"No, it isn't that, for I really cannot come back here next fall,
children, or I would. But as long as I am going away, I thought we would
celebrate it by having a farewell picnic. In the city where I live if
any of our friends go away to live somewhere else, we always give them a
little party as a sort of good-by to them, and we have a jolly time
which they can remember always. Instead of having a party here, I
thought it would be nice if we could go down to the river for a picnic,
so I asked some of the gentlemen here in town about it and they told me
that we can get wagons enough to take us all down there a week from
tomorrow. It is such a long, long way we couldn't walk. It is a pretty
place, too, and many of you haven't been there before. We will take our
lunch and stay all day, coming home before it gets dark. Some of the
parents are willing to accompany us, and we will have a fine time. How
many of you would like to go?"

Up went every hand in the room and the faces of the children beamed in
happy anticipation, for picnics were almost unknown here on the barren
desert, and any novelty was gladly welcomed. So the scholars began happy
plans for this unusual gala day, and all that long week little else was
thought of. This was just what Miss Brooks had hoped for, because in
their looking forward to this extraordinary pleasure in their humdrum
lives, they ceased to harass their teacher with mournful laments and
direful prophecies, and even Tabitha's face lost some of its reproachful
look.

The picnic day dawned at last, clear, cloudless and warm but not too
hot, for the desert summer was not fairly upon them yet; and with
lunch-baskets and buckets on their arms, and faces wreathed with
expectant smiles, the thirty children gathered around the low
schoolhouse impatiently waiting for the teams.

Both of Carrie's parents, Susie's mother, Dr. Vane and Herman's aunt
were to help Miss Brooks take care of her restless charges and make the
day a success; so no wonder everyone was happy in their anticipation of
a good time. Then, too, some of the miners who had heard the great event
talked up, got together in the dead of night and decorated the several
rigs with gay bunting, fastening two small flags to the front of each
wagon and even trimming up the horses' harnesses until the results were
quite dazzling to childish eyes. What did it matter to them that some of
the bunting had been watersoaked and that the flags were fad