“Well, he seemed pained and grieved about something, and he asked me if I
hadn't time to go away into a quiet place where we could talk it over by
ourselves; but he had a kind of a cruel, insincere look in his eye, and I
said no, I believed I didn't care to, and that I was a poor
conversationalist, anyhow; and so I came away, and left him looking at his
brass locket and kicking holes in the ground and using profane language.
“Afterward I saw him talking to the proprietor of the lottery, and I feel,
somehow, that they had lost confidence in me. I heard them speak of me in
a jeering tone of voice, and one said as I passed by: 'There goes the
meek-eyed rural convict now,' and he used a horrid oath at the same time.
“If it hadn't been for that one little quincidence, there would have been
nothing to mar the enjoyment of the occasion.”
Picnic Incidents.
Camping out in summer for several weeks is a good thing generally. Freedom
from social restraint and suspenders is a great luxury for a time, and
nothing purifies the blood quicker, or makes a side of bacon taste more
like snipe on toast, than the crisp ozone that floats through the hills
and forests where man can monkey o'er the green grass without violating a
city ordinance.
The picnic is an aggravation. It has just enough of civilization to be a
nuisance, and not enough barbarism to make life seem a luxury. If our aim
be to lean up against a tree all day in a short seersucker coat and ditto
pantaloons that segregated while we were festooning the hammock, the
picnic is the thing. If we desire to go home at night with a jelly
symphony on each knee and a thousand-legged worm in each ear, we may look
upon the picnic as a success.
But to those who wish to forget the past and live only in the booming
present, to get careless of gain and breathe brand-new air that has never
been used, to appease an irritated liver, or straighten out a torpid lung,
let me say, pick out a high, dry clime, where there are trout enough to
give you an excuse for going there, take what is absolutely necessary and
no more, and then stay there long enough to have some fun.
If we picnic, we wear ourselves out trying to have a good time, so that we
can tell about it when we get back, but we do not actually get acquainted
with each other before we have to quit and return.
To camp, is to change the whole programme of life, and to stop long enough
in the never-ending conflict for dollars and distinction, to get a full
breath and look over the field. Still, it is not always smooth sailing. To
camp, is sometimes to show the material of which we are made. The dude at
home is the dude in camp, and wherever he goes he demonstrates that he was
made for naught. I do not know what a camping party would do with a dude
unless they used him to bait a bear trap with, and even then it would be
taking a mean advantage of the bear. The bear certainly has some rights
which we are bound in all decency to respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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