Picnic 7
Pablo Picasso
Också - om ej hans dagbok ljuger -
skall på gästgivargårdarna
i Småland ätas mycket bra,
ifall man matsäck har som duger.
ur ”Dumboms lefverne”
av Johan Henric Kellgren
Det är picknickens dag i dag - men jag har skrivit om picknickar flera gånger, och tänker inte fördjupa mig i sådana nu.
Men eftersom jag nyligen gjort Winifred Kirklands bekantskap, jag inte undanhålla er en sådan intressant författare. Hon hörde till de tidiga feministerna i början av förra seklet.
”However happily we might talk in the library we always knew we were better without a roof, for in the blood of the born picnicker there is something that must always be running, dancing, flying. Out-of-doors, there were the little brooks to chuckle at us if talk delved too deep, and the pine-tops to fill all pauses with quiet music. We were the better picnickers because we lived for the most part in life’s schoolroom. We counted our picnic days and sorted them into due order of excellence, some better, some not quite so merry, yet all very good. But lately I had begun to wonder about the picnics, for the difference in the white, hill-girdled house is a husband. When our friends marry we always wonder about the picnics, for sorrow is always a third comrade to hold two friends’ hands the tighter, and to keep their feet more closely in step; it is happiness that may sever and un-self people.
This, our first married picnic, dawned as brisk and bright as any. The master is not with us. He departs each morning for a mysterious place called “The Works.” That is something I have always noticed in husbands, that tendency to go forth to “The Works.” Somehow no matter how hard women may toil for their daily bread, they never seem to belong to “The Works” of the world. The white house bustles with picnic preparations. It has to bustle when Jennie is in it. Jennie? Well, Jennie might be called the steam-engine at the middle of the merry-go-round. Some day I think the world will grow wise enough to stop talking about the servant question, and begin to study the philosophy that is still often to be found going about wrapped in a maid’s cap and apron. Jennie, a little person quick of foot, bounces up and down like a merry ball, and cries to the blue May morning while she butters sandwiches, “Picnic time has come again! Picnic time has come again!” Yet I never heard of Jennie’s going on a picnic; do people ever know, I wonder, how much of other people’s unselfishness must go to the making of anybody’s Eden?”
_ _ _
It is the kind of morning for good wishes both for dogs and men. Knotted old farmers, seeing our picnic faces and picnic basket, grin and twinkle, sharing the May sunshine. The hills are a dim blue against a sky still softer. Boulder-strewn pastures, more brown than green, are starred with bluets. Far off there, below a shaggy stretch of pines, is a field so golden with dandelions that it quivers as if held by midsummer heat.
Ur ”Picnic Pictures” som ingår i hennes ”The Joy of Being a Woman and other papers”.
Hela ”Dumboms lefverne” hittar du här
https://sv.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Dumboms_leverne
Ett tidigare picknickinlägg
https://bastmattan.blogspot.com/2017/09/you-get-away-or-whether-you-dont.html?m=1
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