Poor Violet! You think, perhaps, that it is hard to walk to school under your parasol these sunny days; and she had, day after day, to stand out there among the vines, picking, and picking, and picking, till the two great water pails were full of berries.
But when she grew tired, Love would point to her poor old mother working so patiently, and looking so tired and warm; and when the fairy whispered, "Will you leave her here to finish the work alone?" Violet would forget in a minute her own weariness, and sing and laugh so merrily, and tell so often how fast her pail was filling up, that the mother would forget her weariness too, and only think how fortunate and how rich she was to have such a good, bright child.
When she found a place where the berries grew thick and large, Violet would call her mother to pick there; and old Mary, Reuben's wife, said that "somehow she never could find such splendid places as Violet did."
So, leaving her there, the little girl would move on; and no matter how low she found the bushes, or how thinly covered with fruit, fairy Contentment, hovering over her head, would sing, "Who cares? The fewer, the sweeter."
What with Contentment's singing, and that of Violet, and the crickets and locusts, and the bees and bobolinks, there was music enough in the blackberry pasture; and it all chimed together just like the instruments in an orchestra.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BIRDS' HARVEST TIME.
But I was telling you about Violet's birthday; so let us go back to the doorstep of her father's little hut.
Narcissa called impatiently that she was tired of waiting; so her father, bidding good by to his new acquaintance, sprang into the carriage, and it rolled lightly through the green field once more.