"Dinner served in the dining car!" called Bert through the woods, imitating the call of the porter on the Pullman car.
"All ready!" echoed the other boys, banging on an old boiler like the Turks do, instead of ringing a bell.
"Oh, how pretty!" the girls all exclaimed, as they beheld the "feast in the forest," as Nan put it. And indeed it was pretty, for at each place was set a long plume of fern leaves with wood violets at the end, and what could be more beautiful than such a decoration?
"Potatoes first!" Harry announced, "because they may get cold," and at this order everybody broke the freshly roasted potatoes into the paper napkins and touched it up with the extra butter that had come along.
"Simply fine!" declared Nan, with the air of one who knew. Now, my old readers will remember how Nan baked such good cake. So she ought to be anauthority on baked potatoes, don't you think?
Next came the sandwiches, with the watercress Harry and Bert had gathered before breakfast, then (and this was a surprise) hot chocolate! This was brought out in Martha's cider jug, and heated in a kettle over the boys' stone furnace.
"It must be fun to camp out," Mabel Herold remarked.
"Yes, just think of the dishes saved," added Mildred Manners, who always had so many dishes to do at home.
"And we really don't need them," Nan argued, passing her tin cup on to Flossie.
"Think how the soldiers get along!" Bert put in.
"And the firemen'" lisped Freddie, who never forgot the heroes of flame andwater.
Of course everybody was either sitting on the grass or on a "soft stump." These latter conveniences had been brought by the boys for Aunt Sarah and Mrs. Bobbsey.
"What's that!" exclaimed little Flossie, as something was plainlymovingunder the tables cloth.
"A snake, a snake!" called everybody at once, for indeed under the white linen was plainly to be seen the creeping form of a reptile.
While the girls made a run for safety the boys carefully lifted the cloth and went for his snakeship.
"There he is! There he is!" shouted Tom Mason, as the thing tried to crawl under the stump lately used as a seat by Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Whack him!" called August Stout, who, armed with a good club, made straight for the stump.
"Look out! He's a big fellow!" Harry declared, as the snake attempted to get upright.
The boys fell back a little now, and as the snake actually stood on the tip of his tail, as they do before striking, Harry sprang forward and dealt him a heavy blow right on the head that laid the intruder flat.
"At him, boys! At him!" called Jack Hopkins, while the snake lay wriggling in the grass; and the boys, making good use of the stunning blow Harry had dealt, piled on as many more blows as their clubs could wield.
All this time the girls and ladies were over on a knoll "high and dry," as Nan said, and now, when assured that the snake was done for they could hardly be induced to come and look at him.
"He's a beauty!" Harry declared, as the boys actually stretched the creature out to measure him. Bert had a rule, and when the snake was measured up he was found to be five feet long!
"He's a black racer!" Jack Hopkins annpounced, and the others said they guessed he was.
"Lucky we saw him first!" remarked Harry, "Racers are very poisonous!""Let's go home; there might be more!", pleaded Flossie, but the boys said the snake hunt was the best fun at the picnic.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Harry suddenly, "we forgot to let the pigeons loose!" and so saying he ran for the basket of birds that hung on the low limb of a pretty maple. First Harry made sure the messages were safe under each bird's wing, then he called:
"All ready!"
Snap! went something that sounded like a shot (but it wasn't), and then away flew the pretty birds to take the messages home to John and Martha. The shot was only a dry stick that Tom Mason snapped to imitate a gun, as they do at bicycle races, but the effect was quite startling and made the girls jump.
"It won't take long for them to get home!" said Bert, watching the birds fly away.
"They'll get lost!" cried Freddie.
"No, they won't. They know which way we came," Nan explained. "But they was shut up in the basket," argued Freddie.
"Yet they could see," Nan told him.
"Can pigeons see when they're asleep?" inquired the little fellow. "Maybe," Nan answered."Then I'd like to have pigeon eyes," hefinished, thinking to himself howfine it would be to see everything going on around and be fast asleep too.
