“Attention!” cried Mr. Sieppe, his gold-headed cane in one hand, his Springfield in the other.  “Attention!  We depart.”  The four little boys moved off ahead; the greyhound suddenly began to bark, and tug at his leash.  The others picked up their bundles.

“Vorwarts!” shouted Mr. Sieppe, waving his rifle and assuming the attitude of a lieutenant of infantry leading a charge.  The party set off down the railroad track.

Mrs. Sieppe walked with her husband, who constantly left her side to shout an order up and down the line.  Marcus followed with Selina.  McTeague found himself with Trina at the end of the procession.

“We go off on these picnics almost every week,” said Trina, by way of a beginning, “and almost every holiday, too.  It is a custom.”

“Yes, yes, a custom,” answered McTeague, nodding; “a custom—­that’s the word.”

“Don’t you think picnics are fine fun, Doctor McTeague?” she continued.  “You take your lunch; you leave the dirty city all day; you race about in the open air, and when lunchtime comes, oh, aren’t you hungry?  And the woods and the grass smell so fine!”

“I don’ know, Miss Sieppe,” he answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground between the rails.  “I never went on a picnic.”

“Never went on a picnic?” she cried, astonished.  “Oh, you’ll see what fun we’ll have.  In the morning father and the children dig clams in the mud by the shore, an’ we bake them, and—­oh, there’s thousands of things to do.”

“Once I went sailing on the bay,” said McTeague.  “It was in a tugboat; we fished off the heads.  I caught three codfishes.”

“I’m afraid to go out on the bay,” answered Trina, shaking her head, “sailboats tip over so easy.  A cousin of mine, Selina’s brother, was drowned one Decoration Day.  They never found his body.  Can you swim, Doctor McTeague?”

“I used to at the mine.”

“At the mine?  Oh, yes, I remember, Marcus told me you were a miner once.”

“I was a car-boy; all the car-boys used to swim in the reservoir by the ditch every Thursday evening.  One of them was bit by a rattlesnake once while he was dressing.  He was a Frenchman, named Andrew.  He swelled up and began to twitch.”

“Oh, how I hate snakes!  They’re so crawly and graceful—­but, just the same, I like to watch them.  You know that drug store over in town that has a showcase full of live ones?”

“We killed the rattler with a cart whip.”

“How far do you think you could swim?  Did you ever try?  D’you think you could swim a mile?”

“A mile?  I don’t know.  I never tried.  I guess I could.”

“I can swim a little.  Sometimes we all go out to the Crystal Baths.”

“The Crystal Baths, huh?  Can you swim across the tank?”

“Oh, I can swim all right as long as papa holds my chin up.  Soon as he takes his hand away, down I go.  Don’t you hate to get water in your ears?”