As a rule, you should not admit strangers or acquaintances picked up on the way to share your frolic. It is always best to keep the party strictly to its original numbers.
There are two ways of providing the luncheon. One is to decide in advance what each shall bring as his or her contribution, so that there may not be too large a quantity of one article, and too little of another. John may be told to bring lemons, Janie may furnish pound-cake, Alice biscuits and butter, Louis sugar, and Mabel sandwiches. Or each of the company may provide a nice basket of food, and when the time comes for the meal everything may be shared, and the table spread for the general feast. I think I like the latter way quite as well as the former.
Hard-boiled eggs, potted meats, thin slices of ham or tongue, cold chicken, and plenty of good bread and sweet butter, are among the must-haves. Picnic appetites are famous, and you need plenty of the "substantial." Jelly in little glasses, fruit, cake, and, if mother says so, a few of her delicious pickles or an apple-pie do not prove as indigestible when eaten out-doors as they do under other circumstances.
Do not forget the salt. Nor the pepper. Bottles of milk wrapped in cabbage leaves or set into a pan of ice for coolness are not to be overlooked.
Be sure there is a spring near your picnic ground, or an old well on some kind man's farm. If it have a long sweep and a deep moss-grown bucket, so much the better.
Do not trespass on anybody's private grounds. Always send a committee to the house to ask permission to help yourselves to water from the well, or to pass through fields and lanes not open to the public.
The girls must remember that so far as possible all picnic preparations should be made the day before. It is not well to leave cooking for the morning of the day when you are to go.
The boys, too, should have their fishing-tackle in readiness overnight. If swings are to be put up, a man should be engaged to see about them, or at least the oldest and most trustworthy boys of the party should see that the ropes are firm, and the tree branches stout. Nothing is more terrible in its consequences than a fall from a swing.
Always leave the grounds in time to reach home before dark. Take wraps for the cool of the day.
Be polite, unselfish, and very good-natured and kind.