Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-06-10
NOTES AND QUERIES.
THE PICNIC.


a whole nation was spoken of as the Children
of Israel These were the earliest picnicers,
these "Children," of which we have any
wen-stated information. Their iunketings
toward the Land flowing with Milk and
Honey reveal them in an attitude which is as
closely akin to that of the picnic parties of to-
day as anything of the less remote past. 1t
was very evident yesterday that the Children
OF the Land of Washoe had taken day and
we're making the most of it. 1t was an event
replete with the most striking peculiarities
Let Us call attention to one of these peculiari-
ties. We were vending our pensive
way along toward the roof-tree, yonder.
Alongside of the Old Bob Sharp place, resting
III the shade, were man and a woman and
several children. Evidently this was fam
lily who had come out, en- masse, to have the
fun OF the occasion These holiday-takers
were too thoroughly enjoying what they we're
feasting their eyes on to repress any pertinent
remarks which came uppermost. Papa"
said u voice which seemed to come from
pale little girl, "why don't you buy some
trees" We do not know what Papa said;
but we do know what it was in that baby's
heart that made her wonder why anybody
whom she regarded, in her simple soul, as
all powerful as Papa, would consent to live
without so charming a thing as trees and
grass and flowers and shrubbery-the green
resting places that God has made for tired
eyes to rest upon. A stout chunk of bov
= II b,or olo
lads selfassertive swagger, spoke up and
said, (his tone being that of travelled person
whose voice was an authority in such matters),
''"ell, them's the biggest trees ever | seen.
Bless his small, assembling heart, they are
the only trees that have any business to be
called trees that his desert born hand
ever rubbed against. They are something
revealing the possible monsters of the forests
of which he has here and there read word |
Here, then, is something for which these |
yearly picnics of the school children of yon
bleak hillside are worth encouraging. Here |
is a whole misunderstanding the large |
ma iority of those who were here yesterday
whose children are as strange to the sight and |
shade of groves and waving grass and the
hecking shadows of wind stirred leaves as the
children of Labrador are to the lush foliage
and dense grown jungles of Siam. Sharps
garden, Treadways orchard, these shaded
streets, the quiet, Nesting flower gardens,
the growing fruit of this little Oasis are to
the children who live their lives in Virginia
and Gold Hill, like the tropics to the eye OF
Rb, Lob Irftb he |
Yesterdays experience was a lesson in
geography, in botany, in arbor culture, in
the quiet possibilities of another life than
that hot toilsome, feverish existence which
is livid beside dump piles and at the mouth
Of shafts and tunnels. The mass of young
life was tremendous. 1t was the very hight
of human animation, healthful, vigorous, and !
happy 1t is folly and bore to moralize
over it: mere labor and waste work to talk or
try TO talk Of possibilities of the future. But
there they were, more than round thousand
of children from under the shadow of Mount
Davidson, reared in sight of the desert, and
bound whittier! Somebody had some vain
words to say last Winter of preventive
measures which should interpose between
these little folks and the limitless stretch
and scope of vice which lies all about them
like a stenching sea, some means of keeping II
them measurably pure. But they said the CT
time was not yet ripe, and We do not believe
it is Something, perhaps, must come to B
shock the people into the appalling dangers E
Of a community, one three hundreth part of
which is in the Penitentiary! But there was B
good deal of hearty zeal in the sports and plays 3
these little folks had yesterday; and they all B
seemed to get along with as little Earring as CT
any children are apt to get on with; and they D.
went away home tired and satisfied. They D.
tell us at the depot that notwithstanding all
the foresight and anticipation and planning
which was had III contemplation of this
great jaunt, there we're hundreds and hun TO
ireds in Virginia City and Gold Hill and at Ut:
he Mound House from Dayton) who were
Unable to get transportation. The town
ooked as if it were the Fourth of July or '"
circus Day. There were some noisy men &c
nd lads-something approaching the hood
um sort-in and about the crowd; and these W
lad their liquor and were the worse for it of ba
curse. But the bulk of the multitude were vi
ober and mild hammered and disposed to a"
make the merrymaking an enjoyment and not
..1.,o;,u Tloro ,r,c d.pcinO and