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Picnic   /pˈɪknˌɪk/   Listen
Picnic

noun
1.
A day devoted to an outdoor social gathering.  Synonyms: field day, outing.
2.
Any undertaking that is easy to do.  Synonyms: breeze, child's play, cinch, duck soup, piece of cake, pushover, snap, walkover.
3.
Any informal meal eaten outside or on an excursion.



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"Picnic" Quotes from Famous Books



... a picnic party," returned Tom. "I wouldn't care so much if I wasn't so anxious to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... and the subscriptions were so arranged that on this festival each poorer member might, with two companions, be provided with a hearty meal; while grandees and farmers had a luncheon-tent of their own, and regarded the day as a county picnic. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... be wise to fix any country excursion for a few weeks to come. Let the young people enjoy any fine afternoon that they might be able to turn to the account of a walk, or a drive, or a sail on the river; but picnic parties must be deferred till settled weather came. There was every hope that the middle of the summer would be fine and seasonable, if the rains came ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... come to ask her to spend Bank Holiday with them. They might go for a sort of picnic to Richmond Park, and she must come back ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... A party of neutral diplomats who last week went by train into the country for a picnic were arrested on their return to the railroad station at Vienna, beaten up, and insulted by police and soldiers in spite of their identification papers. The affair went to such lengths that several of the diplomats came ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... her father, "but some days you may do that to your heart's content. The whole trip is going to be just one long picnic, and we're going to get all the fun out of it ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... almost exactly midway between St. Albans and Watford; it consists of some cottages scattered around an extensive wood and common, crossed by L.&N.W.R. The station is 1/2 mile from the "wood," which is much frequented by picnic parties, school treats, etc. The district is good ground for the ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... densely wooded hill over which the electric road runs from East End to West End, is an attractive spot to nature lovers. Hundreds of old chestnut trees make it a favorite resort for picnic parties in summer and nut-hunters in the fall. It is altogether a charming piece of woodland without undergrowth, and needs no gravelled walks or other evidences of the hand of man to add to its ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart

... dare to go near Dona Eustaquia," said Russell to Brotherton. "And I'm afraid we won't have our picnic. It seems to me the Commodore need not have used such strong language about California's idol. The very people in the streets are ready to unlimb us; and as for ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... of all days unfortunately chosen for staff outings, but which cheered up later and became brilliantly fine. Only the girls were there, with Miss Summers and another forewoman, Miss Rapson, to see that nobody fell into mischief. They had a good picnic lunch in woods, and ran or walked or sat about all the afternoon, until it was time for tea. They then trooped into an hotel in which a room had been engaged, and scrimmaged for places round a big table. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... was a collection of motor-cars, lorries, and odd riding horses along the roadside, exactly as you might see at the picnic races. We struck inland up one of those glades which the French foresters leave at intervals running from side to side of their well-managed forests. The green moss sank like a soft carpet beneath our feet. ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... one thing certain, Mary decided,—Mamma could not come to them. That would spoil all the summer they had been planning so happily. To picnic in the hot city with one beloved companion is one thing, to keep house there for one's family is quite another. Mamma was not adaptable, she had her own very definite ideas. She hated a dimly lighted ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... and ball, and picnic, race-meeting, polo-match, and what-not, Paul Howard Alexis stalked misunderstood, distrusted; an object of ridicule to some, of pity to others, of impatience to all. A man, if it please you, with a purpose—a purpose ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... governor's reception, are the social features of Manila life. The ladies do considerable entertaining, wearing themselves out in the performance of their social duties. As a relaxation, an informal picnic party will sometimes charter a small launch, and spend the day along the picturesque banks of the Pasig. The customs of Manila make an obligation of a frequent visit to the Civil hospital, if it so happen that a friend is sick there. It is a long ride along Calle Iris, with its rows ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... said Harry, laughing; "another matter won't. They're going to haul out the visitors' picnic straight away, and they show good judgment. A sleeper on the main line will form a much more peaceful resting-place than this elated hamlet to-night. Your uncle wants to see you, and Miss Carrington ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed" several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... best poets. He is always in harmony with nature in her prevailing quiet mood; his voice is invariably gentle, subdued, merging into the murmur of trees or the flow of water,—much like Indian voices, but as unlike as possible to the voices of those who go to nature for a picnic ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... a didactic poem, entitled La Musica, and the Fables here quoted, which satirize the peculiar foibles of literary men. They have been translated into many languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon the dromedary ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... each other in good red wine of the country, pledging each other with "Vive la Belgique" and "Vive l'Angleterre," and altogether we were a merry party, although at the time German shells were whirling overhead and any moment one might have upset our picnic and buried us in the debris ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... that a jolly French boy with white teeth, who has been very good at making coffee at our picnic lunches, was put up against a tree and shot at daybreak. Someone had made him drunk the night before, and he had threatened an ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... appointed little steamer White Swan, owned and commanded by a Captain Gibbs, veteran of the last war, now plies regularly between Waltham and Auburndale Bridge, carrying picnic parties, etc.... Along the banks of the river are located the summer residences of Messrs. Cutter and Merrill, the elegant residence of R. M. Pulsifer, Mayor of Newton, the splendid mansion of Ex-Mayor Fowle, the Benyon mansion and others.... At sunset the river is alive ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison

