And Condors Danced by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Author:Zilpha Keatley Snyder [Snyder, Zilpha Keatley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-7147-4
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-02-10T17:18:00+00:00

Chapter 20

THE HUGE FOURTH of July picnic at Oak Park had always been one of Carly’s favorite events. There were, of course, other large group picnics in Santa Luisa. All through the spring and summer, and well into the fall, there were church and lodge and family reunion picnics at Oak Park, as well as the many state picnics when Ohioans and Missourians and Iowans got together with others who had come to California from their home states.

But the Fourth of July picnic was for everybody, and that in itself made it different and much more interesting. On that one day you could expect to meet people you weren’t related to, and who didn’t attend your school or church. Now and then you might even meet people you’d never seen before. That possibility in itself was intriguing. Particularly for someone who lived out in the country and who had a father who felt that most social activities were a waste of time.

There were always a great many social activities at the Fourth of July picnic. After everyone had eaten all they possibly could, there were speeches and musical offerings and a great many games and races and contests. The celebration lasted all through the day and at night there was more music, the kind that people dance to. That is, some people danced, like Catholics and free-thinkers, not to mention a few of the more worldly Presbyterians and people like Henrietta Spotsworth, who was a fallen-away Baptist. And of course there were the fireworks that went off continually between and during all the other activities, all day long and far into the night.

But the scheduled events were not the best part of the day. In Carly’s experience the best things were the ones that nobody could plan or predict. Just like firecrackers those best things always seemed to happen when you least expected it.

There had been the time, for instance, that Ralphie Rasmussen and Ernest Robinson tied in the hundred-yard dash and got into a fistfight over the blue ribbon. And Ralph senior punched Andy Robinson, who was Ernie’s uncle, and a Rasmussen hired man punched one of the Robinsons’, and it was all terribly exciting for a while until somebody called Sheriff Simms.

And then, just last year, little Billy Purvis ate too much and went to sleep under a table, and his mother put up an awful fuss. Everybody thought he’d been drowned in the mill run or maybe kidnapped, and the whole picnic broke up into search parties. That had been the most exciting picnic ever—until the Fourth of July in 1907.

Of course in 1907 the holiday had gotten off to a really extraordinary start with the runaway float, and afterward at the picnic things continued to be unusually exciting, at least for Carly. As she helped carry the Hartwick picnic baskets from the surrey to the tables, and then joined in the feasting, she was still the center of attention. Nearly everybody she knew stopped by to

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