F I should ask you children to tell me what a garden is, I think you would all say, "A place where trees, flowers, and grass grow." That would be a good answer.
But the garden where this picnic took place is of a very different kind. Instead of bright leaves and flowers, there are hundreds of rocks of many sizes and shapes. Its name is the "Garden of the Gods," and it lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in Colorado.
The color of most of the rocks is red; but some are silvery gray, and some nearly white. Seen together they make a fine contrast. Many have strange shapes, and look like nuns and priests, animals, birds, and fishes turned into stone.
On one high rock may be seen the image of a man and a bear; on another, the outline of a lion's head, and part of its body, so perfect in shape, that it seems as though some one must have drawn it.
Some of the rocks are very high. One reaches up three hundred and thirty feet. Near the top of it is a hole, which looks from the ground to be about the size of a dinner-plate, but is really large enough for a horse and buggy to pass through.
A few trees manage to live high up on the rocks, and the prickly cactus grows in the soil around them.
To this garden went, one bright summer day, a wagon-load of people—six happy little girls and boys, with their mothers and fathers—on a picnic.
The children were dressed in big shade hats, and clothes that they might tear and tumble all they wished. Such fun as they had! The older ones climbed the smaller rocks, and made speeches to the little ones on the ground below. Then they all played "hide-and-seek," and never were there such grand hiding-places.
At noon they had lunch. Their table was a large flat rock. Mountain air and play give good appetites. How they did enjoy eating the nice things, chatting and laughing all the while!