... which was not favorably regarded by the Protestant princes of Germany. Baron Kilmanseck, a Hanoverian, and a great admirer of Handel, undertook to bring them together again. Being informed that the king intended to picnic on the Thames, he requested the composer to write something for the occasion. Thereupon Handel wrote the twenty-five little concerted pieces known under the title of "Water Music." They were executed in a barge which followed the royal boat. The orchestra consisted ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... said then that Charlie was likely to be comfortably off? How well she remembered Gwyn Bailey's picnic, when Charlie had told her that the positions he had hoped for were closed to him, and that he had no money to enter a profession! She remembered the hopeless ring of his voice as he had ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... cried she; 'she shall go with us. It's — Bay you are thinking about, I suppose, Mrs. Graham? It is a very long walk, too far for you, and out of the question for Arthur. But we were thinking about making a picnic to see it some fine day; and, if you will wait till the settled fine weather comes, I'm sure we shall all be delighted to have ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... Say, with sentiments like that you must have been about as popular with your company, Hartley, as an ex-grand duke at a Bolshevik picnic." ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... Easterner you would abandon your proposed picnic party, upon rising in the morning, for fear of rain, and, being a tenderfoot, you would be justified, for the clouds—or, more properly speaking, the high fog—give every indication of a shower. But an old Californian would tell ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... ultimate issue. Lying as it does in the midst of such beautiful scenery, Hobart is a good centre from which to make excursions. A favourite place for picnics is Brown's River, about 10 miles away, the road following the water edge along "Sandy Bay." An Antipodean picnic is nothing without tea. In fact the tea-pot is the centre round which everything revolves. The first thing to be done is to collect wood for a fire. The "billy" is then filled with water and set to boil. Meantime those not connected with these preliminaries ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... parents was sold but I don't know how it was done. There was thirteen children in our family. The white folks had a picnic and took colored long to do round. Some heard bout freedom and went home tellin' bout it. We stayed on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... it, an' sometimes he doesn't git it at all, an' then has to take hay an' oats, or do without. I know that to be a fact. Old skinflint Reeker over thar owed two dollars one year to the church, an' he wondered how in the world he was to git out of payin' it. Durin' the summer a Sunday-school picnic was held on his place back in his grove, an' fer one of the games the parson cut down four little beeches about as big as canes. Thar was thousands of 'em growin' around, an' wasn't worth a postage-stamp. But old Reeker saw 'im ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... their democrat and had brought picnic food for all day; but Hartigan was a special favourite at the Fort, and he, with Belle, was invited to join its hospitable garrison mess, where social life was in gala mood. It was an experience for Belle, for she had not realized ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... know—at that little place of theirs at Goring. You remember it—a poky hole I always thought it, but it had a lot of green stuff over the door—looked very pretty from the other side of the river. She always used to have cold meat and pickles for lunch—called it a picnic. People said it was ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... explain a very little. In a month occurs the Pioneer's Picnic at Rapid. You don't know what the Pioneer's Picnic is? Ignorant boy! It's our most important event of the year. Well, until that time I am going to try an experiment. I am going to see if—well, I'll tell you; I am going to try an experiment on a man, and the man is you, and ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... day in preparation for the picnic, full of joyous anticipation, but Gladys was filled with secret trepidation. She knew Ed Roberts would be there, and would try to force himself upon her, and she was afraid her pleasure would be spoiled. She said nothing about it, however, for she feared Nyoda would take some decisive action ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... notorious painter in Paris" was a description which he finally grew to enjoy. It may not be denied that he painted several pictures as a direct challenge to the world, but a painter of offensive pictures he never was. The execrated Picnic, proscribed by the jury of the Salon in 1861, was shown in the Salon des Refuses (in company with works by Bracquemond, Cazin, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, Jongkind, J.P. Laurens, Legros, Pissarro, Vollon, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... views—when she was sixteen she was practically housekeeper to her adopted uncle—perhaps it was a matter of carriage arrangement. Once it had been much more serious, for after she had fixed up to go with a merry picnic party to the downs, Jasper, in her uncle's absence and on his authority, had firmly but gently forbidden her attendance. Was it an accident that Frank Merrill was one of the party, and that he was coming down from London for ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... seeing them engaged in a pleasant task, found it well to do likewise. The waters close to the island were filled with Frenchmen, Canadians and Indians, wading, swimming and splashing water, the effect in the distance being that of boys on a picnic and enjoying ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of the kinds of things we do outside our academic work; not to mention the picnic breakfasts at "Paradise" in the warm weather, sleigh rides or hikes to Old Hadley, a quaint old town near here, Winter Carnival, or all the excitement that comes with Junior Prom time. Then, you may be sure, the "little ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various

... of staying here?" remarked Herb. "It's now past eight, and time we were on the move. It's just a picnic for Josh and me. We sail along like a big house, and nothing disturbs us. Josh cooks to beat the band; only I don't believe he eats more'n a bite each ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... striving as best his aching head would let him, to review his situation. He was fairly well pleased with his success to date, but the grue of fear was still with him. He was getting part way where he wanted to be, but ... this was certainly no picnic he was muscling into. He remembered his father's injunction to take it easy ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... ask her to come some day so that you could tell her everything. She ought to be an artist. Didn't you see how she kept looking at the pictures? And then Harry Foster knows a lovely place down the river for a picnic, and can borrow boats enough beside his own to take us all there, only it's a secret yet. Harry said that it was a beautiful point of land, with large trees, and that there was a lane that came across the fields from the road, so that you could ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... a picnic, and so we went along, but pa wishes that he had let well enough alone and kept out of the rabbit game. Those natives are full of fun, and on these rabbit drives they always pick out some man to have fun with, and they picked out Pa as the victim. We rode along ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... have taken my hands out of the biscuit dough to meet a steward who was determined to see him about the increased foreign mission assessment, or it might be the Sunday-school superintendent come to discuss the May picnic. I could usually pacify the steward and put off the superintendent, but if it was a messenger from some remote neighborhood on the circuit come to say that Brother Beatem was dead and the family wanted Brother Thompson to conduct ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... the sofa pillow doesn't leak its feathers all over, and make the room look like a bird's nest at a moving picture picnic, I'll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis

