With Snoopie and Hen and Fat and Skinny and the others—a company now chastened and subdued—back you stroll across the pasture, the setting sun in your face, the robins piping their even-song, the locusts done and quiescent, katydids tentatively tuning up as their successors. The sky is golden in the west, pink overhead, blue in the east. Upon the clover the dew is collecting, annoying o’erzealous bees. Skinny and Nix drop off to the left, Snoopie to the right, each lining his straightest course for home.
“Good-night, kids!” they call back.
Now in the village, the little group rapidly dwindles. Presently only you and Hen and Billy remain.
Billy turns in.
At his gate Hen stops.
The next gate is yours. You are glad. You are tired—so tired—so very limp and tired—and so hungry!
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL PICNIC