Grace Harlowes Junior Year at High School | Page 9

few burrs from the
chestnut trees they occasionally found along the way. Once they
stopped and played hide and seek for half an hour. By one o'clock they

were ravenously hungry. Hippy clamored incessantly for food.
"Let us feed him at once, and have peace," exclaimed Nora. "I'm
hungry, too. It seems an age since breakfast."
A halt was made and the contents of two of the lunch packages were
arranged on a little tablecloth at the foot of a great oak. The hungry
young folks gathered around it and in a short time nothing remained of
the lunch excepting the packages reserved for supper.
"I move we all take a half hour's rest and then go on," said David. "We
still have a mile to go before we are through the wood. We'll feel more
like walking after we've rested a little."
"Let us all sit in a row with our backs against this fallen tree and tell a
story," said Grace. "Hippy, you are on the end, so you can begin it, then
after you have gone a little way, Nora must take up the narrative, and
so on down the line until the story is finished."
"Fine," said Hippy. "Here goes:"
"Once upon a time, in the heart of a deep forest, there lived a most
beautiful prince. He had all that heart could wish; still he was not happy,
for, alas, he was too fat."
At this statement there was a shout of laughter from his listeners, at
which Hippy, pretending anger, glared ferociously and vowed that he
would not continue. Nora thereupon took up the narrative and
convulsed her hearers with the remedies tried by the fat prince to
reduce his weight. Then the story was passed on to Anne. With each
narrator it grew funnier, until the party screamed with laughter over the
misfortunes of the ill-starred prince.
Hippy ended the tale by marrying the hero to a princess who was a golf
fiend and who forced the poor prince to be her caddy.
"From the day of his marriage he chased golf balls," concluded Hippy,
"and the habit became so firmly fixed with him that he even rose and

chased them in his sleep. He lost flesh at an alarming rate, and three
months after his wedding day they laid him to rest in the quiet
churchyard, with the touching epitaph over him, 'Things are not what
they seem.'"
Hippy buried his face in his handkerchief and sobbed audibly until
David and Reddy pounced upon him and he was obliged to forego his
lamentations and defend himself.
"It's time to move," said Tom Gray, consulting his watch. "I don't
believe we'd better go on through the wood. We'll have to about face if
we expect to get home before dark."
So the start back was made, but their progress was slow. A dozen
things beguiled them from the path. Tom's trained eye spied a wasp's
nest hanging from a limb. It was as large as a Japanese lantern and a
beautiful silver-gray color. Anne stopped to pick some ground berries
she found nestling under the leaves. Then they all started in wild
pursuit of a rabbit, and in consequence had difficulty in finding the
road again. Finally they all grew so hungry they sat down and disposed
of the remaining food.
"How dark it is growing," exclaimed Jessica, as they again took the
road. "It must be very late."
"It's after four o'clock," replied David, "and there's a storm coming, too.
I think we had better hurry. I don't fancy being caught in the woods in
bad weather. Hustle, everybody."
As they hurried along the path a blast of wind blew full in their faces.
The whole forest seemed suddenly astir. There were strange sounds
from every direction. The branches creaked and the dry leaves fell
rattling to the ground by hundreds. Another gust of wind filled their
eyes and nostrils with fine dust.
"Don't be frightened," called Tom. "Follow me."
He led the way with Reddy, but the storm was upon them before they

had gone ten steps. The wind almost blew them off their feet and black
darkness settled down over the woods. They could just see the outlines
of the trees as they staggered on, a blinding rain drenching them to the
skin.
Tom divided the party into two sections, four in one and five in the
other. They were to hold each other's hands tightly and keep together.
Frequent flashes of lightning revealed the woods in a tremendous state
of agitation and it seemed better to be moving than to stand still and
watch the terrifying spectacle.
On they stumbled, but suddenly came to grief, for the four in front fell
headlong over a tree that had been blown across the path,