at the head of the table, with the sunshine
dappling the long table, with its salads and jellies and plates of
sliced ham, and all the people sitting around kind of humble and
sheepish. He wore his Prince Albert coat and his silk hat. He didn't
want to--he thought it wasn't the thing for a picnic, but I held him
up to it, for I didn't want the people to see him in his corduroy
hunting suit. I know how impressed they would be with the fine
clothes, and I was determined they should have every thrill.

"So he put on all his good clothes, even to his gray spats. I had to
argue a long time to get them on him. He said they looked foppish, but
I just got the button-hook and put them on him while he was arguing,
and asked him who thought of this picnic anyway! and he just laughed
and said he guessed he had to pass under the rod.

"And after all the people had been introduced, and the men were
standing back, pretty hot and uncomfortable in their white shirts, he
got up and asked every one to have a seat at the table, for he wanted
to say a few words before we began to eat.

"You could have heard a leaf fall, it was so still, and then he told
them all about his son, and how he didn't understand him, and never
made a chum of him, and how he was so taken up with politics he forgot
to be a father to his own boy. And he told about his son's marriage,
and the whole story, right up to the time I went to see him in the
city."

"'It's not easy telling this,' he said, 'but I put my daughter-in-law
in wrong in this neighborhood, and I am going to make it right if I
can. She is a noble, brave woman,' he said, 'and I am proud of her. I
lost the election,' he continued, 'but I am glad of it, for in losing
it, I found a daughter and a grandson,' and then he put his hand on my
shoulder and said, 'and here's the deepest conspirator in the country,
who managed the whole thing. This is the girl who made fun of me, and
lambasted me, but who brought my daughter-in-law and me together,
and when she runs for the Legislature, I promise I will get out and
campaign for her.'

"Every one laughed then, and the people crowded up around him, and
Annie, and you never saw so many people laughing and crying at the one
time in your life.

"We had a big boiler of coffee on the little tin stove in the trees,
and I grabbed off the white pitchers, and the biggest girls from the
school helped serve, and we got the people all started in to eat, for
it doesn't