THE RASPBERRY PATCH

One hot, dusty afternoon in midsummer Faith trudged wearily up the road from the village, climbed the steps to the vine-covered piazza where Gail sat shelling peas, and dropped a handful of silver into her sister’s lap, saying, “Three dollars clear from my cakes this week! Wish I could make that much every time. Mrs. Dunbar was perfectly delighted with my jelly roll, and has ordered another for next Saturday.”

“Isn’t that fine!” smiled Gail. “You will have a bakery of your own some day if you keep on. I thought she would like the roll; it was the best I ever tasted.”

“I think I could find quite a few customers for them if I only had the jelly, but it costs so much to buy it, and all we have is that little bit of apple jelly you made last summer.”

“The crab-apple trees are loaded with mites of green apples,” volunteered Cherry from the lower step, where she was making cats-cradles with Allee.

“Yes, but they won’t be ripe for weeks yet; and, besides, a sour jelly is best for jelly rolls.”

“Do blackberries make sour jelly?” asked Peace, pausing in her occupation of fitting paper sails to the empty pods Gail had dropped. “Cause the creek road is just lined with bushes.”

“They are better than crab-apples, but it will be days before they are ripe enough for use. I had thought of them, and investigated the bushes only yesterday. Mrs. Grinnell says raspberries are best for the purpose.”

“Lots of people around here have raspberries,” said Peace.

“And they want money for them, too.”

“Mr. Hardman doesn’t pay any ’tention to his down in the pasture. I’ve helped myself there lots of times.”

“But his wife does. I saw her there this morning.”

Peace said no more, but, waiting until she saw their neighbor bring up his cows to be milked, she slipped through the fence onto his land and accosted him with the abrupt question, “How much will you take for the rest of your raspberries?”

“What?”

She repeated her inquiry, and after scratching his head meditatively, he exclaimed, as if to himself, “Another money-making scheme! If she don’t beat the Dutch!”

“This is a jelly-making scheme,” returned Peace, with comical dignity. “There is no money in it.”

“Oh! Well, don’t you know that raspberries are expensive?”

“Most people’s are, but you never paid any ’tention to yours, so I thought you would be glad to get rid of them for little or nothing.”

“Oho!” he teased. “Begging again!”

“I’m not!” Peace denied hotly. “I’ll pay for them if you don’t charge too high.”

“How much will you pay?”

“I haven’t any money, but I’ll pick on shares.”

“Share and share alike?”

“Yes; I’ll keep half for my trouble, and you will get half for no trouble.”

Her method of figuring always amused him, and now he laughed outright, “Seems to me I am entitled to them all. They are my berries, you know.”

“Well,” stormed Peace, “if that’s the way you look at it, you can pick ’em, too!”

“Aw, don’t get mad,” he said soothingly. “I was just teasing. Of course you can pick all the raspberries you want. My wife said just this morning that the bushes were loaded, and she couldn’t begin to handle them all herself. But say that reminds me I’ve rented the pasture to old Skinner, and he’s put his bull in there. You will have to watch your chance when the old critter is out, to pick your berries.”

“All right,” cried Peace, expressing her elation by hopping about on one foot. “It’s awfully nice of you to give us the berries you don’t care to pick yourself, and we will see that the bull doesn’t bother.”

She was half way across the field by the time she had finished speaking, eager to tell the good news to the girls; and before the dew was dry on the grass the next morning, three sunbonneted figures scampered down the road to Mr. Hartman’s lower pasture, armed with big pails and Allée’s red wagon, intent on picking all the berries they could for Faith’s jelly.

“We’ll have to leave Allée’s cart outside the fence,” said Peace, climbing the high rails with astonishing agility and dropping nimbly down on the other side. “Do you see the Skinflint’s bull anywhere?”

“No,” answered Cherry, taking a careful survey of the field from her perch on the top rail. “There isn’t a thing stirring.”

