THE PICNIC.
A joyful hour! anticipated keen,
With zest of youthful appetite ...
To spread that table in the wilderness;
The spot selected with deliberate care,
Fastidious from variety of choice,
Where all was beautiful ...
With joyous exultation, guests were led
To our green banquet-room.
CAROLINE BOWLES.
Norman was very sorry to part with his dear young friends, Alfred and
Herbert; but he was very glad that his Aunt and Uncle Lester, and his
Aunt Clara, were going with them, so that he had not to say good-by to
them. As he had traveled over this road when he came west, he had seen
these broad prairies before, but they were now enameled with brighter
hues. Great patches of purple phlox, a profusion of yellow flowers, and
bright red lilies, made all the broad expanse a vast flower-garden. His
Aunt Clara said that many of the prairie flowers were disappearing in
the progress of cultivation. The cattle that now covered the plains
destroyed them, and the plow rooted them up.
“Yes,” said his uncle to Norman, “your Aunt Clara sometimes fancies her
mission is to cultivate a blooming inclosure, in which she will preserve
all the prairie flowers from the extinction to which they are rapidly
tending.”
Geneva, which they soon reached, is a pretty town on the Fox River, and
the house of Henry’s aunt, whom they had come to visit, had a view of
the river and its wooded islands. Norman’s Aunt Clayton was very glad to
see him, and very kind to him, so that he was very happy with his new
relations. His aunt would bring him, several times a day, a great
tumbler of good rich milk, the like of which he had not often seen. She
sent for Willie Clayton to meet Norman, and the boys asked permission to
bathe in the river, Willie assuring Mrs. Lester that it was perfectly
safe. They were absent for a long time, and as neither of the boys could
swim, Mrs. Lester became very anxious as the dinner-hour approached, and
they had not yet returned. Mr. Clayton very kindly offered to go in
search of them, and while he was gone the boys made their appearance.
They did not know that they had been so long away; they had waded over
to the island, and the time slipped away more quickly than they thought.
After dinner Norman said his back was very much burned, exposed, as it
had been, to the fierce rays of the sun. His mother put some flour on
it, but after a while, it became so painful that he had to lie down on
the bed and have it covered with flour. His neck, and back, and arms
were all bright scarlet, and he suffered very much from the intense
burning.
The next day there was to be a school picnic in the grove, and Willie
was to speak on the occasion. Norman said it would be impossible for him
to dress himself; but when the animating strains of the band floated in
his window, as the procession marched to the grove, he thought he might
make the effort. His mother helped him to put on his clothes, as his
back was all blistered, and he walked with her and his aunt and uncle
rather soberly to the picnic.
The children were seated on benches under the trees, and a platform was
erected for the speakers. Norman was soon seated beside Willie, who was
also suffering from his sun-burned back. The band was stationed near
them, and between the recitations and declamations of the children,
“discoursed most excellent music.”
After a while the company were invited to partake of refreshments, and,
preceded by the band, they marched to another part of the grove, where
tables were tastefully arranged, covered with an abundance of good cake,
and ornamented with flowers.
Norman and Willie were in the front rank next to the rope that separated
the children from the tables; but the pressure from behind was rather
severe on their tender backs, so they came to where their mothers and
aunts were standing.
Mrs. Lester was happy to recognize in one of the young men most active
in providing for the wants of the children, one whom she had known in
her former beloved home in the East. Of his mother, who had been a near
neighbor, she retained a most kindly remembrance; and as she had been
suddenly and recently called to her home in the heavens, Mrs. Lester was
glad to learn that her son, left with his brother almost alone in the
world, was active in this western town in the Sabbath school and in the
temperance cause, maintaining a consistent religious character. A great
field for usefulness is opened in the West to Christian young men. So
many young men, in seeding their fortunes in these new and thriving
towns, throw off the restraining influence of their pious homes; absent
themselves from the house of God, and are thus easily led aside by a
thousand encircling temptations.
Exercises in geography, arithmetic, and declamation followed the feast,
some of which the band applauded in a very graceful manner. A number of
children gathered around the musicians, and one little boy, in a bright
red frock, stood leaning against his father, close by the great drum,
his eyes fixed on its great circumference, and his eyelids winking every
time it was struck.
After the exercises one of the ministers made a very good speech, in
which he told the children that if they wanted to rise above being mere
drudges at the dictation of others, they must study, they must work,
they must learn to think. What they did, they must do with their might;
when they played, they must play in earnest; and when they studied, they
must study in earnest; and that to be industrious and to be in earnest,
was the only way to be anything, or to do anything in the world.
He made the children laugh when he told them that in some parts of New
Hampshire the fields were so stony, that it was jocosely said that the
farmers sharpened their sheep’s noses that they might eat the grass
growing between the stones. This was a wonderful story for western
children, who never saw stones on their broad fertile prairies.
As the band played its farewell, the company left the ground greatly
pleased with the day’s entertainment.