... for a Japanese Vase The Bow Moon (A Print by Hirosage) An Italian Chest The Pedlar Portrait of a Lady in Bed I-V Portrait of a Gentleman From the Madison Street Police Station La Felice The Journey The Last Illusion The Desert The Picnic ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... joint tenancy; occupancy in common, possession in common, tenancy in common; joint stock, common stock; co-partnership, partnership; communion; community of possessions, community of goods; communism, socialism; cooperation &c. 709. snacks, coportion|, picnic, hotchpot[obs3]; co-heirship, co- parceny[obs3], co-parcenary; gavelkind[obs3]. participator, sharer; co-partner, partner; shareholder; co-tenant, joint tenant; tenants in common; co-heir, co-parcener[obs3]. communist, socialist. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... found about the place, and upon this the sliced bacon was spread, while the potatoes were dropped directly into the embers. Norah had thought of everything, even paper napkins and picnic knives and forks. There was, too, a bottle of olives and some cold ham in the very ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... Picnic parties, horse shows, cricket matches, and the chase of the fox all find a place in this romantic demesne in their proper seasons. The enthusiast for woodland hunting, or the man who hates the sight of a fence of any description, may ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... girls, to get into scrapes. Oh, I know the kind—afraid of their own shadows, and no more spunk in them than in so many sheep. That 's what they are—sheep. Well, I 'm not a sheep, and there 's no more to be said. And I don't want to go on your picnic, and, what 's ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... so we stopped for lunch. In Wyoming quantity has a great deal more to do with satisfaction than does quality; after half a day's drive you won't care so much what it is you're going to eat as you will that there is enough of it. That is a lesson I learned long ago; so our picnic was real. There were no ants in the pie, but that is accounted for by there being no pie. Our road had crossed the creek, and we were resting in the shade of a quaking-asp grove, high up on the sides of the Bad Land hills. For miles far below lay the valley ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... thinking about it all there in the back of my head, trying to see a way out of it—you know if there is such an agreement as Obermuller swears there is, it's against the law—while we rattled on, the two of us, like a couple of children on a picnic, when I heard a crash ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... earnestness of pity that he set me laughing again. 'But look here, Gerard,' he continued; 'this is all very well, but it is not business, you know. I don't know what Massena would say to it, but our Chief would jump out of his riding-boots if he saw us. We weren't sent out here for a picnic—either of us.' ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tired. I've got that steam up the yacht Corsair and ho for the Riviera! feeling. I want to loaf and indict my soul, as Walt Whittier says. I want to play pinochle with Merry del Val or give a knouting to the tenants on my Tarrytown estates or do a monologue at a Chautauqua picnic in kilts or something summery and outside the ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... picnic. Think of eating bacon and stale bread in a parlor, done up in pale-green and silver. I know it will taste better." It was Erma who was talking. Her voice rang over all like a silver bell, as with merry laugh and light spirits she lead the ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... and told him who I was and he took me in and put me at the head of the table of young subalterns in grand uniforms and we had marmalade and cold beef and beer and I was happy to the verge of tears to hear English as she is spoke. Then we went to a picnic and took tea in a smuggler's cave and all the foxterriers ran over the table cloth and the Captain spilt hot water over his white flannels and jumped around on one leg. After which we played a handkerchief ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... whither, as he understood, she had been bound in the morning. And as they now approached the appointed place of meeting, he was quite disturbed by the fancy that she might have strayed away into unknown regions and be absent from this general picnic; and the moment they came in sight of the group of people who were strolling about, or looking on while the servants spread out the table-cloth on the heather and brought forth the various viands, one swift glance told him she was not present. Here was a disappointment! He wanted to tell her ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... suit for Tuesday, a science suit for Wednesday, a suit of poetry for Thursday, and so on, day after day. But when I must read all of Homer before I can have the Greek suit, the price seems a bit stiff, and I'm not so avid about changing my mind. We had a township picnic back home, once, and it seemed to me that I was attending a congress of nations, for there were people there who had driven five or six miles from the utmost bounds of the township. That was a real mental adventure, and it took some time for me to adjust myself to my new suit. Then I went to the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... "You heard about this picnic of the Palmers?" she said, inquiringly. "You're going, of course. It seems to be ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... invited to meet and address the common schools of the county of Norfolk, at a county school picnic held in a grove near Simcoe, the 24th of last June, I determined to proceed thither, not by railroad and stage, as usual, but in a skiff fifteen feet and a half long, in which I had been accustomed for some months to row in Toronto ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... of the men were bright and gay, and the boys thought this was war. But, instead of that, they were merely enjoying a holiday. The ladies of the town sent them wagon-loads of provisions every day, and the occasion was a veritable picnic—a picnic that some of the young men remembered a year or two later when they were trudging ragged, barefooted, and hungry, through the snow and ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... with the bosses who run the part of the industry that he is in. Unequal wages under socialism would mean a fierce and corrupt scramble for power, office and emolument, beside which the utmost aberrations of Tammany Hall would seem as innocuous as a Sunday School picnic. ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... you I never was fatigued," the young lady said, playing with her dogs, and sublimely at her ease. "I am ready for a second hunt to-day, and a ball to-night, and a picnic the day after. I should have been a boy. It's perfectly absurd, my being a ridiculous girl, when I feel as if I could lead a forlorn hope, or, like Alexander, conquer ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... resistance worth mentioning, and as the routes of both columns lay through a region teeming with everything necessary for their support, and rich even in luxuries, it struck me that such campaigning was more a vast picnic than like actual war. The country supplied at all points bread, meat, and wine in abundance, and the neat villages, never more than a mile or two apart, always furnished shelter; hence the enormous trains required to feed and provide ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... the question as though you were going to propose a picnic," answered Orsino. "I do not see why this morning need be so different ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... you suppose he'd behave, Horatio?" said Fanny. "When he's come all that way and given up a picnic to hear you." ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... you go," she told him, firmly; and, reading the expression in her face, he felt a dizzy wonder. "We'll find a nice secluded spot; then we'll sit down and wait for night to come. We'll pretend we're having a picnic." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... (Sir William Kennedy) commanding in the Indian Ocean a few years ago heard that two Englishwomen had been left on a desert island by a mail steamer from which they had landed for a picnic. The steamer was bound to go on. The women were not missed till too late. So the captain telegraphed to the Admiral from the next port. The Admiral at once went to the island in his flagship, found the women with their dresses all torn to ribbons on the rocks, measured ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... and that means much, and a young contract surgeon, who has been recently appointed, will go with us, and our Chinese cook will go also. I have always wanted to take a trip of this kind, and know that it will be like one long picnic, only much nicer. I never cared for real picnics—they always have so much headache with them. We have very little to do for the march as our camp outfit is in unusually fine condition. After Charlie's "flixee" so much mess-chest china, Faye had made to order a complete set for four ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... wander away or play in the public street, and she was on no account to go where she could not keep home in view. She might roam about the grounds all day if she liked; and there was the big tree down in the garden, with a broad seat around it, where she could play house or picnic, or anything that could be played with only Dinah to help her. But it often happened that she did not care to go to any of these places. She would have liked to open the big gate (but that was forbidden,) and follow the noisy ducks down to the pond, and now she looked with longing eyes to a ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May