“Then maybe we can pick all we want before the deacon brings him down. Hurry, and keep a sharp lookout for the old beast. My, but these bushes are stickery!”

“I should say they are,” Cherry agreed, ruefully eyeing her bleeding hands. “I don’t believe it is going to be any fun picking raspberries. They are lots worse than blackberries.”

“S’posing we had been the prince who crawled through the hedge to wake Sleeping Beauty. I bet he got good and scratched up, but he kept right on and fin’ly kissed the princess awake.”

“There ain’t any princess in these bushes,” grumbled Cherry, pausing to suck a wounded thumb.

“No, but there are berries, and they are more important than princesses. We couldn’t make jelly out of a princess, but we can out Mercy, what was that noise?”

“It’s the bull! Run, run! There it comes down the hill!” shrieked Cherry, standing as if rooted to the spot, and staring with horror at the angry animal tearing across the pasture toward them.

“Run yourself, you ninny!” screamed Peace, giving the older girl a push, and then scrambling for the fence with Allee dragging by one arm behind her.

There was no time to climb over, and the lower rail was too close to the ground for them to crawl under, but Peace did not linger to discuss the question. Grabbing the frightened baby by the heels, she thrust her between the slats, and gave her a shove that pitched her head first into a stagnant mudhole just outside the fence. Then pausing only long enough to see that Cherry was safely through, she followed, still clutching her now empty pail, and landing beside Allee in the mud.

“Whew! What a smell!” she spluttered, righting herself and trying to dig her sister out of the pool. “And all on account of that miserable, cowardly bull! Why don’t you take someone your own size to fight?” She shook her fist defiantly at the pawing, bellowing brute by the fence, and not satisfied with that method of expressing her anger, she flung the empty bucket at his head, crying in frenzy, “Take that, you old sinner! It b’longs to the berries you’ve already got.”

Her aim was truer than she had anticipated, and the pail fell with a rattling clatter over the beast’s ugly-looking horns, frightening him so that for a brief moment he stood perfectly still. Then, with a snort of fear and fury, he set off across the field at a mad gallop, with the bucket still tossing on his head.

Peace glared angrily after the retreating enemy, too indignant over her loss to think of their peril until Cherry quavered, “Hadn’t we better run while we have a chance? Suppose he should batter the fence down.”

“No danger,” Peace muttered shortly; but she picked herself up from the ground, where she was trying to scrape the ill-smelling mud off her shoes, and marched majestically up the road, trundling the cart behind her.

“Where are you going?” cried Cherry, when they reached the first cross street. “Here’s where we turn.”

“Turn, then! I’m going on to old Skinflint’s house and tell him to keep that ugly bull out of Hartman’s pasture until we get those raspberries picked.”

“With that nasty mud all over you?”

“Mud and all,” was the stubborn answer, and from force of habit, Cherry fell into step beside her again, tramping along in silence until the Skinner place was reached.

It just happened that the old man himself was hurrying up the path from the barn as they approached, and Peace stopped him with an imperious wave of her hand, speaking straight to the point before he could even ask her what she wanted.

“Your bull won’t let us pick raspberries in the lower pasture. Mr. Hartman said we might, but just when we got our pails ’most full, that old thing had to come along and bunt at us. We skipped, but he made us lose all our berries. We’d like to have you tie him up or take him out until we can get those berries picked.”

The grouchy old fellow stood with open mouth, glaring at the mud-bespattered figures, as if he doubted his senses, and as Peace finished her speech, he laughed mirthlessly, screeching in his harsh, cracked, rasping voice, “I put that bull in pasture myself, and there he stays! I don’t do any tying up, either. I rented that field and it’s the same as mine for as long as I hire it. You can’t have them berries at all. They are mine.”

“Mr. Hartman said we could have them,” Peace insisted; “and I guess he wouldn’t give away what didn’t b’long to him. He may have rented the pasture to you, but he never rented the berries.”

