“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 the tally-sticks,” answered the woman. “They get one for every quart they pick, and then they cash ’em in. Here!” and she snapped a bunch from the trembling hands of the girl who was counting and tying up in bunches the wooden counters, “let me show ’em to the young lady.”
“Oh, I can see them,” declared Cora, without trying to hide her distaste for the woman’s rudeness to Rose. “How many tally-sticks did you get to-day?” she asked the girl.
“Oh, she don’t get any,” spoke the woman. Rose never raised her eyes. “Them two girls have me robbed with their eatin’ and drinkin’ and airs. I have to take care of them – they’re me own sister’s children,” and she raised the hem of her dirty apron to her eyes.
“But they help you,” insisted Cora. “They pick berries all day, do they not?”
“Help me?” came with a sneer. “I would like to see how! There’s shoes to be bought, clothes and all sich. Then, butter is high, and them girls must have butter on their bread.”
“When we don’t get anything else,” spoke up Rose, boldly.
“What!” called the aunt, her eyes flashing angrily. “That’s the way I’m thanked! Go up to the house, and wash them dishes, and don’t you leave the house till – I’ve talked with you,” she commanded. “It’s a hard job to bring up somebody else’s children,” and she tried to sigh, “but I am bound to do my best by ’em.”
Bess and Belle seemed actually frightened. They did not venture under the roof of the shack, but stood at the door with eyes staring. Rose passed out, and, as she did so, she winked at Belle. Belle gave a friendly little tug at the brown apron as it passed, and then Bess went inside, at Cora’s request, to select her crate.
Four very small boys slouched up the path to the shed. Their crates were full and they seemed ready to drop down from exhaustion. One, with fiery red hair, pushed his way ahead of the others and presented his tray to the woman. She surveyed it critically, then said:
“Andy, did you swipe a bunch of tallies this morning?”
“I did not!” replied the little fellow indignantly.
“How many you got?” she demanded.
He dug his dirty, brown hands down deep into his trousers pockets. Then he brought up three bunches of the tally-sticks.
“Humph! I thought so,” said the woman. “Do you mean to tell me a monkey like you can pick ten an hour?”
“He’s the best picker on the patch,” spoke up another lad, “and I was with him when he brought each tray in!”
The girls stood back, deeply interested. The woman took the tray from Andy and turned away without offering the ten little sticks which represented the gathering of ten quarts of berries.
“Where’s my tallies?” he demanded.
“You – jest – w-a-i-t,” drawled the woman.
The other boys stepped back. Evidently they were going to “stick by Andy.”
“I’ll