... in a hurry and forgot it till we were on the car! I can see you now, reaching for the bell and then getting off the wrong way. And how you did run! If you had gone in the ladies' race at the Shipping Clerks' Annual Picnic and had run as fast as that, you'd have won the ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... flotilla was placed under the command of the young naval officer, the hero of this story. The expedition proceeded cautiously up the river San Juan, which runs for eighty miles, or thereabouts, from Lake Nicaragua to the salt water. The voyage was a sort of marine picnic. Luxurious vegetation on either side, and no opposition to speak of, even from the current of the river; for Lake Nicaragua itself is but a hundred and twenty feet above the sea level, and a hundred and twenty feet gives little rapidity to ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... that at the most riotous moment of the picnic an old gentleman passed near the lively crowd. He was quite inoffensive, pleasant-mannered, and walked leaning on his cane, yet, had the statue of the Commander in Don Juan suddenly appeared it could not ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... road he came upon a scene of merriment. In a cleared grove men, women and children were gathered; it was a church picnic. Eliph' Hewlitt took his hitching strap from beneath the buggy seat and secured ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... child. She praised the beauty of the bird's- nest, and kissed the little mermaiden to find if her lips tasted of salt water; but then she said, "Don't break any more of the silk, dear children, else we shall have no ears of corn in the field,—none to roast before our picnic fires, and none to dry and pop ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... of fact," admitted the Prime Minister, "we are hampered by these votes-for-women creatures; they disturb our meetings throughout the country, and they try to turn Downing Street into a sort of political picnic-ground." ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... is, Papa!' cried Alda. 'He is going to take us all out to a picnic in the Castle woods; and won't you ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mrs. Yocomb, as we rose from the table, "father proposes that we all go on a family picnic to Silver Pond, and take our supper there. It's only three miles away. Would thee feel strong ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... stand it no longer; he ran away. One evening Mrs. Buckley informed him that she and a little group—"a really select group, Professor Bangs"—of the hotel inmates were to picnic somewhere or other the following day. "And you are to come with us, Doctor, and tell us about those wonderful temples you and I were discussing yesterday. I have told the others something of what you told me and they are ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... be necessary to name as the two companions whom I reckoned with myself in this poetical picnic, Fields the lettered magnate, and Taylor the free cosmopolite. The long line of sandy beach which defines almost the whole of the New Hampshire sea-coast is especially marked near its southern extremity, by the salt-meadows ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... pleasures and the great world, and saw that Lucien gave up the delights of vanity for them, and exclaimed to himself, "They will not spoil him for us!" Now and again the three friends and Mme. Chardon arranged picnic parties in provincial fashion—a walk in the woods along the Charente, not far from Angouleme, and dinner out on the grass, David's apprentice bringing the basket of provisions to some place appointed before-hand; and at night they would come ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... how his wife walked here with him, or walked there with him, as if a wife with two feet were a miracle in Nature." When a lady in Italy said, on an occasion when Browning stayed behind with his wife on the day of a picnic, that he was "the only man who behaved like a Christian to his wife," Browning was elated to an almost infantile degree. But there could scarcely be a better test of the essential manliness and decency of a man than this ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... nearly as bad as himself! I want to, of course. I'm tired of everything and everybody, from a moonlight picnic at Seepee to the blandishments of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Wenatchee road now. One of them High Line fellers hired the outfit with a driver to take him through to the valley. If you'd be'n here when they started, likely they'd be'n glad to accommodate you. And the sorrels is out with a picnic to Nanum canyon. That leaves the roans. They come in half an hour ago. A couple of traveling salesmen had 'em out all the forenoon, and these drummers drive like blue blazes; and it's a mean pull through to Wenatchee. But wait till to-morrow and, with ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... went off on their picnic, and did not come home until time to dress for the train that was to bring back Mrs. Rayburn ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... been playing. There was business on hand and she had been downtown to buy eggs for the picnic, with the usual result. She had never yet succeeded in bringing home an unbroken dozen, nor did she ever hope to; but she was really out of temper at the extraordinary dampness of the paper bag, to which her two hands adhered stickily. She walked ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... event of the year in Adelaide was the occasion when the Hunt Club Races took place. The meeting was held at the close of the season, and a right merry meeting it was too. It was a huge picnic, winding up with dinner and theatre parties, dances, and good old suppers. I had nothing good enough to win any race. Buckland was a sure jumper, but not fast enough. Satan's foreleg would not stand training. However, one never knows one's luck ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... and directed Saddler Sergeant Smith and myself to accompany the Colonel in advance. When Lieut. Shipp delivered his orders, some of the officers remarked, "You are having a good time riding around here." He replied that it was no picnic riding among bullets, and that he would ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... at Mrs. Fremont's they were received with delight, as there had been a picnic planned, and they were waiting the return of the little party from Montague, in order to ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... feasts, the welcome annual picnic, redolent with hunks of gingerbread and sarsaparilla. How would they feel to know that these sacred recollections were now forever profaned in their memory by the knowledge that the defendant was capable of using such occasions to make love to the larger ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... Linton, not only ready to start, but hurrying them off; and there was no lunch to carry, Norah airily declaring that since she and Tommy were to be deserted they declined to be downtrodden, and would motor over with a hamper and picnic at Creek Cottage. There was a mysterious twinkle in Norah's eye; Bob scented something afoot, and tried—in vain—to pump her on the matter. He rode away, his ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... day for their picnic," she observed now, kindly. Alice was on her knees, her face puckered as she busied herself with the hooks of a girdle, but she smiled gratefully. Her two brothers had borrowed their employer's coal barge to-day, and with a score of cherished associates, several hundred sandwiches, sardines, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... garden-chair with much satisfaction. Wynchcote might not be Rotherwood, but it looked an uncommonly pretty little place in the September sunshine. To live there would be like a perpetual picnic. Mother and Queenie looked so complacently smiling that it seemed impossible to grouse, especially with newly-baked scones and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... captain is going to arrange a sort of picnic for us to-morrow. We have all day in harbour, you know, and part of the next. So to-morrow we are to go ashore and take donkeys, and ride out along the shore there for several miles, to some queer place or other, where they will arrange lunch for ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... constantly put off. There was a complete stillness everywhere. The officers unpacked their valises and their camp-beds. Every one arranged his bed and his goods in his chosen place, and it seemed as if we had merely begun once more to settle down for a further period of siesta in the long picnic which had been going on for the last two months. Nobody was convinced in spite of the authentic news which we had received, that the Japanese would ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... invisible clothing) a large shawl and a petticoat, her thin hair, black streaked with grey, knotted and pinned into a ball on the top of her head. Here and there about the kitchen ran four children, who were snatching a sort of picnic breakfast whilst they made ready for school. They looked healthy enough, and gabbled, laughed, sang, without heed to the elder folk. Their mother, healthy too, and with no ill-natured face-a slow, dull, sluggishly-mirthful woman of a common London type-heard ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... quite young. People then came down from London in vans, carts, and carriages of all sorts, to see the Palace and grounds (there was no railway), they were principally of the small middle classes, and used to picnic, or else dine at the taverns when they arrived; then full, and frisky, after their early meal, go into the parks and gardens. They do so still, but times were different then, so few people went there comparatively; fewer park-keepers to look after them, and less of what is called delicacy, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... and Leonora and I went down to Fern Brook last week," Polly began deliberately, seating herself in the rocker which Miss Sterling did not like, "and ever since then I've been wishing it would come a lovely day for you and me to have a little picnic all by ourselves. Or we might ask one or two others, if you like. Will you, Miss Nita? You'll break my heart if you say no—I see it coming! Just say, 'I should be de-e-lighted ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... lesson to 'em. Next time they'd know better'n to monkey with strangers. Whatever it was he said, he made his point, and after a right smart lot of powwowin' the entertainment proceeded. But Mike and me was as popular with them people as a couple of polecats at a picnic. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... tried our best to get out to Old Salem on Saturdays, but something always happened, except one Saturday. One time I had to make garden again, one time I had to help Mitch make garden, another time pa and ma went to Pleasant Plains to a picnic and I had to stay and take care of Little Billie, for Myrtle went, because I had gone with pa and ma somewhere, I forget where it was, and it was Myrtle's time. Somehow Myrtle was always in my way, but ma said I was selfish and I suppose I was. Finally on the Saturday before school let out, ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... rain will frustrate. He cannot, to be sure, by his present reactions affect to-morrow's weather, but he may take some steps which will influence future happenings, if only to postpone the proposed picnic. If a man sees a carriage coming which may run over him, if he cannot stop its movement, he can at least get out of the way if he foresees the consequence in time. In many instances, he can intervene even more directly. The attitude of a participant ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... dining-room, and the hall a parlour and drawing-room combined. But the outside must be finished, on account of the garden, creepers, etc. The S.E. side (really about S.S.E.) has the fine views. If you can arrange to come at Christmas we will have a picnic on the ground the first sunny day. I was all last week surveying—a very difficult job, to mark out exactly three acres so as to take in exactly as much of each kind of ground as I wanted, and with no uninterrupted view over any one of the boundary lines! I found the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... train at 12 o'clock. By that time I had discovered that I had not bought freedom with my subscription, nor earned the title of noble by walking to the village. I was expected to spend the rest of the day helping to amuse Miss Lane's picnic party. Kitty and I met them when ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... picnic party," he said. "I discovered the debris of a luncheon yonder, but no human creature visible. Perhaps you can kindly tell me where the strayed revellers are to be found; you are one of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... strawberry season brings the halcyon days of the year. They look forward to it and enjoy