Miss Belle looked at me and burst out laughing, too.
"What's the matter ?" I stammered.
"Oh, nothing," said she; "only you dusted your clothes with your handkerchief after you fell, and now you've wiped your face with it, and it's all streaked up as if you'd been making mud pies, and your hat's a little out of shape, and--" "You look as if you'd been on a bender," added the fellow who had induced me to come to the confounded affair.
"Well, I guess I can wash my face," I retorted, a little mad.

"I've met with an accident, that's all.

Just wait until I've tied my horse." There was a pond close by--part of the programme of the picnic was to go out rowing on the pond--and as soon as I had fastened my horse, I went down to the bank and stooped over to wash my face, and the bank gave way and I pitched headlong into twelve feet of water.
I was not scared, for I could swim, but I was puzzled as to how to enjoy a picnic in my wet clothes.

I wanted to go home, but the boys said: "No--I must walk about briskly and let my things dry on me--the day was so warm I wouldn't take cold." So I walked about briskly, all by myself, for about two hours, while the rest of them were having a good time.

Then some one asked where the lemons were that I was to bring, and I had to confess that they were at home in the store, and dinner was kept waiting another two hours while a man took my horse and went for those lemons.