A path led from the grove over the hill to the northward. Knee-high with vagrant grass, bordered by white birches, poplars and brambles, it wound into the thickest, quietest part of that forest which once stretched from the Paris town line to Center Wickford. We had not been in the grove an hour before Nathan came dodging excitedly through the crowd. He caught my arm and drew me aside. “I’ve seen Bernie and Elinore!” he cried feverishly, Bernie being about all the picnic meant for him, anyhow. “Her Ma couldn’t come and she’s all alone. She says let’s go way off up the woods and eat our dinners together, just us four! Oh, gee, Billy, what a chance—what a chance!” “Chance for what?” I demanded. My friend was crestfallen. “Why—why—to just be with ’em all day—and perhaps we can kiss ’em——!” He added this last in a whisper. “Oh, hake! I got sumpin’ on my mind besides always kissin’ girls. I wanner see the sports and try for a prize!” But he persuaded me. Nathan carried his luncheon under his arm in a paper. Already it was misshapen and greasy with handling. Some boys had pushed it from his grasp and used it as a football. It consisted of three very fatty doughnuts and some thick slices of soggy, indigestible oatmeal bread with equally indigestible chunks of hard cheese between them. This he proposed to open in front of Bernie. It made me nervous. Shortly before twelve o’clock, therefore, we slipped away from the prosaic rabble and followed two bareheaded, beribboned coquettes up the woods road. And by processes and maneuvers which would only be recognizable by boys, Nathan ultimately found himself carrying Bernie’s dainty lunch basket and I had become the personal knight and escort of the Carver girl. Elinore and I loitered behind, of course with deliberation and premeditation, and Bernie and Nathan disappeared over the top of the hill. And we saw not one another again until the day was far spent and we were forced by sunset to come forth from Avalon.