it as a prolonged picnic, in which business and pleasure are equally combined. They are essentially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and families and neighbors ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... artistic eye, and he has a hard unscrupulousness in painting uninteresting objects in an uninteresting way. There is some good colour and drawing, however, in his painting of a withered chestnut tree, with the autumn sun glowing through the yellow leaves, in a picnic scene, No. 23; the remainder of the picture being something in the ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... one of the busiest men in India—especially when he is up on the hill among the sweet pine-trees. He is the recognised guardian of public morality, and the hill captains and the semi-detached wives lead him a rare life. There is no junketing at Goldstein's, no picnic at the waterfalls, no games at Annandale, no rehearsals at Herr Felix von Battin's, no choir practice at the church even, from which he can safely absent himself. A word, a kiss, some matrimonial charm dissolved—these electric ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... which he had not heard from so directly in ten years. After the first inevitable moment of jealousy, his wife forgave Westover when she found that he did not want pupils, and she took a leading part in the movement to have him read Browning at a picnic, organized by the ladies shortly after ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... carpentering, as I chose a place for the house where no falling bread-fruit or branches of trees would hurt it, and the sun was so hot that it almost burnt my hand when I took up a handful of nails that had been lying for ten minutes in the sun. So our picnic life begins again, and that favourably. I feel the enjoyment of the glorious view and climate, and my dear lads, Tagalana and Parenga, from Bauro, are with me, the rest in Port Patteson, &c., coming over in the vessel to-morrow, which ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her husband the Adriatic when in savage moods; it provides her with a stretch of land on which to walk or ride and watch the seasons behave; and as a bathing station it has no rival. The Lido is not beautiful; but Venice seen from it is beautiful, and it has trees and picnic grounds, and its usefulness is not to be exaggerated. The steamers, which ply continually in summer and very often in winter, take only a quarter of an ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... acquired knowledge," he commented. "Well, our luck's run out, on that sector; we have troubles there, now. I want you to go iron them out. I know, you've been going pretty hard, lately—that nighthound business, on the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, wasn't any picnic. But the fact is that a lot of my ordinary and deputy assistants have a little too much regard for the alleged sanctity of human life, and this is something that may need some pretty ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... eaten their picnic dinner and were resting in easy attitudes on the grass,—Miss Betty not being present to mention spines,—in sight of their ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... revolution," he said somberly to himself. "And here I go to do the rest of the job; and alongside what I've got to do, hell would be a picnic!" ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... a picnic!" he called to them gaily with a wave of his dusty sombrero. "That's an ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... the seed its untouched fronds have scattered, and all the offshoots we have propagated, it shall have become as plentiful as Heaven intends all beautiful things to be. Every one is not so scrupulous. There are certain ladies and gentlemen who picnic near my cottage in the hot weather, and who tell each other that they love a wood. Most of these good people have nevertheless neither eyes nor ears for what goes on around them, except that they hear each other, and see the cold collation. They will picnic ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Job was hauled bodily up to the bar and had a beer glass in his hand. How strange he felt! How queer it all was! He had been in the mountains three years, but this was his first Sunday picnic. ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... morning and take due note of the wind, and if there is an absolute calm many of them go back to bed. I have known the wind to die down during the day and the whole force of a windmill troop off to a picnic, as a matter of course. So the elements in Holland set man the example—he will not rush himself to death when not even the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... beneath the weight. It was a curious and unsavoury inaugural ceremony. Maude put a rug over the prostrate form, and they returned to their boiling kettle and their uncooked eggs. Then they laid the table, and served the supper, and enjoyed this picnic meal of their own creating as no conventional meal could ever have been enjoyed. Everything seemed beautiful to the young wife—the wall-paper, the pictures, the carpet, the rug; but to him, she was so beautiful in mind, and soul, and body, that her presence turned the little ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... picnic," he admitted. "I ain't never been stuck on shootin' men. I reckon I didn't sleep a heap for three nights after I shot Pickett. I kept seein' him, an' pityin' him. But I kept tellin' myself that it had to be either him or me, an' I kind of ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... objects close to the water's edge. There could be but one animal of such size and colour in this region, and I became quite stirred up over the prospect of an encounter with what looked like a bear picnic. I watched eagerly as we approached, rather wondering how we were going to manage five of them, when in a most inexplicable manner they dwindled suddenly, and my five bears had become as many ducks. It was the first time I had ever seen so striking an example of mirage. We ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... reason to remember the steamer excursion. A party of prominent persons had been invited to accompany the Fishery delegates on the maritime picnic, organized for the purpose of displaying the facilities that coast afforded for the prosecution of a new industry. It was difficult for the committee to draw a rigid line, and the company was decidedly mixed, more so than even Millicent at first surmised. Her husband, who acted as marshal, was ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... We were, in short, to win our spurs; and if, as among the Araucanians, our spurs were made of lumber, so much the better. The whole history of the Department of the South had been defined as "a military picnic," and now we were to take our share ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... SOME, of course, it's different— I've saw YOUNG men that knowed it all, And didn't like the way things went On this terrestchul ball;— But all the same, the rain, some way, Rained jest as hard on picnic day; Er, when they railly WANTED it, It mayby wouldn't ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... about getting up a picnic," said peace-loving Mrs. Hallett. "Mrs. Hading must be shown ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... [U.S.], supawn [obs3][U.S.], trepang[obs3], vanilla, waffle, walnut. table, cuisine, bill of fare, menu, table d'hote[Fr], ordinary, entree. meal, repast, feed, spread; mess; dish, plate, course; regale; regalement[obs3], refreshment, entertainment; refection, collation, picnic, feast, banquet, junket; breakfast; lunch, luncheon; dejeuner[Fr], bever[obs3], tiffin[obs3], dinner, supper, snack, junk food, fast food, whet, bait, dessert; potluck, table d'hote[Fr], dejeuner a la fourchette[Fr]; hearty meal, square meal, substantial ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... let you go and have this picnic by yourselves if you'll give me your word that you'll behave just as you would do if I were ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... lapping on the sides, so oily in appearance was the water. So when one of the stokers said he had been to sea for twenty-six years and never yet seen such a calm night, we accepted it as true without comment. Just as expressive was the remark of another—"It reminds me of a bloomin' picnic!" It was quite true; it did: a picnic on a lake, or a quiet inland river like the Cam, or ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... owing to the fact that every odd five minutes were occupied. He had a deep sense of the preciousness of time and the responsibility which everyone incurs who uses or misuses it. "To such a length did he carry this that at a picnic to a favorite Welsh mountain he has been seen to fling himself on the heather and bury himself in some pamphlet upon a question of the day, until called to lighter things by those who were ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... good it was! He forgot all about the stiffness in his legs in the pure enjoyment of those moments. No school picnic had ever approached it, for everything was so gloriously new and fresh. The beautiful land stretched undulating right away to the blue-tinted mountains, the water-pool sparkled in the sunshine, the horses and cattle grazed in the thick rich ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... I drew The Wayside for George Putnam, who is going to have it engraved. I must also make sketches of Mr. Emerson's and the Old Manse. To-morrow Una goes to a picnic at Mrs. Pratt's [mother-in-law of a daughter of Mr. Alcott's] with Ellen and Edith Emerson. We expect Louisa Hawthorne this week. She has been coming for a good while, but was delayed by the severe ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... lifted into the air, Arcot looked at the lake that was shrinking below them. "Nice place for a picnic; we'll have to remember that place. It isn't more than twenty million ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... a bazaar or a picnic is on foot, Mrs. Paget can map out and put through the enterprise with amazing skill and readiness, and she shows all the American's shrewd business instinct for profitably pleasing a ticket-purchasing public when a charity fund must be swelled ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... Basil and Ursula meet again; this time at a picnic. The sub-editor does not wish to repeat himself, otherwise he possibly would have summed up chapter five by saying it was "taken up with the humours of the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... library made over into a banquet hall, where that great functionary himself was pouring champagne into batteries of tumblers as if it were so much water, and distributing cuts of cold salmon and portions of terrapin with the prodigality of a charity committee serving a picnic. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... that struck me in going through the camp was its businesslike aspect. It did not suggest a big picnic, nor an encampment of militia for annual summer drill. It was manifestly a camp of veterans; and although its dirty, weather-beaten tents were pitched here and there without any attempt at regularity of arrangement, and its camp equipage, cooking-utensils, and weapons were piled or stacked between ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... drenching us from above, the sea from below, like people mesmerised; and as we were all (being travellers) tricked out with the green garlands of departure, we must have offered somewhat the same appearance as a shipwrecked picnic. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of fact, the days went by, the maple-trees turned red, and Pitt Packard did not come back to the Rumford farm. His comings and his goings were all known to Huldah. She knew that he took Jennie Perkins to the Sunday-School picnic, and escorted her home from evening meetings. She knew that old Mrs. Packard had given her a garnet pin, a glass handkerchief-box, and a wreath of hair flowers made from the intertwined tresses of the Packards and the Doolittles. If these symptoms could by any possibility be misinterpreted, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... when Mr. Quinn said this. They had ridden over on bicycles intent on a day's picnic by the sea, and soon after they had arrived, Mr. Quinn itched to be in the water. They had stripped on the beach, and clambered over the rocks to a place where a deep, broad pool was separated from the Irish Sea by a thick wedge of rock, covered by long, yellow sea-weed. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... they to finish all this work that they did not stop to prepare much of a luncheon. They ate hurriedly-prepared sandwiches, olives, pickles, salmon, and cake, and drank lemonade, picnic style, and kept at their camp preparation "between bites," as it were. In the evening, however, they had a good Camp Fire Girls' supper prepared by Hazel Edwards, Julietta Hyde and the Guardian. Then they sat around their fire and ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis

