Perth Amboy evening news., 1903-10-16
THE MoTHERS' PICNICs.
One-Dny Outings of the City Folk
That Do Them a World
OF Good.

yet" said the settlement worker,
according to Youths Companion, ''our
fresh air children were a successfully
always are. 1t was a joy to see the
difference it made in some of them;
poor little thin, weak, whining, whey
faced midgets when they went, with
hardly spirit to be naughty; n a
pack of whooping brown imps that
nearly drove the conductors crazy on
the way home. 1t was positively as eX-
h%ilaTating as it was e~xhausting to have
to quench SO many pranks. Those were
whole monthers, mostly, with a few
fortnighters, and occasionally a one
weeker or so. Of course, the just-for-
the-days don't show it SO much; al
though it's surprising the virtue there
is il a foul hours layer of sunburn.
She paused to smile and then added:
when it comes to one-day outings,
the people it does the most obvious and
instant good to are the mothers. Not
the mothers who accompany babies or
sick children, either, but the middle
aged and elderly women, who are
coaXed and scolded by us, and often fair
ly coerced by their husbands and older
children, to leave their families for a
single day and accept our invitation to
picnic in the country.
THE first mothers picnic VIZ gave
was a triumph, but it was all | could
do TO keep the tears out of my eyes
while | was serving sandwiches and
telling funny stories to amuse our
guests. They had been exchanging
news on the way, you see-quite without
self-pity and with not much pity for
n another; it was too much the usual
thing-and the revelation OF what
seemed to me their perpetual imprison-
! ment at hard labor in a lot bounded
by poverty, toll, WEAKNESS and monot-
ony, diversified chiefly by births, deaths
and lost jobs, upset my nerves.
Three of them had not been outside
the city for mere than ten years; one
for II; and the way those women rev.
eled in the glimmer of the lake and the
| greenery of the trees l shall never for
get.
"One enormous Woman-we had
longed for a derrick in getting her on
and off the cars-began to whimper
softly like a big baby when we got
fairly into the grove. and suddenly sat
herself down plump on the pine-needles,
although there was a comfortable broad
rustic seat at hand. Then she apollo
gized in advance, very t1ustered and
meek, for the trouble she knew it was
going to be to get her up again.
but l amt set on them sweet
smelly things since l was no bigger'n
my Name is now, and l just had to do it.
J I'm awful sorry she explained.
| well, of course her foot went to sleep
and she got cricks in her knees, and
burst both sleeves of her gown when
we pulled her up; but we didn't mind,
poor soul. She was 81 happy she
dropped occasional unconscious tears
into her teacup all supper time; and
whenever she could hear a bird sing she
couldn't hear anything else, and it was
no use to talk to her.
"There was another woman who
never, since the age of II, remembered,
except when she was sick, eating more
than two meals she hadn't prepared
herself; and another who had never
seen a pond outside a park; and another
who said she could name three kinds of
wild birds-sparrows, squirrels and
peacocks. | think | never saw a score
of people as happy as that picnic party;
and | know, after the first, was never
happier myself"