“Is everybody ready?” exclaimed Tina the turtle, peeping out from her shell on a beautiful sunny day.
“Yes, yes!” shouted her family.
“Then it’s time to go to the riverbank,” she said.
And off they waddled together: Father and Mother Turtle leading; then, in couples, Uncle and Auntie, and Brother, Sister, and Cousin Charles, and last of all little Tina, carrying her great brown straw picnic basket!
“Oh, won’t we have a lovely time at the riverbank,” said Sister. “Think of the delicious food Tina will get out of the basket.”
“Just do you wait till we get there,” Tina replied, smiling to herself.
Now when they reached the riverbank Tina told them much the best way to sit. Then she spread out the tablecloth she had taken in the basket, and placed all the dishes, and nicely baked cakes, and fruits, and chocolates upon it; and then she danced a merry little dance of joy round and round her family.
“I’ve brought you all this nice picnic,” she said, addressing Uncle and Auntie, Brother and Sister, and Cousin Charles, “because you have been so kind, and taken care of me whilst I was getting better from my little illness this summer.”
Then she climbed up on the table and said:
“Now I will read you a little speech which I have here written down in my basket.” And opening a little book she held it up bravely, and said:
“Good-morning, good-morning, dear Uncle and dear Auntie. Good-morning, good-morning, dear Brother, Sister, and Cousin Charles. We have come Sunday out “–the week before last–” on a lovely picnic to this beautiful riverbank, where a tiny breeze softly blows from the cool water into our faces, and a tree gives us a nice shady background. Our frames, it is true, may not be so tall or so solid as some but don’t you think that, turned with the top upwards, they might do the cork-fishers some service?”
“Whoever would have thought of a picnic getting into such a dignified matter-of-fact shape and being put all into such a solemn speech,” Uncle Turtle could not help saying.
“That was because Tina is sick,” observed Mother Turtle, gently. “So we must all try and make the utmost of everything and enjoy the picnic all she can.”
“Ha, ha, this is a funny little speech,” cried Sister, laughing.
Then they all ate and drank as Tina went round pouring the tea out of the little teapot into the little cups, and Master Turtle, the father, and Uncle and Auntie, and Cousin Charles played at Guess for the stumps of kindling-wood boiled to a pulp, so they all passed such a merry picnic under their big brown umbrella, let into the sand and moored by a seaweed rope.
But at last Cousin Charles fell asleep and Master and Mistress Turtle, Uncle and Auntie, and Brother and Sister Turtle began nudging and winking at one another, so Father and Mother, and Uncle and Aunt Turtle said: “Well, it was a pleasant picnic, and we must now be going home,” and off they waddled, with little Tina following. “But where is Charles?” they said, after a few minutes.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tina, poking her head out from her shell.
“And we don’t know positively,” said Father Turtle, “but I believe he is far behind having his boots cleaned at the stone over there. However, Auntie and I will manage to come back and fetch him.”
And off they waddled half asleep, whilst little Tina began singing merrily to herself as they walked along by the side of the river on their way home.
“Peep, peep, peep!” screeched her old friend the screech-owl, perching immediately above her on a tree.
“Whatever makes you cry out like that?” asked Tina.
“Pooh, ooh, a great many things - rain and wind and snow and sleet; but never mind which it is now,” answered the screech-owl, “because I want to speak to you.”
“Speak to me! What about?” said the little turtle.
“I want to say, alas and alack-a-day, if only Charles had had on nice polished boots when he fell asleep over yonder, he would have been fetched home all safe by Uncle and Aunt, and Father and Mother,” screeched the old owl nestling his head in his wings pathetically.
“But he did not and that is the reason you now see them waddling half asleep home without him,” and off went the screech-owl flapping his great wings and scaring everybody else awake round about the riverbank as he went.
Now Deedee Duck sat down on the brink, hoping she might astonish the old owl by flapping her wings over her humble broad body.
“Daddy Duck, flappy and waddly,
Property nearly all sandy.
Feather ‘duck down’
Makes beds of renown
It’s by such things
We pull the … strings,”
and, like the screech-owl before, stretching her head far out from her wings she began nodding and sleeping and huddling herself together appealingly.
But unbeknown to her that now-famous youth, our old acquaintance Sinclair, was passing on his easy and graceful skates. So after gazing on her for some little time he threw a tiny pebble right at her foot.
“O la, I shall be wet through!” she said, falling head over ears into the river.
“How do you you like my own fresco in a duck-pond?” exclaimed Sinclair skimming gently along just above her down out of hurt and dirty water, as he shot away peep, peep. But Deedee duck did not lose an hour that evening in putting on some fathers’ boxing gloves and a soldier’s wool safety India-rubber cap for the wrappings which were dreaded during a ‘dirty lay’ in this familiar shore holiday; she went to the side telling her friend, the queen-tide, how fidgety she had been about Charles’ boots.
“But Charles has not as yet come home from that terrible old riverbank,” well said Queen-Ebb, gently.
“Oh, I know I’m not crying! ha-ha-ha!” laughed Deedee, who had very nearly made up her mind to ask her to bed.
Then a horrible rush of rain-drops came pattering down into the soaking duck-pond “la, what is that for?” asked Deedee to her friend, the believe in the coolies on the Osaka Wells and Bridge, who had the oddest view of anybody as she lay on her side deep down in the water.
“O, don’t open your mouth. our entrepot and ossa caliper-interior, shall keep everybody dry!” was the reply she would give. “Oh, here is Cousin Charles,” she said, peeping her head above the water from the old bottles the fishermen had thrown to the bottom.
Yes, there was Cousin Charles, slowly coming home to his native riverbed in his uncle and grandmother’s arms.