There were roast chickens and ducks, sliced cold meats, and country sausages. There were pies enough to make a boy’s head swim,—apple, mince, pumpkin, squash, berry, custard, and lemon,—in and out of season; chocolate cakes and raisin cakes and cakes of all sizes and forms. There were preserves and pickles and a dozen and one other messes from country cupboards, for the good housewives of Grand Island were generous souls, and used to providing for a hearty lot of seafaring husbands and sons and brothers, and, moreover, this picnic at the Narrows was a yearly event, for which they made preparation long ahead, and looked forward to almost as much as they did to Christmas and New Year. Never were tables more temptingly spread, and when, late in the afternoon, the benches around these tables were filled with expectant and hungry picnickers, it was a sight worth going miles to see. Captain Sam pronounced the chowder done, and the great kettle, hung from a stout pole, was borne in triumph by him and Arthur Warren to the grove near the tables. Somebody else pronounced the clams done, and the gravel was carefully scraped off from the seaweed, and the seaweed lifted from the clams, and the great stone oven with its steaming contents laid bare. The very fragrance from it was a tonic. Bowls of the chowder and big plates of the clams were carried to the tables. There were dishes of the hot corn piled high; potatoes that came to table black as coals, and which, being opened, revealed themselves white as newly popped corn. There was a mingled odour of foods, piping hot, and over all the grateful aroma from half a dozen coffee-pots. “Cracky! do they expect us to eat all this?” exclaimed young Joe, as he surveyed the prospect. “I wonder where it is best to begin—and what to leave out.” “Don’t try to eat it all, Joe,” said Arthur. “Give somebody else a chance, too. You know the night you went to Henry Burns’s party you ate so many nuts and raisins you woke up dreaming that somebody was trying to tie you into a square knot, and when you got fully awake you wished somebody would, and I had to get up and pour Jamaica ginger into you. Don’t try to eat more than enough for three ordinary persons this time, Joe, and you’ll be all right.” Young Joe tried to smile, with a slice of chicken in one hand and a spoonful of preserves in the other, and a mouthful of both. His reputation at the table had been made long before that day, and had gone abroad, and here was the opportunity of a lifetime, for every good-hearted motherly-looking housewife within reaching distance was passing him food. “I hope there’s a seat for me,” said Henry Burns, who came hurrying up. He and George Warren had made the run down the island on bicycles. “Come on, both of you,” cried the crowd. “There’s always room for you,” and made places for them at once.