"Gramp does not quite like to have us come into the tall grass, after strawberries," Theodora remarked, "because we trample the grass down and make it difficult to mow; but Gram always sends us out and sometimes goes herself."
"And when she goes, I tell you the grass has to catch it!" exclaimed Wealthy. "She just creeps along and crushes down a whole acre of it at one time!"
"Yes, Gramp scolded a little about it one day," said Ellen. "He came in at noon and said to grandma, 'Ruth Ann, I should think that the Millerites had been creeping through my east field.' He said that to tease her, because Gram doesn't approve of the Millerites at all.
"'Joseph,' said Gram, pretty short for her, 'I'm afraid your memory's failing you.'
"'What's my memory got to do with it?' said Gramp.
"'Didn't I put it in the bargain when I married you, that I should be allowed to go strawberrying in the hay fields just when I wanted to?' Gram said.
"At that, Gramp began to laugh and said, that if his memory was failing, there certainly was nothing the matter with grandma's memory; and he never said another word about the grass; so I guess he did make some such promise when they were married."
The girls went into the house; and feeling pretty warm from our walk, I lay down beneath one of the large old Balm o' Gileads. Addison came out of the sitting-room and asked where we had been. "I was going to ask you to go down to the 'Little Sea,'" he added, "for a swim before dinner. But if you have been down there and back, you would be too warm to go into the water; so I'll lend you a book to read."
He brought me from his room Cudjo's Cave, saying that the Old Squire and Gram might not consider it wholly proper reading for Sunday, but that it was his most interesting book, in the way of a story.
"Do you call grandfather the 'Old Squire'?" I asked.