Once Upon a Picnic . . .

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1935, Page 19

Once Upon a Picnic . . .

A TALE OF MODERN CHILDREN.

I got a black eye the first week we were home from our vacation at Uncle Tom's. The Red Terror gave it to me. He is a big boy, about fourteen, and big for lrij age, and we call him the Red Terror because he is a very fierce fighter and always picks on us smaller boys. He called me a sissy because he saw me walking home from school with Leona, which I have a right to do, as she is my sister. I made a face at him before I ran, but he caught me. Leona helped a little by kicking him in tho legs, but it didn't do much good. My eye was purple with a sort of yellowish rim to it.

I still had it when Professor Landers came to have dinner with us the next Saturday. Professor Landere, whom I will now describe, was an education professor in father's college. He was also a millionaire, which most professors are not, because he was the head of his department, and didn't have anybody to wear out shoes the way we children do, only his mother, who kept house for him in an .expensive bungalow on the Hill (where the rich people live). He had a very fine big car, too, and once, when father took us to the college grill for ice cream to celebrate Kiddo's birthday, we saw Professor Landers eating a whole steak. And you know yourself that only really rich people can afford to eat steaks in a restaurant.

Anyway, at dinner at our house, Professor Landers noticed my eye and asked me how I got it. Mother said ehe thought it was a shame boys had to fight, especially boys whom their mothers were trying to train to be gentlemen. But Professor Landers, who was very sensible that day, said she was wrong. He told her that the great fault in our education to-day is the way we cramp and hinder the free souls of finespirited children. He said he was writing a book he was going to name

"The New Freedom," which was to explain how children have the same rights to do what they please as grownup people have, and that you must never say "No" and "Don't" to them, but must let them do just what they please.

Mother listened most politely, but when ho was through she looked at the gravy Kiddo had spilled on the tablecloth, and shook her head at me for poking my fingers in my custard pic, and she said: "Professor, one can tell that you have never been a mother." lint father only laughed, and he said: "Well, Landers, if you really want material for your book, you ought to get a little better acquainted with your subject. Why don't you try your theories out on some children? Like my young angels here. Just try to take care of them for a day, allowing them to be perfectly free, and maybe you'll change your mind." "Done!" said Professor Landers, as bold as any lion. Ho turned to us and smiled •in that queer way people who don't know much about children always smile at you when they are trying to be friends. "How would you young people like to go on a picnic with me next Saturday? All day in my car; we could go away down the river and get close to Nature. And I promiee to allow you to do anything you please." "Good!" said mother, with something which looked very liko a wink for father. "And I will fix up the lunch." Mother is so used to packing picnic baskets that she says she could do it in her sleep.

"No, indeed," eaid Professor Landers, "I will have them pack us a picnic lunch at the College Grill; I hear they have very good picnic lunches. And I will take a book along to read while you young people are enjoying yourselves in your own way."

"May we take Bill?" asked Leona, who ie always kind to animate. The professor didn't like dogs, but I suppose he thought we ought to be allowed to do just ae we pleased—for one day, anyhow. "Yes, indeed," he said. "But I hope you won't mind being left home, as I want the young folks to feel perfectly untrammelled and parents are an inhibiting factor," he said to father and mother. "I ehall bo glad to have one quiet day to finish an article," eaid father. "And I am going to have ono long, beautiful nap," said mother. "But what is an inhibiting factor?" asked Kiddo. (In case you want to know, too, I will tell you what Professor Landere told Kiddo. It means something that stops you from doing what you vant to do, like a parent.) It seemed too good to be true! Leona said that if it rained and spoiled our one perfect picnic, her heart would surely break; but it didn't, and her heart didn't. So we started off at nine o'clock feharp in Professor Landers' great big car, with Billy trying to einell the box of lunch from the College Grill and a lovely thermos bottle of lemonade wrapped in the blankets Professor Landers had brought along to sit on, so it wouldn't get broken. But he never used the blankets at all because we kept him too busy. Ho didn't open his book either. It wasn't a good book to take along on a picnic, being not at all interesting, with lots of pictures of brains and tables of figures. We drove to a grand place down the river where we had never been before, because father had no car then and it was too long for us to hike with a basket. (To be continued next Wednesday.)