Editor’s Note: We regularly publish historical features in The Dillon Herald that never appear online. We decided to share this one online so those who don’t get a print edition can see what you are missing. To see more stories like these, subscribe to The Dillon Herald by calling 843-774-3311.
The late Miss Isla McKenzie, aunt of the late Miss Rebecca Field Henslee, taught first grade in Dillon for 51 years. Her last years were in the old Dillon Graded School (known to some as Miss Isla McKenzie’s School).
Her famous picnic story took all the boys and girls on a picnic. Along the way they experienced the sound of every letter in the alphabet.
Miss Isla may not have ever studied much about phonetics, but she should have gotten patent on her picnic story which follows:
The Picnic Story
“One day some little boys and girls who lived in the same neighborhood decided they would like to have a picnic, so they ran to their mothers and asked if they might do so. They gladly consented and fixed them the nicest lunch. They had fried chicken and sandwiches, the dearest little pies and cakes, apples and bananas.
They decided to go down to the pond for the picnic so that they might fish too. They took fishing poles, hooks and lines and baits, and they fished and they fished but they never got a bite- not even a nibble. There did not seem to be any fish in that pond, but it did have big old frogs in it. They heard the Daddy frog saying, “b,b,b” and the Mama frog said, “d,d,d” the big Brother frog said, “g,g,g” and the little Sister frog said, “j,j,j” and the Baby frog said, “l,l,l”.
Over in the pasture they saw a cow, and the cow said, “m,m,m” and just outside the pasture fence was her little calf. The calf wanted to get to its’ mother and it said, “n,n,n”. The calf’s name was Nan and the cows name was Mollie.
In a little while they heard something say, “s,s,s” and they looked over in the grass and there was a great big snake. The children were afraid to try and kill it so they moved away from there.
They picked up their fishing poles and their lunch baskets and started up the road and met a dog and he growled at them and said, “r,r,r”. They never stopped until they got to the top of the hill and they were so tired they could not speak, but only panted, “h,h,h”. They found it delightfully cool upon the hill. The wind was blowing and said, “w,w,w”. The children then exclaimed, “This is the very best place for the picnic.”
So they put down their baskets and fishing poles, hung up their hats in the trees and the boys took off their coats and hung them up too, and one boy had an old Waterbury watch and he hung that in the tree and it said, “c, k, c, k”. Flowers were growing all over the hill and the bees were buzzing over the flowers saying, “z,z,z”. The girls blew the old gray haired dandelion to see of their sweetheart loved them, but if not, they did not love them. The little baby sister tried to blow hers and she said, “v,v,v” for she could not say, “f,f,f” like the big girls.
Those bad boys did not blow flowers, but made some clay pipes and smoked “p,p,p” and the beetles saw them smoking and were shocked they said, “t,t,t”.
There were some geese up there on the hill and those boys thought they’d have some fun and run those little goslings. That old Daddy goose just stretched out his neck saying, “th, th, th” and he ran those boys back in double quick time.
In the distance they could hear a cotton mill saying, “th, th, th,” as they were running around up there some partridges flew up suddenly, right by the path saying, “wh, wh, wh”. they heard an old freight train then pulling in, “ch, ch, ch” and then they heard mother ringing the bell for the, to come home “ing, ing, ing” They went running as hard as they could and one little boy stumped his toe, but he did not cry, he only said, “ow, ow, ow.” Mother met them at the door and put her finger to her mouth and said, “sh, sh, sh,”, for she had just got the baby to sleep.
Teach long and short sound of vowels after the sound of consonants has been mastered.
