Then Pearl and Mary went into the house and prepared the best meal that the family supply of provisions permitted. They boiled eggs hard, and spiced them the way Pearl had seen Camilla do. Pearl sliced up some of Aunt Kate's home-made bread as thin as she could, and buttered it; she brought out, from the packing box that they were still in, one of the few jars of peaches, and then made the tea. She and Mary covered the table with a clean white flour-sack; they filled a glass jar with ferns and anemones for a centre-piece and set the table as daintily as they could, even putting a flower beside each pate. "Land alive!" Mrs. Perkins exclaimed, when they carried the table out under the trees, where she sat with Aunt Kate and Mrs. Watson. "I haven't et outside since we used to have the picnics in Millford in old Major Rogers's time. I mind the last one we had. I seen old Mrs. Gilbert just fillin' the stuff into her basket, and I do believe she tuk more home than she brought, though I ain't the one to say it, because I do not like to talk against a neighbour, though there are some as say it right out, and don't even put a tooth on it." "Don't you go to the Pioneers picnics, now?" Pearl asked, as she poured the tea. "No; I haven't gone since Mrs. Burrell came. I don't like her. She isn't what I think a minister's wife ought to be, mind you; she said an awful queer thing at our place the very first time she was there. She was askin' me why we didn't get out to church, and I was tellin' her about all the chores we had to do, milkin' and feedin' the stock, and that, and she didn't say much, but when she got down to pray before she left, she started off all right, and I wasn't really noticin' what she was sayin' until I hears her say: 'Lord, take away the cows and the pigs and the hens from these people, if it is the pigs and the cows and hens that's keepin' them from attendin' church, for it is better for them to do without milk or butter or eggs all their lives than to be eternally lost.' Them was just her words. Well, it just about made me faint to think of losin' all that, and I says: 'Take that back, and we'll go'; I was so flustered. And now, some of us has been drivin' down once a day; but, mind you, I don't feel real easy when I'm near her. The idea of her plottin' harm against innocent critturs that never done her any harm!" Pearl said to Mary when they went back into the kitchen, "Mary, that woman hasn't got the right idea of things. It don't do you a bit of good to eat outside if you're thinkin' hard of anybody. It'll take a queer old lot of blue sky and fresh air and singin' birds and cherry-blossoms to soak all that out of her; but of course it'll help some."