A HAPPY DAY AT SUMNER.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2156, 22 January 1881, Page 3

A HAPPY DAY AT SUMNER.

* One, two, three, four—can’t ver stand a‘ill there. One two, three, four, five, six—oh. 'ang it, can’t yer stand still there, Marler. One, two, three, four, five, six, ■even, eight —ah I there you are—nine. Well, we’re all together now, at all events. Have yea got the bash eta? There ought to be five of them. And the humbrellers ? Where’s the large green one? Ah, there it is. And the fishing rods and the spades and the ruga and the kettle 1 Thank goodness, all right at last.' This la old Growler out on the spree to Sumner, with his family of nine and hia wife. Old G. ia a clerk somewhere or other, and has worn all the hair off his head in the service olf somebody or other. After the good old oolonlsl fashion, he gets about thitee holidays » year, and this one he la determined to enjoy in the bosom of his family at the seaside The last one he spent at New Brighton with some bachelor friends, and did not get over it for a fortnight. ‘ Why, ’ang it, air, ’ ho would say ' the beaoh was that deadly dnll that we ’ad to go indoors and play poker and drink square till the only one left to drive na ’ome was an old skipper, who luffed and bo’ayed and swore the ’ole way ’ome that dreadful that the ’orse grew that restive at last that it took the ’ole lot of ns to ’old 'lm in.’ So this time old Growler was determined to do the respectable, and give the old woman and the girls a treat. What Old Growler wanted In bri.fatness os a clerk ho made np fur in saccess as a raiser of stock. Since the eventful day when be led to the altar Mrs 3-., then a lithe young creature of some nineteen summers, he had seen borne to him five daughters and four boys, varying from nineteen to four years of ago. The two eldest, both girls, were well-developed specimens of a marriageablo ago, who had proclaimed proclivities with respect to certain young butterfly clerks, whose aspirations lay principally in their own button holts, which -they wore wont to fill with the moat gorgeous flowers procurable. The centra 1 division of the family, including tho erratic Maria, wore in the all-legs and-wmga stage. The rear of the family, cohort, was brought np by several young bears of either sox, with all their school troubles still before them. And Old Growler has now succeeded in landing his miscellaneous belongings at Sumner, having shovelled them, so to speak, out of a spring cart hired for the occasion. It was eleven o’clock, and a full honr before anything In the shade of eating could ba attempted. The programme wzs lunch at twelve—tea at six—the interim to bo filled in as they best might—and then tho drive homo.

Up to lunch time all went merrily as marriage bells. The two eldest girls sat on , the highest peak of rook they could find, reading poetry books, held upside down. ' / The lega-and-winga division fished, and caught nothing, while the young bears paddled in the surf. Meanwhile paberfami--1 lias and mamma have laid the cloth, and spread the cold repast. A sea-side appetite is proverbial, but the Growler family out-did the proverb. From the youngest of four to the oldest of nineteen, the way they worrie. the sandwiches, the cold chicken, and othei delicacies was a simple caution. “Johnnie, my boy,” says old Growler, noticing a peculiarly bloated look about his fifth. “ Don’t you think you've ’ad enough?” "I’m not quite blown, yet,” says Johnnie, as he attacks another jam tart with renewed enor y. And Maria, the flighty one, illustrates the receptive faculty of the female constitution, « Where the deuce does she stow it all away ?" exclaims the terror-stricken father. “ It’s a case of veni, vidi, vid, with Maria,” says the eldest boy, displaying a portion of that modicum of classics that is to make a gentleman of him. But at last all is pretty nearly eaten, and the Growlers, feeling like gorged vultures, pack up the dinner things, and are prepared to receive cavalry—and the cavalry promptly appear. Sauntering down the beach are seen, by the most singular coincidence, the two particular young clerks who at the present moment are highest in the favor of tho eldest girls. Mrs G. with an eye to business, welcomes them effusively, and four forms are shortly noticed disappearing round the nearest angle of rock, and are lost for many a long bour in space. The boys rush off to again vainly attempt to lure the wily herring to its destruction ; the children again spend the time amphibiously, half on land, half in the water, attended carefully by their mother. Old Growler himself is the only one left out in the cold. His spooning days are over; the capture of the wily herring has no attractions for him, and he infinitely prefers dry feet to wet ones, particularly with his rheumatism. He half wishes himself back in his office, casting up interminable rows of fignrea. In such a state of mind what can be expected but that he should gravitate slowly but surely towards the nearest public-house. Lucky that he does so, for who should be there but another old clerk out of the same office, who had camped out on another part of the beach with his belongings, and who also was finding the time hanging somewhat heavily on his hands. To order two long ohnrohwardens and a couple of bottles of beer, to seat themselves in a retired arbour, was but the work of a moment. In conversing sweetly on the solvency or insolvency of leading merchants, in dilating on the latest financial scandals, the time passes gaily. Fresh bottle* are ordered, fresh pipes lit and the sun descends slowly towards the horizon.

Six o’clock has corns and the various members of the Growler family have rendezvoused at the trysting place. The oldest boy has unlettered and put in the horse, but where is father ? They wait, but he puts in no appearance. A search party is organised. For a long time his fate hangs in the balance. Something terrible has happened. He has fallen over the cliffs. He has had a sun stroke and is lying among the sand hills. They determine to seek for aid at the hotel. " Want to find Mr Growler? Why, he's ia Ho. 1 front parlor,” says the affable landlord. And there, sure enough, is poor old Growler on the sofa, sleeping as sweetly and as soundly as a new-born babe, with the sole exception that the rhythm of his breathing is notated by as hearty a snore as ever issued from a human nose. “ Papa, papa,” cries the eldest daughter, “ we thought you were dead. We’ve been so frightened.” But papa merely turns himself over, and his snoring becomes more sonorous still. “ Ob, he’s got a fit,” continues the eldest. “ Pappy is to bed early,” remarks the youngest scion of the house ef Growler. But Mrs G. knows better. Launching herself on her better-half, she shakes him and entreats him to come along and not disgrace herself and her daughters. But cart-ropes would not move the recumbent Growler. What is to be done ? The two young clerks, who hare been hovering in the distance, are called into counsel. Yes—they will drive the spring-cart - a most charming arrangement, and old Growler can be deposited at the bottom. Ho sooner said than done. The vehicle is brought round, the family ascend, one clerk seizes Growler’s legs, the other his head and hoist him in. The first clerk gathers up the reins, the second clerk steadies the second Mies Growler with his arm and the start ia made. 11 Papa, looks, just like a bale of goods,” says the irreverent Maria, as she casts her eyes on the form stretched out at the bottom of the cart. Home is reached ; old Growler is carried off to bed, and the clerks atop to tea—and so ends the happy day at Sumner. Old Growler now declares that “ there aint much fun in picnics,” and seems to think that be has yet to .discover the proper way of spending his not overnumerous holidays.