A PICNIC IN A STRANGE GARDEN.
F I should ask you children to tell me what a garden is, I think you would all say, "A place where trees, flowers, and grass grow." That would be a good answer.
But the garden where this picnic took place is of a very different kind. Instead of bright leaves and flowers, there are hundreds of rocks of many sizes and shapes. Its name is the "Garden of the Gods," and it lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado.
The color of most of the rocks is red; but some are silvery gray, and some nearly white. Seen together they make a fine contrast. Many have strange shapes, and look like nuns and priests, animals, birds, and fishes turned into stone.
On one high rock may be seen the image of a man and a bear; on another, the outline of a lion's head, and part of its body, so perfect in shape, that it seems as though some one must have drawn it.
Some of the rocks are very high. One reaches up three hundred and thirty feet. Near the top of it is a hole, which looks from the ground to be about the size of a dinner-plate, but is really large enough for a horse and buggy to pass through.
A few trees manage to live high up on the rocks, and the prickly cactus grows in the soil around them.
To this garden went, one bright summer day, a wagon-load of people—six happy little girls and boys, with their mothers and fathers—on a picnic.
The children were dressed in big shade hats, and clothes that they might tear and tumble all they wished. Such fun as they had! The older ones climbed the smaller rocks, and made speeches to the little ones on the ground below. Then they all played "hide-and-seek," and never were there such grand hiding-places.
At noon they had lunch. Their table was a large flat rock. Mountain air and play give good appetites. How they did enjoy eating the nice things, chatting and laughing all the while!
After lunch away they ran in search of "specimens," by which they meant pretty stones. They chipped pieces off the rocks with hammers, playing they were miners finding gold and silver. They filled their baskets, and pretended to have made great fortunes.
They kept up the sport until five o'clock, when their mammas said it was time to start for home, and counted the children to see if all were there. Only five could be found. There should have been six. Who was missing?
It was four-year-old Willie. "Willie, Willie!" shouted every one, and from the great red rock came a faint reply. Then began "hide-and-seek" in earnest, and soon they spied the little fellow sitting on the side of the rock full five yards up.
"Why, Willie!" called his mamma. "What are you doing up there?"
"Going to climb through the little hole, mamma; but I'm tired."
His uncle climbed after him, and soon brought him down.
Six tired little children went early to bed that night, and dreamed of stony men and women, lions and bears.
AUNT SADIE.
