The Ant’s uncle thinks the custard pie is a cushion.
The man looked in the direction of Benjamin and then yawned and got up and walked away.
“Benjamin, Benjamin,” cried the ant’s aunt, a few minutes later, “little Betsy Ann has come back and she says that nearly a dozen of the children started to climb a mountain and the mountain got up and walked away. Won’t you please go and try and find them?”
The ant’s uncle jammed his crushed silk hat down over his eyes, picked up a big switch and went to find the children. He walked and walked until he came to a place where a whole lot of men and women were sitting in a circle while the mosquitos ate them. The men and women were eating pickles and dry sandwiches and trying to look happy. Uncle Benjamin hurried down the middle of the tablecloth, calling, “Children, children,” at the top of his voice. Everywhere he went he met some of those miserable little children who had run away from their own picnic. He found them sitting on the edge of a sponge cake dangling their feet and kicking holes in the icing. They were perched on loaves of bread and up on top of a plate of sliced ham, they were playing hide and seek. Some of them had climbed up into a great big tin reservoir. There were all their clothes on the edge and they were having a swim.
“Didn’t I tell you not to go near the water?” asked Uncle Benjamin, shaking his switch. “Now, where do I find you?”
“It isn’t water,” said all the children ants; “it’s lemonade.”
It took the ant’s uncle more than an hour to get all the children together.
“Why don’t you come away from here?” he said. “Don’t you hear all the men and women talking and saying that it would be such a delightful place here if it were not for those miserable ants?”