et Grandma Lowry."

A little old woman in black stopped cutting the cake suddenly and
looked up. Then she began to speak in a slow, monotonous voice. "She
came to me," she said, "when my three boys were down with diphtheria
in the dead of winter, and sat with my little Charlie the last night
he was on earth. I says to her: 'Lie down, Mrs. Lowry'--she'd been up
two nights already--but she says--I'll never forget just the way she
said it--she says: 'Mary, I helped little Charlie to come into the
world, and if it so be that he's goin' to leave it, who's got a
better right than me to' be with him?'"

The shade of the elm-trees was getting smaller and smaller as the sun
rose higher, and some of the old-timers were sitting in the sun
before they noticed it, so interested were they in Mr. Slater's story
of the surveying party that crossed the Assiniboine that fateful
night in November, '79, when only five out of the eight got over.

Then the women announced, by beating on a dishpan, that dinner was
ready, and every tree and bush gave answer--it was the old miracle of
Roderick Dhu's men rising from copse and heath and cairn. Gray-haired
men came running like boys, catching at each other's coat-tails,
tripping each other, laughing, care-free, for it was Pioneers' Picnic
day, and that is the one day when gladness and good-fellowship have
full play, and cares and years with their bitter memories of hail and
frost fall from them like a garment. Hungry little boys fell down out
of trees, asking where was the pie! Little girls in fluffy skirts
stood shyly around until some motherly soul ushered them down the
line where she said there was plenty of room and lots of good eating.

Demure young ladies, assisted by young fellows in white aprons,
poured tea and coffee from huge white pitchers, making frequent
journeys to the stove over among the trees, and sometimes forgetting
to come back until some one had to go for them!

There were roast chicken and boiled ham set in beds of crispest
lettuce and parsley. There were moulds of chicken jelly with sprigs
of young celery stuck in the top. There were infinite varieties of
salads and jellies and pickles; there were platters full of
strawberry tarts, made from last year's wild strawberries, which had
been kept for this very occasion; there were apple pies covered with
a thick mat of scalded cream. There was Mrs. Motherwell's half-hour
cake, which tradition said had to be beaten for that l