DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Unless the blackberrying season is to be utterly ruined
and thousands of homes thus rendered poisonously unhappy, something must
be done to make people play the game.
Why is it that this simple little fruit should have such a bad influence
on otherwise nice persons? But it has. It makes them utterly selfish and
inconsiderate.
Take our experience last week on the Common. We went out with
baskets--three of us--Elsa, Dolores, and me, and, after hunting about
for some time and getting fearfully scratched, we came upon a perfectly
priceless group of bushes which no one had discovered.
The blackberries were there in millions, ripe too, and all sparkling in
that patent-leather way which makes the mouth water and prevents as many
getting into the basket as ought to. We were of course fearfully bucked
by finding such a spot, and began at once in earnest. Judge then of our
dismay when another party of blackberriers, attracted, I imagine, by our
cries of rapture, came up and began picking too! These were the two
Misses Blank, whom we know very slightly. They ought, of course, to have
gone right away and done their own discovering. Instead of that they
just nodded, and then snatched away at our bushes as though they were in
their own garden. One of them even came up to a bush on which Elsa was
engaged. What was she to do? She could not remonstrate, as we knew them
so slightly, so she abandoned the bush with a gesture of contempt which
should have made a dummy blush, but had no effect whatever on these
thick-skinned Prussians, as we now believe they must be. Probably their
real name is Fressen, Elsa thinks.
Common decency (I don't mean this for a joke, but I suppose it is one)
should prevent anybody from going to a place discovered by somebody
else; and why I write is to ask you if there is not an unwritten law
against such conduct, and if so will you make it widely known?
It would be dreadful if all the blackberrying parties during this
September and October were to be ruined by people like the Misses
Fressen.
I am, Yours faithfully,
FAIR PLAY.
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Illustration: BY REQUEST.
_Visitor (to Percy of "The Mauve Merriments.")_ "WHAT WOULD YOU CHARGE
TO SING 'IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY' INTO AUNTIE'S EAR-TRUMPET?"
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