were bent on making her ill again by sending her more things to eat than any one small Bettie-girl could possibly hold. Everything from soup to dessert flowed in at that gate, for Lakeville was a kindly town and everybody knew that overworked Mrs. Tucker had quite enough to do without the extra work of preparing dainty food.
Moreover, to add very seriously to Bettie's danger from promiscuous donations, Doctor Bennett's own warm-hearted but decidedly inexperienced young daughter Mabel was laboriously cooking things out of a large number of cook-books to carry triumphantly or despondently, according to her degree of success, to her very dearest friend Bettie.
"This," explained Mabel, one morning, displaying a dull purple, most uninviting object that quivered uncannily when one shook the bowl, "is 'Ambrosial Delight.'"
"Where—where did you get it?" asked Bettie, eying the strange mixture distrustfully.
"Out of an advertising cook-book that somebody left on our doorstep. It said 'Ambrosial Delight' under the picture, but someway the pudding looks—different."
"What makes it such a very queer color?" demanded interested Bettie.
"Grape juice and eggs," explained Mabel, tenderly clasping her handiwork to her breast. "You see, according to the picture, it ought to be in even purple and yellow stripes and standing up in a stiff para—parachute—those things in Egypt——"
"Pyramid. Go on," assisted Bettie, accustomed to Mabel's difficulties of speech.
"Pyramid, but someway the custard part and the jelly part all ran together and sat down. But it tastes a lot better than it looks."
"Bettie mustn't eat anything more for two hours," interposed Mrs. Tucker. "She's just had a big piece of strawberry shortcake. I'll set this pudding in the ice-box—that'll harden the jelly."
"I'm ever so much obliged," beamed Bettie, suspecting that Mabel would have enjoyed seeing her eat the "Ambrosial Delight." "It's nice of you to cook things for me."
"Even if they do turn out wrong most every time," supplemented Mabel. "Yes, I think it is nice, because I sort of hate to cook anyway, and everybody in our house just hates to have me. I'm so untidy, they say. I always have to do it when Bridget isn't looking and it makes me nervous to have to hurry. Can you think of anything else you'd like me to make?" continued this martyr. "Because I'd do it, if I had to get up before daylight."
"I don't know of anything unless somebody invents a dish that will go right straight to my knees. They wabble. I feel as if I'd like to run a mile, but by the time I've tottered to the gate I'm glad it isn't more than a dozen steps. There's your father coming—I'm going to ask him why my knees wabble so awfully."
Impulsive Mabel, at this news, instinctively scrambled under the bed. Then, remembering that she had really been pretty good all day, she sheepishly crawled out, to Bettie's amusement, to greet her surprised father.
"I'm on my way home," said she.
"So I notice," returned Doctor Bennett, his mouth stern, his eyes twinkling. "Don't let me detain you."
"I want to know," demanded Bettie, "why I haven't any knees?"
"I think," replied Doctor Bennett, "that we ought to get you outdoors a great deal more than we do. You're not getting air enough. Where's your jacket? I'll take you for a drive this minute—I'm going to South Lakeville by the shore road to see a patient. Think you're good for a buggy ride?"
"I'm sure of it," laughed Bettie, "but I'm afraid my bones will scratch all the varnish off your nice bright buggy. I've twice as many ribs as I used to have—perhaps my knees have turned into ribs!"
Bettie returned an hour later; none the worse for her drive and hungry enough to eat even Mabel's unsightly pudding, after finishing a large bowl of broth.
"It tastes fine," she confided to Doctor Bennett, who had insisted on carrying the slender invalid upstairs, "if you eat it with your eyes shut. My! I'm hungry as a bear—wasn't it lucky that mother had my lunch ready?"
"I guess you'll have to have another ride to-morrow," laughed the pleased doctor. "Fresh air is all the medicine you need—you ought to live outdoors."
There was danger, however, of Bettie's getting more fresh air than any one little maid could ever hope to breathe, for, the next morning, there was an item in Lakeville's daily paper that brought curious and almost instantaneous results. The paragraph read:
"Miss Bettie Tucker, who has been seriously ill for several weeks, enjoyed her first outing yesterday."
