Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic

by Olive Thorne Miller

We did not enjoy our freedom after all, for the sense of guilt and dread took all the pleasure out of everything; besides, we had one great fright. We heard some great animal rustling among the bushes and were sure it was a bear. We turned and fled, running as hard as we could, looking fearfully back to see if we were pursued, stumbling over logs, and tearing our clothes on bushes. I lost one shoe in a muddy place, and Jenny lost her sunbonnet.

We picked flowers, and when the frail things wilted in our hot hands, we threw them away, and not till it began to grow dark did we get up courage to turn towards the village.

The piece of woods was not large, and we did not really get lost, and before it was quite dark, two very tired, shamefaced girls, with torn dresses and generally disreputable looks, stole into the back doors of their respective homes.

I never knew what happened to Jenny—she never would tell me; but I met the stern face of my grandmother the moment I stepped into the kitchen. I had tried to slip in and go to my room to wash and brush myself, and try to mend my dress before she saw me, but the moment I entered, her eye was upon me.

After one look of utter horror, she seized me by the shoulders, and walked me into the sitting-room, where the family were gathered,—my uncle who lived with my grandmother, and my three cousins, all older, and not playmates for me.

She left me standing in the middle of the room, while all eyes were turned in reproof upon me.

“There!” said my grandmother, in her most severe voice, “there’s the child who runs away! Look at her.”

Then my uncle began to question me. Where had I been? where was my shoe? how did I tear my dress? what did I do it for? what did I think I deserved? and various other questions. Before long, I was weeping bitterly, and feeling that imprisonment for life would be a fitting punishment for my crimes.

Then came my sentence in the stern voice of my grandmother: “I think a suitable punishment for a naughty girl will be to go to bed without her supper.” This was assented to by my uncle, and I was sent off in disgrace, to go to bed.

Now I had a healthy young appetite, and the long tramp had made me very hungry, so that the punishment—though very mild for my offense—seemed to me almost worse than anything.