Norwich bulletin., 1916-11-22
THE NATURE LOVERS

where we lose five pounds! Come let
 us make a bluff at being perfectly
 happy and joyous and nobody will
 dream that we'd lots rather be back
 home in the sun parlor with a book
 aud bag of chocolatest
 We walked three miles to tEe
 grove where we were to have lunch con and the scenery was beautiful.
 Most of it consisted of limestone quarry which Allen insisted was a. short cut, so we crossed the quarry.
 never knew there was so much quarry in the worId-the excavation looked like pictures of the Panama
 canal at the GaIun. locks and the place buzzed with aoEkey englnes and cranes and abandoned railways ard mountains of crushed stone that we, had to negotiate. .-
 And every few minutes just as
 we had passed given point there
 would be low rumbling boom and
 charge of dynamite would explode di-. rectly under where we had walked and
 the whole side of the hill would tuIn-
 ble into the depths. ! am not a nery- ous man, but I spoke rudely to Allen.
 l told him that when I went on
 birds and the low of kline and green grass, instead of ths general Pitts
 burgh- Inferno effect he was treating us to.
 "A loaded car shot down the appar- entIy unused tracks upon which Allen was walking just then and when we fished him out of the pile of stone dust in which he immediately became interested he had forgotten the bit ing retort that had been upon his lips Presently we emerged into civil ized country and came to the grove. Then Imogene said that we men must go back to the village and buy some cream and sugar for the coffee and first please get scme wood.
 And somebody must have carefully. cleaned up the woods because she couldn't see a desd limb anywhere By heroic efforts we found enough wood for a fire. When we returned from our forced march with some con- densed milk and bag. that turned out to be salt instead of sugar the women
 were gone, vanished. We, found them half mile away, trembling in a. fence corner. Just as they had got the cof- fee boiling nicely a rude man had ar rived poSthaste and invited them to
 leave. It was his grave and he had 1 inherited a dislike of picnics.
 All this made us late finishing lunch and so the women declared l that we must start out at ence. 1 had just lighted a cigar and thrown i my panting form dGwn to rest, but l they were relentless and the other 1 men didn't dare back me up. I give | you my WCIu CttdI ln0 way CHOSe women jed us beat any mountain climbing all hollow! When you were
 not bending double, plunging head l first through thorn apple thickets that
 bit and clawed, you were struggling neck deep through nearshy. grass, full
 of brambles and going oyer your an- l kleS in water. +-ta e--
 "Imogene insisted that she knew l perfectly where we were going, but 1 when we finally emerged onto hu-
 man road, hours later, I taxed her
 with her duplicity an,l 'the women con- /, fessed. She said that she hadn't the remotest notion where we were and | when a man hoeinS garden told us
 that the railway station was fou1 | miles west everybody burst into tears
 Imogene said it would take two hours at least for us to pick aR the hlIrs off each other and 1t would then be pitch dark and her feet hurt like sixty
 anyhow, and why didn't I do some. I thing? '"' H' 4'i''' : j5s~ ---- t5Br uTzss 4t =-z
 "The burr question was serious-we looked as though we had rolled in z bin of burrs. There are fat burrs ant | little ones, and the stickery kind witt two prongs that you have to excavate
 round ones and fat ones, and there
 were millions solidly plastered- on us . I'll bet if they offered bounty fo
 burrs today in that towship thert
 wouldn't be a thimbIoful turned in b, ardent searcharS! We sat down in {
 row and set to work and when tn,
 grocery auto l had hired to carry u
 to the station ,arrived-it, being . walking tour-we still picked burs al : the way and yet when we got aboard the train we looked like Rips Val . Wrinkles and impa1cd ourselves CT , the plush seats. One good thing i that those plush seats never can b ? used again.
 '"The dinner was burned up whc ? we got home and the cook gave notic l, because she had missed a date wit her beau-but Imogene says firmly was a perfectly lovely trip and u, trouble with me is that don't 1ov nature. Say, what can you do wit