Sunday Serenity

Released
June 18, 1923

Starring

 * Ernie
 * Farina
 * Jack
 * Jackie
 * Joe
 * Mickey

Story
Neighboring families decide to go on a picnic with their children Jack, Joe, Jackie, Mickey, and Mickey’s visiting Cousin Leona. The boys invites Ernie and Farina to come along which they accomplish by tying a rope to Ernie and Farina’s little wagon as the horse-drawn wagon passes by. A wheel falls off because Jackie loosened the lug bolt. When the adults fix it, the kids all take off, leaving the adults behind.

The kids reach a good place for a picnic and start a campfire. While they’re waiting for some meat to cook, the boys go exploring and find a pond through some tall grass. They decide to go swimming, skinny-dipping of course. After a few minutes Leona shows up, and the boys yell at her that she can’t go swimming with them. Miffed, she scoops up all their clothes, takes them back to the picnic site, and burns them in the campfire.

The parents eventually arrive, hear Leona’s story, and congratulate her on doing the right thing. They start to eat, and the boys have to stop near the edge of the tall grass. Strongly desiring to eat, they do the only thing they can, and fashion skirts out of the tall grass. Then they come out and get laughed at, but being humiliated and being able to eat is better than starving.

At the end of the meal, Ernie asks if they real have to go home in grass skirts. The parents say “Of course not, we’ll bring you back some clothes.”

As the parents leave with Leona, the girl shouts back, “Next Sunday!”

The boys are left standing there stupefied, and a few minutes later it starts pouring rain, which ruins the integrity of their grass skirts. They take refuge in hollow trees, and set about planning the next week. Ernie and Farina’s parents enthusiastically agree with the punishment.

When the rain stops, they make new skirts and explore some more. They find some orange trees and so have something to eat to go with water from the pond. They spend the days swimming and lying around, and come to realize that with the common rainstorms they may as well leave their skirts in hollow trees so they don’t get wet, and put them on only when they’re going to be picked up the next Sunday.

There is one incident one evening after a powerful storm when a boar chases them onto a bank of the pond. The rain had softened the ground up so much there that the dirt had turned into mud into which the boys sink up to their waists. The boar stares at them until sunset, and then they are stuck there all night. The next morning the ground dries up enough for them to dig themselves out, although it takes three hours.

Other good news is during the week Joe loses five pounds and the gang teaches Farina to swim. The next Sunday the boys are waiting in their grass skirts when their parents return with real clothes. Leona had gone back to her own family. When they are back home, the parents ask, “Did you learn anything from this?”

Jackie answers, “Yes. Can we go on another picnic next week?”