Following her cream-wash Cora turned on her face the tiny spray of tepid water from her own little silver faucet in the corner, and then “feeling clean,” as she expressed it, she just touched her cheeks and nose with another piece of cotton “to pat off the shine.”
“You know I have to go out again this afternoon, and I do find that it pays to keep in order. I suppose Belle would think this sort of fixing up not half thorough enough?”
“Oh, she takes a regular Turkish when she has been out in a dusty wind,” declared Bess. “But, for my part, I prefer a thick veil, in front of a cream setting. Then I catch all the dirt in the cream and only have to wash it off instead of – ”
“Washing it on. A good idea, Bess. But I can’t breathe back of cream. It makes my lungs sticky,” and Cora put a last touch to her heavy dark hair, just as her brother’s voice was heard in the lower hallway.
“There’s Jack!” exclaimed both girls at once.
“Let’s tell him,” suggested Bess, who was not always able to conceal her interest in Cora’s handsome brother.
“Oh, no, don’t,” whispered Cora, as Jack was almost at the door of the sitting room. “It will be a joke to plan it all out, and surprise the boys!”
But Jack was actually tumbling into the room before he saw Bess. He, too, was evidently “too full of good news to keep!”
“Oh, sis!” he yelled, still unconscious of the presence of Bess, “take my hand and squeeze it, or I shall ‘bust.’ It’s too good to be true, and too good not to be true. We are going – ”
Then his eye fell upon Cora’s visitor. Instantly and in a boy’s inimitable way he “pulled himself together” and finished: “We are going down to the post-office this evening!”
“Oh, is that all you were going to say?” asked Bess, in some disappointment, for it was evident that Jack had some news.
“Well, not quite all,” he replied with an air of mystery, “only I happened to hear certain peculiar whispers and admonitions as I was coming in, and I guess girls aren’t the only ones who can keep a secret. I’ll tell if you’ll tell,” he added.
“We’ve nothing to tell; have we, Cora?” and Bess looked as innocent as possible.
“How could you ever imagine such a thing, Jack?” inquired his sister.
“Well, that’s neither here nor there, then,” was the young man’s cool answer. “But if you’re going after the stuff to make jam tarts with this winter, Cora, you’d better start,” and at this somewhat enigmatical remark, Jack began whistling a tantalizing air, while Bess winked at her chum.
CHAPTER II – AT THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
“Yes, I promised mother I would go for a crate of strawberries,” Cora said, by way of explanation. “Would you like to come along, Bess? It is a lovely ride to the berry patch.”
“Then, I think I will run back for Belle, and we, too, may fetch home a crate. Mother will be delighted to get them fresh from the pickers.”
“Suppose we meet in an hour at Smith’s Crossing?” suggested Cora. “I have some little things to attend to, and that will just about give you time to get Belle, and her belongings.”
This was agreed upon, and the girls parted for the short time. Jack insisted upon keeping his wonderful good news secret, for, try as he did, he could not coax Cora to divulge the news which he knew Bess must have brought.
“I could see it in her cheeks,” Jack insisted, “and I can almost read that signal code you two have arranged.”
“Well, when it is all settled I may – tell you,” replied his sister. “But you boys imagine that girls cannot keep anything to themselves – ”
“Wrong there, sis,” he answered, picking up his cap. “We all know perfectly well that you all can keep to yourselves exactly what we want to know,” and in leaving the room he tossed a sofa cushion at Cora’s head, hitting her squarely, and knocking her hair awry. She retaliated, however, with a floor cushion over the banister, which Jack failed to dodge.
At the appointed time, three o’clock, on a lovely June afternoon, Cora and Bess met as arranged with their autos at the cross-roads, Belle dainty as ever in her flimsy veils and airy silk coat, Bess, with her hand on the wheel, her eyes on the road ahead, and her jolly self done up simply in pongee, while Cora, correct as ever, and equally distinctive in her true green auto hood, and cloak that matched, made up a very attractive trio of auto maids.
“It’s only six miles out,” called Cora, “and this road runs straight into Squaton. They have quite a big strawberry farm out there.”
“Yes,” called back Bess, turning on more gasolene and throwing in third speed, “mother was just delighted when I told her we were going there for berries.”
Over the smooth, shaded road the cars sped, the Whirlwind, Cora’s machine, exactly attuned to the hum of the Flyaway, the car occupied by the twins. Just as two clocks, placed side by side, will soon tick in harmony, so two good engines may match each other in the hum of speed.
“I can smell the berries,” exclaimed Belle, as they neared a group of tall elms.
“We are almost there,” remarked Cora, “and I think I, too, smell something good.”
Under the trees by the roadside they espied some boys eating from a pail of berries.
“There,” said Bess, “that was what you scented. Those youngsters have been picking, I suppose, and that is their own personal allowance.”
“Berries! Five cents a quart!” called out one of the urchins, who at the same time stepped out into the road close to the slackened autos.
“Not to-day,” replied Cora, as she passed on, followed by the Flyaway.
“Wouldn’t you think they would want to take those home,” said Bess. “I should think they would be satisfied with their earnings at the patch.”
“Maybe 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