Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1873 — The Pleasures of the Bionic. [ARTICLE]

The Pleasures of the Bionic.

This is tlie season of the year when picnics are most frequent. For real solid enjoyment we, for our part, must prefer * well conducted funeral to an ordinary picnic. You generally reach tlie grounds about 11 o’clock, and tlie exercises begin with climbing a hill, up which you are compelled to carry two heavy lunch-bas-kets. When you reacli the summit you are positively certain that the thermometer -ijnvst be nearly 650 in the shade. You throw yourself on the grass, and in a few moments a brigade of black ants begin to crawl down the back of your neck, while a phalanx of ticks charge up your trouser leg. And just as you jump up, your oldest boy, who has been out in tlie woods, where lie st irred up a yellow-jacket’s nest, comes in with his head and face swelled to the size of a water-bucket, conveying the information that your other boy, William Henry, is up a tree and can’t get down. After laboring to release William Henry tlie thermometer seems to have gone up 200 more degrees, and you think you will take a swim in the creek. While you are in the water, young Jones strolls out with Miss Smith, and unconscious of your presence they sit down.close to your clothes, and engage in conversation for three-quarters of an hour, while you- lie down in the shallow stream, afraid to budge and nearly killed with the hot snn. When they leave, you emerge and find That some wicked bOV from the neighboring village has run off with your shirt and socks. You fix up as well as you can. and when you get hack with tlie party they are eating dinner from a cloth laid on the ground. A spider is spinning a cobweb from the pickle-jar to tho littlecnd vis-the cold ham; straddlebugs are frolicking around over the pound-cake, caterpillars are ' exploring tlie bread-plate, grasshoppers are jumping into the butter where they stick fast, the bees are so thick around the sugar-bowl that you are afraid ' to go near it, and there are enough ants in the pie to walk completely on with it. You take a seat, however, determined to try to eat Something, hut you get up suddenly—all at once, as it were, forvou have set down on a brier. Then William Henry, who has quaffed an unreasonable quantity of lemonade, gets the colic, arid his mother goes fnto hysterics because she thinks he is poisoned -With pokebemes. You lay him under an umbrella, and proceed to climb a tree in order to fix a swing for the girls. After skinning your hands, tearing your trousers and ruining your coat, you get top, tie the rope and Undertake to come down on it, You do come down, with velocity, -and your fingers afe rubbed entirely raw. Just then

it begins to rain ftirionsly, and the whole narty stampedes to the depot for shelter. When the shower slackens you go hack to tlie ground to get tlie rope, and just as you get up in flic tree tlie owner of the place comes along with a gun and a dog, and threatens to blow your brains out and eat.you up, if you don’tieave immediately,. Then you come down again with celerity, and get over the fence as if you were in earnest. Going home in the train ait tlie passengers regard you, from your appearance, as an escaped convict, or a lunatic who has broken from his keepers; and when you reach your home you plunge into a shirt, cover your hands with courtplaster, and register a solemn vow never to go on another picnic. And we are with you; we never will either. —Max Adder.