“Don’t you wish you could find a way to get to the country?” said big-eyed little Kitty, as she carefully put away the last bowl.
Benny turned his round, good-natured, freckled little face toward her. “I’m a goin’ to,” he said, determinedly. “Mother said she go if I’d make it worth while, and I’m a goin’ to.”
“Oh, Benny, are you?” said Kitty. She had the utmost confidence in this elder brother, who, although only three years older, seemed so much larger and stronger than herself, and was a person always to be depended upon to undertake any difficult task. “How are you going to?” she continued.
“I’m a goin’ to,” reiterated Benny, with the same emphasis. And the fact of his saying this and nothing more gave greater weight to his words. So all that evening Kitty dreamed beautiful dreams of a little home near green meadows and under leafy trees.
Benny’s determination had not left him the next day. It was a holiday and Benny pattered off down to the wharf as early as possible. Somehow then it seemed as if that land of delight known as the country were more accessible by reason of the arrival of the crafts which plied between the lower counties and the city. It appeared so easy to step aboard a little steamer and be borne along over the bay to the green shores melting away in the distance. Those shores from which were brought, on the little sailing vessels, mountains of green peas, crates of luscious strawberries, baskets of downy peaches. It represented to Benny a veritable Canaan, that country from which the little vessels came, and many a time he had sat on the pier looking off into the distance and dreaming of the fullness and plenty which he imagined existed there.
He was standing at the gangway of a small steamer which lay moored to her dock, when his attention was arrested by two men who halted near him.
“Hello, Jim!” said one. “What’s bringing you to town? Thought this was a busy time with you.”
“So it is, or ought to be, but my pickers disappointed me. Here my strawberries and peas are ready and waiting and not a soul to pick ’em. It certainly is aggravating.”
“It certainly is,” returned his friend. “What you going to do about it?”
“I’ve come up to see if I can get a new gang. I shall have to take what I can get. People make a very poor mouth, but I notice when anyone wants farm hands of any kind it isn’t always so easy to get hold of ’em. Good pay and good food, with good, fresh air thrown in, and yet they shy off. Well, I can’t tarry; good-by.”