Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-05-12
BlCKWOODs BELLIES.
HOW THEY DISTORTED AT A RECENT
LAKE COUNTY PICNIC.
The Heavyweight Fairy and the Bean
stalk Beauty-what They Did and
How They Acted.

| stalk Beauty-what They Did and
How They Acted.
EDS. SUNDAY UNION: Here l am again,
Mr.. Editor, always bobbing up serenely
when least expected. l can't bear the idea
of your forgetting me, and my conscience
won't permit me to deprive the world of a
bit of good literature. 'B. B." makes me
smile, because l know her SO well. And
| Jack cher Jack and mine are two distinct
individually l wouldn't be caught at a
prize-fight with her Jack, for he is SO pain
fully gawky. angular and homely that his
very looks would stop funeral, and even
the uchdespised flea would desert him
lows picnic, and this angular eccentricity
chung to her like tick to cows tail. My
Jack is regular Apollo in figure, with an
Adonis-like head and the disposition of a
Momus.
By-the-by, must tell you about the pic
mic. We all went, even to the granny. Pa
wore his wedding suit, and although it
isn't quite as stylish looking as they make
suits nowadays, pa looked awful nice in
it. His pants were little short because
ma tried to. trim off some of the frayed
edge and cut off too much. They, never
with the top of his shoes, and if
| it hadn't been for the morbid curiosity of
his socks, which would persist in making
their appearance, no one would have
noticed the shortcomings OF his pants. He
wore his new red silk necktie and a stove-
pipe hat that he fished out of Deacon
Browns ssh- barrel after the deacon left
Missouri. 1t was most as good as new, and
pa lowed it would do to wear to the picnic.
Ma had brand new sateep of pea-green,
with an orange-co lored polka-dot. 1t was
| made en- train, but some of the men evil
| IDENTIFY took it for oot.mat, Judging from
| the persistency with which they tramped
| around on it.
Everybody was there, from the Senate
beauty, Archibald Yell, to the dark.eyed
sons and daughters of the dusky race, who
picturesquely graced the hillsides and took
| in all the fun, like the rest of us, and after
| ward swooped down on the field and gath
cred in the remainder of the lunches. We
met so many of our Pike county friends
that pa nearly made himself sick taking,
laughing and cracking jokes with them.
| He forgot that he was in Lake county, and
imagined himself back on his native heath.
Pa thinks it only on step from Missouri
into heaven.
The orator of the day made great long
speech, and guess it was something very
| fine, but was so hungry l couldn't keep
my mind on anything but my stomach.
The band boys all had a sort of we-can-
stand-it-if-you-can look, but their hands
were very pathetically pressed over the
aching voids just underneath the third
buttons of their vests. But you know
there is an end to all things, and the elo-
quert (?) address finally discovered its van
ishing point, and as the last words dropped
from the speakers lips, one great and
mighty sigh (of relief arose from the
throng and foated away on the balmy
breeze, and then the fun began.
There was regular scramble for some
thing to eat, and for once the mincing
belle forgot herself, and the beef and bread
disappeared down her throat with a start
ling rapidity. Pa and ma invited lot of
our Pike county friends to lunch with US.
Jack didn't seem to like it very much, and
| said he felt de trop. l told him / was sorry
he didn't feel well, and that ma would
make him some catnip tea when we got
home. That seemed to reconcile him, and
of the poet: Dispatch is the soul of bus
| mess"
After lunch, the young people, while
waiting for the older ones to get through,
pleasantly whiled away the time by peIt-
ing each other with the remnants of the
lunch. One coquettish fairy. who tips the
scales at 250 tossed up piece of pumpkin
pie which landed on Jacks immaculate
shirt front. Words fail to describe the
look ON Jacks face, but he was mad, and
no mistake. Another young lady, who
lv haa tal~o
bean-pole, and whose dress was rather cur
| tailed in front, presenting to the beholder
Venus de Milo ankle and pair of No. rs,
baptized her admirer with the con-
tents of a cream-pitcher. A Madon-
na-like creature with dreamy eyes and car
roty hair somehow lost her center of grav-
ity and sat down in q cream pie which
spurted out with one ominous swish"
scattering the savory cream to the four
winds. The young man with the pink tie
| and the greater part of the rose bush in his
button-hole was there, and by his side the
rosy maid sucking the proverbial orange
and carrying delicious popcorn ball. The
young lady who is trying to enter the mat
rimonial ranks was there, dressed in laven-
der silk and black lace, with coquettish
little bonnet perched on her golden tresses,
while her face, like full moon, laughingly
peeped out from under her classic bang.
The poor, patient mother, with molasses
| candy ornamenting every square inch of
her threadbsre gown and face OF patient
suffering, was toiling through the heat and
| dust with twins in her arms and three
that might have passed for triplets-hang-
ing to her gown. The small boy, with his
pas old cut-down pants on and wearing
sister Susie's old shoes and brother Toms
old hat was everywhere at once There
was music and dancing, and games of all
| names and descriptions, and talking and
| laughing, and general hub-bub. A gold
watch was awarded to the most popular
| young lady of Lake county. 1t was carried
| off by one of Lakeport's fairest daughters.
In the evening the Odd Fellows gave
grand ball. 1t was quite ectat. and a mag.
nitcent "undress" affair--at least, SO it
seemed to my uninitiated eyes. Why, in
Missouri no one ever would think of going
TO party with only half their clothes on.
l was about to step up to lady and tell
her that she forgot to put her dress on, but
Jack made me keep still, and told me that
II was the style. | suppose after they get
used to it they'll go to balls dressed like
| the aborigines.
The music was simply delightful, and
terpsichore reigned supreme until the wee
! small hours. The backweods bellies
skipped around in the may waltz and
polkau thelr elbows into each others ribs
and made the acquaintance of all the corns
in the room, but they didn't mind it one
bit. 1t was ION with the dance, let ioy be
unconfined" and Jack danced with the
beanstalk, and the fellow with the pink
tie and tishy eyes few around wildly with
the baby elephant. and the orator of the
day tore around the room with the most
popular lady, while the music Kissed and
groaned and sighed and moaned, and the
red haired man desperately clutched the
black-eyed spinster, who was in danger of
flying the track, and thus they whirled
around until exhausted, and then they
only stopped to mop their alabaster brows
and get new start. Thus they "tripped
the light fantastic" until Sol made his an
pearance over the eastern hills and warned
the merry maskers of approaching day.
An revoir. g. @.
Lakeport, May 6, 1880.