Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/171

Rh day of the summer. Elaborate preparations had been made and all that was now in question was the weather, for to make such an event a success it seemed absolutely necessary to have one of those clear, blazing-hot days that seem specially to belong to circuses, fairs, and midsummer festivals.

Janet was to go under the safe, but excited, wing of Mrs. Brown, and Oliver, also, was looking forward to the day with some anticipation.

"I wonder if the Beeman and Polly will be there," he thought, and went off into further speculation as to what the Beeman would look like in the more civilized clothes that such an occasion would demand. "I might not even know him," he reflected.

When the day came, however, cloudless, hot, just what such a day should be, Oliver suddenly announced that he was not going.

"I don't like to leave Cousin Jasper all alone when he is so worried," he said to Janet, but could not explain why there should be any cause for misgiving. "I didn't care a great deal about going anyway." He refused to listen to her suggestion that she should stay also.

Lines of motors were rolling down the road from early morning onward, filled with flannel-coated or befrilled holiday makers or laden with farmers and farmers' wives and farmers' children. Janet and Mrs. Brown, the one an excited flutter of white organdie skirts, the other a ponderous rustle of