Suddenly the old man changed tactics. “You can have all the berries you can get,” he taunted, shaking a warning finger in their faces, “but that bull stays right there in that field!”

“All right, old Skinflint!” roared Peace, forgetting everything else in her furious passion, and shaking an emphatic finger back at him. “Just ’member that, will you? We’ll get the berries in spite of your old animule!”

She stamped out of the yard and down the road toward home once more, nursing her wrath and trying to think of some way whereby she might get the disputed fruit, for she well knew that the deacon would do all he could to prevent her now.

Early the next morning she was at the pasture again, only to find the vicious enemy grazing close by, watching with wicked eyes every flirt of her dress, as if defying her to gather the luscious red berries hanging so temptingly near.

The second day it was the same, and the third. It looked as if the enemy had conquered; but Peace was not to be easily defeated. She had set her heart on picking that fruit, and she meant to have it at any cost.

The fourth morning, after reconnoitering and finding the bull still in undisputed possession of the field, an uncertain but daring thought dawned upon her busy brain, and when she returned home she casually asked Hope, “Didn’t folks one time have bull fights in Africa?”

“In Spain, you mean,” answered the other, always ready to share her small store of knowledge. “Yes, they still have them, though it is very wicked.”

“How do they fight?”

“Oh, I don’t know exactly, but I think a man rides around a big ring on horseback, flying a red flag until the bull is terribly mad, and then he has to kill it with his dagger or get killed himself. It is terribly cruel, teacher says.”

“Why does the bull get mad at the flag?”

“Because it is red, and they can’t stand that color. Neither can turkey gobblers. Don’t you remember you had on a red coat when Mr. Hartman’s gobbler chased you?”

“Oh,” said Peace, much enlightened. She had received the information she sought, and was content.

“So the flag has to be red, does it?” she mused, as she stealthily climbed the stairs to the tiny, hot, cobwebby attic, where all the cast-off clothing was stored against a rainy day. “I thought it was something like that, but I didn’t know for sure. There’s an old red dress that b’longed to me, and here is my old flannel petticoat. I don’t b’lieve we will ever use this mess of cheesecloth again, either; it is so dreadfully streaked. But there is enough red in it yet.”

Gathering up an armful of worn-out garments, she crept down the stairway once more and slipped away to the lower pasture with her burden, where for the next half hour she might have been seen tying the scarlet strips to the fence rails in the corner farthest from the raspberry patch. When the last rag was fastened securely, she stepped back and viewed the result of her labor, sighing in deep satisfaction, “There are twenty-one hunks in all. It ought to take him a good long time to tear them all to pieces, and maybe if we work fast we can get most of the bushes stripped while he is banging his head down here.”

Hurrying home, she quietly summoned Cherry and Allee, and the trio set out once more on their berry-picking excursion, finding their enemy too busy in the far end of the field to interfere with them, just as Peace had hoped.

“But he may come back here at any minute,” argued Cherry, loth to enter the field. “I thought you said he was gone from the pasture.”

“I said from the berries. Don’t stop to talk. As long as he doesn’t hear us, we are all right. We will pick close to the fence, so we can get out quick. There must be tons of berries right here in this clump. Mercy, what a racket he makes!”

Then how the nimble fingers flew, and how fast the deep-tinted fruit fell into the shining pails! But all the while the three pickers kept their eyes fastened on the grove of trees which hid the animal from sight, and three hearts pounded fearfully at every snort of the enraged brute.

“Are you sure he is tied?” whispered cautious Cherry, after an unusually loud bellow had made her jump almost out of her shoes.

“I didn’t say he was tied. I said he wasn’t apt to bother us this morning. Keep still and pick with all your might. One of the big pails in the wagon is full already.”

“But how do you know he will stay there if he isn’t tied?” persisted Cherry, glancing apprehensively toward the trees again.