... Rome of gay excursions over that haunted sea of the Campagna to pictorial points in the Alban and Sabine hills; the Rome of young artist life, which organized impromptu festas with Arcadian freedom, and utilized the shadow or the shelter of ruined temples or tombs in which to spread its picnic lunches and bring the glow of simple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... their own wares. Pussy, she realized, had shut off also this avenue to ease! They were obliged to induce the concierge's wife to pledge at the pawnshop the more marketable things Adelle had with her. With the few francs thus derived they managed to picnic in the studio for the next week. They became acquainted with busses and the batteau mouche and other lowly forms of transportation and amusement, but spent most of their time in the studio, love-making, of which Adelle did not weary. Archie was used to the devices ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... Institute at the county-seat; and there distinguished guests of the superintendent taught the teachers fractions and spelling and other mysteries,—white teachers in the morning, Negroes at night. A picnic now and then, and a supper, and the rough world was softened by laughter and song. I remember ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... he announced to his father one evening, "that the printing press was invented by Lawrence Coster (or Lorenz Koster) of Haarlem. The book said that he went on a picnic with his family, and while idly carving his name on the trunk of a beech tree he conceived the idea that he might in the same way make individual letters of the alphabet on wooden blocks, ink them over, ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... an animal, jumping and leaping, and shouting: "Woh! woh! woh!" to express his delight. One of these was to the Lake Nyanza, after Speke had somewhat ingratiated himself with the sovereign. It was somewhat of a picnic party, and the king was accompanied as usual by a choice selection of his wives. Having crossed over to a woody island some distance from the shore, the party sat down to a repast, when large bowls of pomba were served out. They then took a walk among the trees, the ladies apparently enjoying ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... dozen were gathered, and while boards and courts dragged their slow length, and maps, reports and records of the recent campaign were being laboriously yawned over at odd intervals during the sunshiny days, far more thought and time and attention were being given to riding, driving, tramping and picnic parties—even croquet coming in for honorable mention—while every night had its "hop" and some nights their ball that lasted well toward morning, and for the first time in its history "head-quarters" was actually gay. Time had been in ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... our primitive bunks we sank into abysses of dreamless slumber such as I have never known since. Indeed, looking back upon them, those first months seem to have been a long-drawn-out and glorious picnic, interrupted only by occasional hours of pain or panic, when ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... to have such a picnic!" Zara told him. "Papa and I have brought a new tablecloth, and some pretty cups and saucers, and spoons, and knives, and forks—and see! such buns! English buns for you to toast, Mirko mio! You must be the little cook, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... into the trenches for the first time and were waiting for a guide, I offered my services and actually led the company of young heroes into the trenches myself. The humour of the situation was so palpable that the men felt as if they were going to a picnic. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... confined to children. For the adult labor is lightened, worries banished, and carking care is less corroding, if now and then an evening of diversion interrupts the monotony of rural life, or a day off is devoted to a picnic or neighborhood frolic. There is the same interest in the country that there is in the city in methods of entertainment that satisfy primitive instincts. The instinct for human society enters into all of them. Other specific ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... Palestine, or Mesopotamia, so it would be interesting to contrast the rival claims of the Antarctic as a medium of discomfort. A member of Campbell's party tells me that the trenches at Ypres were a comparative picnic. But until somebody can evolve a standard of endurance I am unable to see how it can be done. Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... today I found [Jimmy Crow]," said Jack. "He must have a 'birthday' party." So [Jack] invited the [children] he and Jimmy liked best to "Jimmy's picnic." ...
— Jimmy Crow • Edith Francis Foster

