Thus cornered, the woman was obliged to go on settling with the pickers.
“Well,” she said, “I’ll give you credit, Andy, until I get a chance to look it up. Here, Narrow (to a very tall boy), gi’me yourn.”
“Nope!” replied the tall boy. “We waits fer Andy.”
“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed the woman. “If you kids ain’t got a cheek! I’ve a good mind to chase every one of yer.”
Andy stepped back to where she had deposited the box.
“Here!” she called, entirely forgetting the presence of the motor girls. “Git out of here!” and at that she struck the little fellow a blow on the head that caused him to reel, and then fall backward into an open crate of fresh berries!
“Now you’ve done it!” yelled the woman. “You have mashed every one of them! There!” and she dragged him to his little, bruised feet. “Do you think I can sell stuff like that! Mush! Every red berry of ’em!”
“Oh, make her stop!” pleaded Bess to Cora. “She may strike him again.”
“What will you do with that crate of berries?” asked Cora, pushing her way between the angry woman and the frightened boy.
“Make him pay fer ’em, of course,” shouted the tyrant. “And serves him right, too, for his imperdence!”
Big heavy tears plowed their way through the dirty little spots on the boy’s cheeks. To pay for the crate would take all his week’s earnings.
“You did it yourself!” declared a boy who boldly faced the woman, “and Andy’s not goin’ to stand fer it, or we all strike; don’t we, fellers?”
“Sure, we do!” came a chorus, not only from those who had been waiting, but from a second group that had come up in the meantime.
“Strike, eh?” cried the woman. “Well, you kin all clear out! Do you hear! Every dirty one of ye! Git off the place or – I’ll let the dogs loose!”
“Oh, goodness me!” exclaimed Bess, clutching Cora’s sleeve. “Do come away! There will be – bloodshed!”
“We must wait,” replied Cora calmly. “I guess she is not so anxious to have her berries rot on the vines, and most of the good pickers seem to be with Andy.”
Belle was nervously walking down the path toward the autos.
The boys stood defiantly, waiting for the woman to produce Andy’s tallies.
“Give him his sticks,” called one of them, “or we’ll smash every berry in the patch!”
“You will, eh!” yelled the woman. “I’ll show you!”
“Oh, Cora!” cried Bess, but Cora was too much interested in the boys to heed.
The woman left the shed and ran toward the house.
“She’s after the dogs!” shouted one boy.
“Come ahead, fellers!” called another, and at that a dozen or more lads ran wildly through the patch; crushing the ripe luscious fruit as they went. Nellie, who was still picking berries, jumped up from her work. She saw the savage dogs tear away from their kennels, their chains rattling as the woman snapped them from the collars.
Bess and Belle ran to Cora within the shed.
“Here, Nero! Nero!” suddenly called Nellie. “Here Tige! Here Tige!”
Wonder of animal instinct! Those two dogs forgot the commands of the woman to “Sic ’em!” and eagerly they ran to Nellie. To Nellie to be patted, and caressed. To Nellie who fed them! What did they care about the woman who would strike them? Nellie was their friend and now they were hers! The woman, having let loose the dogs, ran on toward the house, some distance from the berry shed.
CHAPTER IV – ARBITRATION
Like a heroine in a drama Nellie stood there, one sunburned hand thrust through the collar of each panting dog.
The boys saw their advantage and ran like Indians through the patch of berries, tramping the ripe fruit under foot in their unreasoning anger.
“Hey! Stop that!” shouted Nellie, “or I’ll let them go!”
Instantly every boy stood still.
“Come on,” called Cora to the other two girls, “we must help Nellie.”
As quickly as they could trudge along the rough pathway, Cora, Bess and Belle hurried to where Nellie stood with the dogs.
“Call the boys back to the shed,” shouted the girl, “then I can take the dogs to their kennels.”
“Come here, boys!” called Cora. “Come back to the shed, and we will see fair play!”
The words “fair play” had a magical effect on the strikers. They now jumped between the rows, and it would be safe to say that not one of them, in the return, stepped on a single berry.
“All right, miss,” answered the lad called Narrow. “We goes back to the field, if Andy gets his tally-sticks.”
“Does this woman own the patch?” asked Cora.
“Never!” replied one of the boys. “She’s only the manager. The boss comes up every night to pay us our coin.”
“Then we should see him, I suppose,” said Cora, as Nellie walked past with the dogs close beside her, each animal wagging his appreciation for the girl that led them on.
“Aunt Delia scares easy,” whispered Nellie, almost in Cora’s ear. “Just chuck a big bluff and she wilts.”
Cora smiled. She was happily versed in the ways and manners of those who “had not had a chance.”
“I am so afraid she will – hurt Rose,” sighed Belle. “Oh dear me! What a place!”
“But I think it rather fortunate we were here,” replied Cora. “These youngsters can scarcely take their own part – prudently.”
Andy hung back near the shed. He was still trying to choke down the tears. How could he ever pay three dollars and seventy-five cents for that crate of crushed berries? And it had not been his fault.
The strikers stood around Cora, each little fellow displaying his preference for “a good honest strike” to that of hard work, in the sun, on a berry patch.
“Narrow speaks fer us,” announced a sturdy little German lad. “Eh, Narrow?”
“We all goes back, if Andy gets his sticks,” spoke Narrow, who was evidently the strike leader.
“Well, come along,” ordered Cora, feeling very much like a strike breaker, “and we will see what Mrs. Ramsy says.”
Led by the motor girls the procession wended its way back to the shed.
“Never mind, Andy,” said a boy called Skip, who really did seem to skip rather than walk, “we will see you ‘faired.’”
Andy rubbed his eyes more vigorously than before. Cora was in the shed, and Nellie hurried away with the dogs, promising to send Mrs. Ramsy down from the house. Meanwhile Cora had ample opportunity to get acquainted with her little band of strikers. They were very eager to talk, in fact all seemed anxious to talk at once. And their grievance against the woman “who ran the patch” seemed to have begun long before her present difficulty with Andy.
“She’s as mean as dirt to them two girls,” said one urchin, “and anybody kin see that them girls is all right.”
“They pick out here from the break of day until the moon is lit,” said another, “and after that they has to work in the house. There’s a couple of boarders there and the girls keeps the rooms slick.”
“Boarders?” asked Bess.
“Yep, and one old dame is a peach,” continued the boy, not coarsely but with eager enthusiasm.
“The