they have not been picking – except for their own use,” responded Cora. “But here we are. Get out now, and we will walk over to the shanty where they crate the fruit.”
“What an ocean of green!” exclaimed Belle, the aesthetic one, looking over the strawberry patch.
“An ocean of dust, I think,” said Bess, as from the afternoon sun and breeze the grind of the picker’s feet in the dusty rows between the countless lines of green vines just reached her eyes.
“There are plenty of them,” remarked Cora, wending her way along the narrow path, toward the shanty.
“And so many people picking,” added Belle. “Just look at those boys! They are as brown as – their clothes. And see that poor old woman!”
“Yes, her back must ache,” replied Cora. “What a shame for her to be out in this sun.”
“She looks as if she could never bend again if she should straighten up,” said Bess. “See how she stares at us from under her own arms.”
This peculiar remark caused the other girls to smile, but Bess meant exactly what she said – that the old woman was looking up from an angle lower than her elbows.
Just then the autoists faced two of the pickers – two girls.
Both stopped their work and looked up almost insolently. Then they spoke under their breath to each other and “tittered” audibly.
“They’re rude,” said Belle to Bess, picking her skirts as she stepped by.
“Oh, that’s just their way,” exclaimed Cora. “I am going to speak to them.”
So saying she turned in between the rows.
“Is it hard work?” she asked pleasantly.
“No cinch,” replied the older-looking of the girls, with a toss of a very good head of auburn hair.
“Have you been out long?” persisted Cora.
“Oh, we’re always out,” said the younger girl with a sneer. Her voice said plainly that she had “no use” for talking with the motor girls.
“Do you work all day?” asked Bess, a little timidly. Bess was always ready to admit that she could talk to boys, but that she was afraid of strange girls.
“All day, and all night,” replied the younger girl. She had hair just a tint lighter than the other, and it was evident that the pair were sisters.
“But you cannot see to work at night,” Belle deigned to say.
“We have lamps – indoors,” said the girl, “and Aunt Delia keeps boarders.”
“Oh, you help with the housework too?” said Cora. “I should think – ” then she checked herself. Why should she say what she thought – just then?
Perhaps it was the unmistakable kindness shown so plainly in the manner of the motor girls, that convinced the two little berry-pickers that the visitors would be friends – if they might. At any rate, both girls dropped the vines they were overhauling, and stood straight up, with evident stiffness of their young muscles.
“But we are not going to do this all our lives,” declared the older girl. “Aunt Delia has made enough out of us.”
“Have you no parents?” ventured Cora.
“No, we’re orphans,” replied the girl, and, as she spoke the word “orphans,” the ring of sadness touched the hearts of the older girls. Cora instantly decided to know more about the girls. Their youthful faces were already serious with cares, and they each assumed that aggressive manner peculiar to those who have been oppressed. They seemed, as they looked up, and squarely faced Cora, like girls capable of better work than that in which they were engaged, and they gave the impression of belonging to the distinctive middle class – those “who have not had a chance.”
“Can’t you come over in the shade and rest awhile?” asked Cora. “You must have picked almost enough for to-day.”
“Oh, to-day won’t count, anyway,” said the younger girl, with hidden meaning.
“Nellie!” called her sister, in angry tones. “What are you talking about!”
“Well, I’m not afraid to tell,” she replied.
“You had better be,” snapped the other.
“Oh, Rose, you’re a coward,” and Nellie laughed, as she kicked aside the vines. “I’m not going to work another minute, and you can go and tell Aunt Delia Ramsy if you’ve a mind to.”
At that moment a figure emerged from the shed at the end of the long line of green rows.
“There she is now, Nellie,” said Rose. “You can tell her yourself if you like.”
Without another word the girls both again began the task so lately left off, and berry after berry fell into the little baskets. Rose had almost filled her tray, and Nellie had hers about half full of the quart boxes.
“Rose!” called the woman’s shrill voice, from under the big blue sunbonnet. “Come up here and count these tally sticks. Some of those kids are snibbying.”
With a sigh Rose picked up her tray, and made her way through the narrow paths. Cora saw that the woman had noticed her talking to Bess and Belle, and while wishing for a chance to talk to Nellie alone, she beckoned to her companions to go along up to the shed.
“Maybe I’ll see you soon again,” almost whispered Nellie, in the way which so plainly betrays the hope of youth.
“I am sure you will,” replied Cora, smiling reassuringly.
“What strange girls,” remarked Belle.
“Aren’t they?” added Bess, turning back to get another look at little Nellie in her big-brimmed hat.
“They are surely going to do something desperate,” declared Cora, “and I think now that we have found them, as the boys would say, ‘it is up to us’ to keep track of them.”
CHAPTER III – THE STRIKE
“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Bess, as they neared the shed, “did you ever see such a hateful old woman!”
“Hush!” whispered Belle. “Do you want us to go back to Chelton without our berries?”
“If she ever looks at them they will sour – they couldn’t keep,” went on Bess, recklessly, but in lowered tones.
“We would like two crates of berries,” Cora was saying to the woman, who stood, hands on her hips, framed in the narrow doorway of the sorting shed.
“Yes,” answered the woman. “Step inside and pick ’em out. They are all fresh picked to-day. Rose, don’t you know enough to make room for the young lady?” and the woman glared at the girl who had hurried in from the patch.
“Oh, I have plenty of room,” Cora said with a smile to Rose. “What are those little sticks for?”
“Them’s