... security from rain at this season. I pass hastily over the early part of the journey, the crossing the bay in a fog as chill as November, the number of "lunch baskets," which gave the car the look of conveying a great picnic party, the last view of the Pacific, on which I had looked for nearly a year, the fierce sunshine and brilliant sky inland, the look of long RAINLESSNESS, which one may not call drought, the valleys with sides crimson with the poison oak, the dusty vineyards, with great ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... the meaner sort who had trudged from all the country round on foot, and those who had not brought their own food and beer were catered for by traders in carts. The crowd was a hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon was the talk of they country for a generation or longer. The two wretches having been hanged in chains on one gibbet were left to be eaten by ravens, crows, and magpipes, and dried by sun and winds, until, after long ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... my first voyage in a steamboat. How full of life and motion it was! But the rumble of the machinery made me think it was thundering, and I began to cry, because I feared if it rained we should not be able to have our picnic out of doors. I was more interested, I think, in the great rock on which the Pilgrims landed than in anything else in Plymouth. I could touch it, and perhaps that made the coming of the Pilgrims and their toils and great deeds seem more real to me. I have often held in my hand a little ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... velvet sod, as it has done for centuries; they gather its flowers, pluck its wild fruits, chase its wild ducks or grouse or gophers. Health and homely fare make life enjoyable. Subject to the incidents and interruptions of every day, which follow humanity, it seems to them a continual picnic. ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... be shot down by the hill men from almost absolute safety. If he had been dealing with a hated enemy Jeffrey Whiting perhaps could have agreed to that. But to shoot down from ambush these boys, who had come up here many of them probably thinking they were coming to a sort of picnic or outing in the September woods, was a thing which he could not contemplate. Before he would attack them these boys must know just what ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... that there was a large picnic party, to which all the elders were invited, including Sydney, Loo, and Lena. So the three younger children, with nurse and Baby and the other servants, had it all to themselves. It was rather a dull day, Walter thought. He was thinking ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various