“He is too busy to think of coming over here now,” Peace assured her confidently, and that was all the satisfaction she could get, so she lapsed into silence, and worked like a beaver until the second big bucket was brimming over. Then the small taskmaster drew a deep breath of relief and said graciously, “Now we will go home. These ought to make quite a little jelly. We must have as much as twenty quarts. They don’t take as long as strawberries.”

Thankfully the sisters crawled through the fence and triumphantly bore their precious burden homeward, still hearing in the distance the angry mutterings of Deacon Skinner’s bull.

“Just see the loads of berries we picked!” chorused three happy voices, as the rattling cart came to a standstill before the kitchen door.

“Faith can have all the jelly she wants, and you can make the leftover seeds up in jam, can’t you?”

“Children!” cried Gail, white to the lips. “Have you been in that pasture with Mr. Skinner’s ugly bull?”

“Yes,” they confessed, “but he never came near us.”

“I guess he didn’t want to leave the grove,” added Peace, marching complacently away to wash her berry-stained hands.

“Don’t you ever go there again,” commanded the oldest sister, still trembling with fright at what might have happened to the daring berry pickers, but she never thought to question them any further, and Peace’s prank remained a secret for a short time longer.

The next day Deacon Skinner was early at the Hartman place, stalking angrily up to the low, green house, and, striding into the kitchen without the formality of knocking, demanded fiercely, “What do you mean by plastering your fence all over with red rags? Your pasture fence? I’ll sue you for damages! My bull has lost one horn and is all battered to pieces, the rails are splintered, and it’s a wonder he didn’t get loose. Is that what you aimed at doing?”

Mr. Hartman faced his accuser unflinchingly, saying, with quiet emphasis, “I don’t know anything about the matter. The fence was all right yesterday morning, for I was down there myself to see, before I left for town. You don’t know what you are saying when you threaten to sue.”

“But the fence is all tied up with red rags,” blustered the angry fellow. “How comes that? You rented me the ”

“I rented you the pasture, but I didn’t rent you watch dogs and dragons to guard it. That is your own lookout. I had nothing to do with it, and it’s no affair of mine if the village boys are up to their pranks.”

Mr. Hartman’s air was convincing, and the deacon’s wrath toward his neighbor cooled somewhat when he saw how groundless were his accusations. Nevertheless, his ire was thoroughly aroused, and he promised all sorts of punishment to the offenders when they were caught. “If ’twas the village boys, I’ll warrant the Judge’s youngster was at the head of it. I’ll tan him till he can’t stand when I get my hands on him,” he muttered.

“You better make sure of the guilty one before you thrash him,” suggested Mr. Hartman, dryly.

“That Abbott boy and the Greenfield girl are the ringleaders in all the mischief by George, she’s the one that did it! She vowed she’d get those berries, bull or no bull. If she has touched those bushes, I’ll ”

“No, you won’t,” interrupted the other man, rising to his feet with an angry light in his eyes. “If that child went to you and asked about those bushes, you don’t lay hands on her in any way.”

“She didn’t ask. She came and told me to tie up the animal so she could pick raspberries.”

“And you refused.”

“I rented that field, and you had no business to promise her the berries.”

“If you wanted them, why didn’t you say so? They were going to waste on the vines. You merely asked permission to put your animal in there for a month while you were repairing your corral.”

“I didn’t want the berries, but ”

“That is all I care to know. You can take your property out of my pasture at once. I won’t rent to such a man as you. Sue if you like, and see what you will get in court.”

“Very well, Hartman,” fumed the fiery-tempered old fellow. “But I will settle even with you yet. Just remember that note of Lowe’s, will you? It’s apt to be called to your attention pretty soon in a way you won’t like, I reckon, and you won’t get a second’s more time on it, either. You will find it ain’t so funny to set up against me in this neighborhood!”

The irate man stormed out of the house, still shaking his fist threateningly, and Mr. Hartman, in a very disturbed state of mind, returned to his breakfast.