Somebody, in walking about with a plate of beef-steak pie,
tripped up over a root, and sent the pie flying. None of it went over
them, fortunately, but the accident suggested a fresh danger to them, and
agitated them; and, whenever anybody moved about, after that, with
anything in his hand that could fall and make a mess, they watched that
person with growing anxiety until he sat down again.
"Now then, you girls," said our friend Bow to them, cheerily, after it
was all over, "come along, you've got to wash up!"
They didn't understand him at first. When they grasped the idea, they
said they feared they did not know how to wash up.
"Oh, I'll soon show you," he cried; "it's rare fun! You lie down on your
- I mean you lean over the bank, you know, and sloush the things about in
the water."
The elder sister said that she was afraid that they hadn't got on dresses
suited to the work.
"Oh, they'll be all right," said he light-heartedly; "tuck `em up."
And he made them do it, too. He told them that that sort of thing was
half the fun of a picnic.