FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  
"No, it isn't that, for I really cannot come back here next fall, children, or I would. But as long as I am going away, I thought we would celebrate it by having a farewell picnic. In the city where I live if any of our friends go away to live somewhere else, we always give them a little party as a sort of good-by to them, and we have a jolly time which they can remember always. Instead of having a party here, I thought it would be nice if we could go down to the river for a picnic, so I asked some of the gentlemen here in town about it and they told me that we can get wagons enough to take us all down there a week from tomorrow. It is such a long, long way we couldn't walk. It is a pretty place, too, and many of you haven't been there before. We will take our lunch and stay all day, coming home before it gets dark. Some of the parents are willing to accompany us, and we will have a fine time. How many of you would like to go?" Up went every hand in the room and the faces of the children beamed in happy anticipation, for picnics were almost unknown here on the barren desert, and any novelty was gladly welcomed. So the scholars began happy plans for this unusual gala day, and all that long week little else was thought of. This was just what Miss Brooks had hoped for, because in their looking forward to this extraordinary pleasure in their humdrum lives, they ceased to harass their teacher with mournful laments and direful prophecies, and even Tabitha's face lost some of its reproachful look. The picnic day dawned at last, clear, cloudless and warm but not too hot, for the desert summer was not fairly upon them yet; and with lunch-baskets and buckets on their arms, and faces wreathed with expectant smiles, the thirty children gathered around the low schoolhouse impatiently waiting for the teams. Both of Carrie's parents, Susie's mother, Dr. Vane and Herman's aunt were to help Miss Brooks take care of her restless charges and make the day a success; so no wonder everyone was happy in their anticipation of a good time. Then, too, some of the miners who had heard the great event talked up, got together in the dead of night and decorated the several rigs with gay bunting, fastening two small flags to the front of each wagon and even trimming up the horses' harnesses until the results were quite dazzling to childish eyes. What did it matter to them that some of the bunting had been watersoaked and that the flags were fad
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

picnic

 

children

 

thought

 
Brooks
 
desert
 

anticipation

 
parents
 

bunting

 

schoolhouse

 

baskets


expectant
 

gathered

 

thirty

 

wreathed

 

smiles

 
buckets
 

reproachful

 

watersoaked

 

direful

 
prophecies

Tabitha

 
dawned
 

matter

 

summer

 

fairly

 

impatiently

 

cloudless

 
decorated
 

results

 

talked


horses

 

harnesses

 

fastening

 

miners

 

Herman

 

childish

 

mother

 

Carrie

 

trimming

 

dazzling


laments

 

success

 

restless

 

charges

 

waiting

 

gentlemen

 
Instead
 

couldn

 

pretty

 

wagons