... had a chance. Compared with what actually happened in there, a bomb would have been a picnic. There's not a living person left ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham

... unheeding the innuendoes of his friend, "I tell you that I have a plan for going to, and returning from, the North Pole with perfect safety, absolute certainty, and a degree of comfort that will reduce the whole expedition to the level of a glorious picnic." Denison indulged in ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... Negro to take immediate advantage of his opportunities. What he wanted was a long holiday, a gun and a dog, and plenty of hunting and fishing. He must have Saturday at least for a trip to town or to a picnic or a circus; he did not wish to be a servant. When he had any money, swindlers reaped a harvest. They sold him worthless finery, cheap guns, preparations to bleach the skin or straighten the hair, and striped pegs which, when set up on the master's plantation, ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... the crews of these boats disturbed the campers. Acorn Island had been placarded for years, and it had always been necessary to get a permit to have even a picnic there. ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison

... the real caleche, is, we believe, peculiar to Malta. It is the carriage of the rich and poor—Lady Woodford may be seen employing it, to visit her gardens at St. Antonio; and in the service of the humblest of her subjects, will it be enlisted, as they wend their way to a picnic in the campagna. Every variety of steed is put in requisition ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... Wateree Presbyterian Church on Sunday to hear Mr. Douglas preach. Had two sermons and a picnic dinner on de ground 'tween de sermons. Dat was a great day for de slaves. What de white folks lef' on de ground de slaves had a right to, and us sure enjoy de remains and bless de Lord for it. Main things he preached and prayed for, was a success in de end of de war, so mammy would explain ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... called the children and asked them to catch a chicken for her, so she could get it ready for their picnic lunch. ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams

... occasions which stand out with a peculiarly horrible distinctness. One was the time we had an all-day picnic at Bears' Den. Porter Brawley suggested it, and I hope he will suffer for it ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane



Words linked to "Picnic" :   eat, labor, duck soup, task, holiday, vacation, meal, repast, cookout, project, outing, child's play, undertaking, picknicker, pushover, picnic ham, doddle



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