The Monitor-register., 1896-05-01
MISS o D SPICNIC.
BY MARY CHARLOTTE PRIEST,

market upon her husbands hay Wagon
with eggs to sell. She iruefully admit.
ted the likelihood of such a dire prospec
and shed a few tears when she had tt
leave urban bricks and oobblestones 70,
the green fields and pastures new, Of
Valley Prospect.
But Miss Fanny did not become 8
farmers wife, or anybody's wife for tina,
matter; and now that she was a plump
claret checked, wrinkled little woman,
who donned spectacles to mend Mr.,
Todd's respected hosiery, the city had
crept out from the cobblestones to her,
reaching forward a shingled villa, and
then a tenement and finally a brick block.
until there were sidewalks within two
minutes of Valley Prospect gates; and al
night Miss Fanny could see the intermit.
tent white flare Of electric lights, the out.
ermost pulsations, she knew, of thai
magic artery that flowed from the very
heart of the city civilization.
When Mr.. Ezra Todd bought VALLEY
Prospect. a trip to the city was an affair
OF moment, i%nfrequent and l~aborious, q
slow, dusty journey, measured by some
hours in the numbering carryall.
A stranger from town was welcomed
as an angel, and even the passsrs by along
the pike reckOned and noted. But now
that Miss Fanny cared not to shop. and
found calling irksome, the cars of the
'broomstick %train," as Holmes called
them. whizzing by Valley Prospects,
half-mile of frontage every ten minutes,
and bore crowds of suburban residents
and picknickers and fresh. air breathers.
The sign of the subdivider was every.
where. Even Valley Prospect had not
escaped; and now all the real estate
remaining in MI. Todd's nam was the
home, lawn and garden and the meadow
pastures.
With the meadow pasture Miss Fanny
would not part.
"Where would Nelly run ?" she asked
her father. forgetting that the rheumatic
muscles of Nelly, the old grey mare,
needed little extraordinary exercise.
Yet for Nelly's sake, the Todds kept
the meadow pasture, which sloped In
gentle, green ~undulations from the gar
den down to the run. where the water
rested in cool. brown pools, under a
~neighborly gathering of oak trees.
10 scan Nelly's pasture for Nelly's
dappled gray back, or long, drowsy nose,
resting upon the upper ~fence-rail was
Miss Fanny's first thought as the trolley
bore her home from her rare trips to
town.
1t was after one of these city visits that
Miss Fanny put on her sunhat, and, tax.
ing two Jumps of sugar, went out through
the garden to greet Nelly.
Nelly saw her mistress letting down
the bars. She moved sedately up from
the lower pasture slopes and stopped
halfway, beginning to nibble again at
the clover. She kept her eyes, however.
fixed on Miss Fanny.
The latter was acquainted with the old
mares id~iosyncrasies and humored her in
them. She knew that Nelly wanted the
sugar, and expected it whenever her
equine eyes saw the black sunhat MOVING
tho norm Init that sba wonld ,ot
horse, by begging or even seeming eager
for the sweet.
n
30 Miss Fanny went hathaway across
the pasture, where Nelly received the
tribute daintily. Her wet tongue did not
moisten even the tips of Miss Fanny's
fingers; but she shifted with her grayish-
pink nostrils and dropped her head in
ecstasy.
"You ought to be happy, Nelly"
remarked Miss Fanny, picking a cookie
bur out of the gray name, with such a
beautiful place to live in and such foolish
people to indulge your whims." Nelly
looked around the fair, green landscape
sweet with the breath of fertility. and
then closed her eyes for reflection.
EYES," continued Miss Fanny, "you
ought to be happy and grateful and good
tempered. How many horses must envy
you! | wise you could have seen some
of the poor creatures that | did this
morning, toiling over the hot concrete
with their blistered feet, not knowing
what tits to bite a blade of fresh grass
from its roots, or to feel the touch of any
water except the dusty puddles where
some grocery man is washing off his
pavement.
." tell you, Nelly. they would Thick
they had died and gone to horse heaven
could they live as you do, driven gently a
half mile or so two or three times a week.
hampered and INDUCED like a spoiled
child. Are you not ashamed to keep all
this beautiful pasture to yourself, you
selfish old lady9"
Nelly whisked away an impertinent
bluebottle, but gave no sign that she was
impressed.
Miss Fanny patted the horses flank.
NELLY" she said, 'let's give a picnic. a
horse picnic, and invite some of those less
fortunate beasts out to spend Sunday
with you. Shall we?"
Miss Fanny must have taken Nelly's
silence for assent, because she went into
the house and unfolded her plan to her
father.
Mr.. Todd never objected to bis daugh-
ter's schemes. He knew she would finally
wheedle consent from him, and to be un-
disturbed he cared not to hinder any
philanthropy of hers, or in this case
philhippy, however Qnixotic.
For two days Miss Fanny pondered
over her list of invitations, recalling
worthy beneficiaries, considering and
selecting. On Friday she went to town.
81 shall ask six" she had decided; .'six
stalls can be arranged in the barns, six
Mr.. Sullivan's the %dairyman, and that
poor old thing in TRANQUIL Alley,
"Express for Hire" and the dumpcart
roar in the same alley, and Amanda
Fay's Prince-she wished the other day
it were decorous to let him Craze in their
front yard-humph! a grassplot the size
of a small sheet; and MIR. Bakers Dick
shall be the fifth. Dick needs a picnic to
work off his spirits. Mr.. Baker drives
him all the week about the city, and on
Sunday the poor lusty colt has to stand
in a little stuffy fy-ridden brick stable,
and stamp his feet and maunch his stall
for amusement. Dick is fifth, and the
sixth invitation I shall save for some
stray, deserving guest"
The owners of the invited horses knew
Miss Todd Gonna Of than Enow aIoo