But no more poetry, if you please. We are getting hungry. Where are those baskets? Ah! the cold roast beef, the wing of a chicken, and the salt, not forgotten!
Those hard-boiled eggs—how good they are! So glad that chicken-raising has been one of our Home Amusements! Just a high picket-fence, a few good hens, some boxes, and a little attention, and what eggs these are! Mamma will not, however, eat them; she says they are unwholesome. But she takes a piece of the breast of a noble pullet, and a cup of coffee in a tin mug, made by Sam, best of cooks, amateur—college-bred cook—who has boiled it under the trees! and laid the grounds with a dash of cold water. Sam puts his own clearness and strength into the coffee.
And now for an hour’s reverie by the side of the lake; and then a rough-and-tumble drive home! How tired, ragged, jagged, disheveled, and happy we are as we get home!
Statira has built a splendid wood-fire for us, and has a supper of broiled chicken, cold ham, preserves and cream, baked potatoes, and toast, and hot biscuits which might tempt the virtue of an anchorite. We have no such proud resistance. We have brought an appetite from the place where they make them; and we can eat hot biscuits and still wrap the drapery of our couch about us and lie down to pleasant dreams.
A picnic is, therefore, a Home Amusement. It has home at both ends; else it would not be a picnic.
[XVI.]
PLAYING WITH FIRE. CERAMICS.
Now let us ascend from these trivialities to the consideration of the great subject which has been more talked of and dabbled in for the last seven years than any accomplishment ever was, before or since. The splendid display of Ceramic Art at our great Exposition of 1876 no doubt had its share in creating that intense interest in the subject which has been felt everywhere.
How it came into the category of Home Amusements we hardly know, unless the art schools stimulated the pursuit. But now we do know that nearly every lady paints a plate, from grandma down to the smallest child. Especially has it become the pastime of middle-aged ladies, who have got through with the work of life, and have much leisure on their hands. It is one of the many accomplishments which has taken the place of the German wool worsted abomination, the canvas roses, and counted out violets.