It wasn't a very big item, Bettie thought, for so momentous an event, but it was quite large enough for kind-hearted Lakeville. Immediately, everybody with anything one could ride in wanted to take Bettie driving. Mr. Black placed his automobile at her disposal. Henrietta Bedford's grandmother, Mrs. Slater, laid her horses, the grandest of her carriages, and her only coachman at Bettie's bedroom-slippered feet; Jean and Marjory laboriously collected sufficient money to hire a sad old horse, more or less attached to a dilapidated cab, from the very cheapest livery stable for a whole expensive hour. Nearly all the members of Doctor Tucker's congregation took turns inviting Bettie to ride in anything from a buckboard to an omnibus. Even Julius Muhlhauser, the milkman, insisted on carrying her, in his flaming scarlet cart, over three-fourths of his milk-route, one morning.
"That," laughed Bettie, after the milkman had delivered her safely at her own door, "was something different. It isn't everybody who has a chance to drive down the milky way."
"Are you hungry?" asked her mother, meeting her at the door, with a bowl of broth.
"Not so very," returned Bettie, nevertheless accepting the broth and eating it eagerly. "I drank a whole pint of the milk-wagon milk."
Next, all Bettie's friends began to invite the little girl to visit them. She had to spend whole days or pieces of days with Jean, with Marjory, with Henrietta, with Mabel (who nursed her so devotedly that she almost suffered a relapse), and with Mrs. Crane and Mr. Black. But, as yet, she had not returned to her old footing with her comrades; she was not yet sufficiently strong for the old rough-and-tumble play, the happy-go-lucky hours in Dandelion Cottage. She was a new variety of Bettie, a fragile Bettie, to be handled with the utmost tenderness.
Mr. Black and his stout sister, Mrs. Crane, than whom Bettie had no stauncher friends, had swung the largest and most gorgeous hammock that Lakeville could furnish, under their trees for her—they were only sorry that she couldn't use two hammocks.
"Peter," said Mrs. Crane (they were sitting on the porch to keep an eye on Bettie, who, in spite of the gorgeousness of her swaying couch, had fallen asleep), "that child ought to stay outdoors all the time. That rectory is a stuffy place, crowded up against the church and right in the smoke of two factories. As soon as she's strong enough to stand it, she ought to go camping—some place on the lake shore where the air is pure."
"Of course she ought," agreed Mr. Black, heartily. "It's the best tonic in the world for growing children—there's nothing like it in bottles."
"Isn't there any way we could manage it? If we only had a camp——"
"We'll have one," promised Mr. Black, promptly.
"But we haven't any land——"
"Yes, we have; a lot of it. About four years ago I bought forty acres from an Indian, forty more from his brother, and then, just to be obliging, forty more from his friend, all for a few dollars an acre. Afterwards somebody suggested that it was all the same forty, but it wasn't; I looked it up to see. It's seventeen miles from here on the shore of the biggest and wettest lake there is, with the cleanest, sweetest air that ever was made. Just the finest spot in the world for a camp—I saw it once.
"When? Oh, six or seven years ago. I tell you what, Sarah! Suppose we take a run up there in the automobile and have a look at it. There used to be a road—it's probably there yet."
"Why couldn't we make a picnic of it and take Bettie and the girls?" asked good Mrs. Crane, instantly falling in with her brother's plan. "Seventeen miles is no distance at all for the car—I'm sure Bettie could stand it because she could get a nap there as well as at home."
"We could," agreed Mr. Black, "and I guess there'd be room for Henrietta, too—she'll want to go."
"I always did enjoy a picnic," confessed Mrs. Crane, a little sheepishly. "I guess I haven't quite grown up, in some ways."
"I like 'em myself," owned Mr. Black. "Besides, I've been thinking for some time that I'd like a look at that land—haven't seen it since I bought it. This is Monday, isn't it? Suppose we go there day after to-morrow if the weather stays right—that'll give us a day to cook in. We'll ask the girls to-night."
So, in this commonplace fashion, was planned the picnic that proved utterly unlike any picnic that this good, elderly couple had ever attended; for this particular outing behaved in a most extraordinary way. Mr. Black supposed that this innocent excursion was his, that it belonged to him, that it was subservient to his will; instead of which—but you shall hear what happened.