Thus summarily enjoined, Ralph began to roar, as a matter of course. Joe, who had already started to climb into the reaper seat, came back and looked in at the door, the better to look reproachfully at us.
“I doan like dish yer sperrit ob money-gettin’,” he declared, frowning. “Denyin’ a little chile all his innercent pleasures fo’ de sake ob scrapin’ a few censes togedder!” he exclaimed severely.
Jessie laughed, with a suspicious little catch in her voice; it was hard to be misunderstood, if only by blundering, faithful old Joe. “I really must not spare time to go with him, Joe,” she said in self-defense, “but perhaps Leslie had better go. It will do you good, dear,” she added, mindful of my inexplicable paleness on the preceding day.
“I don’t need being done good to, Jessie, but evidently Ralph does, so I’ll take him out,” I said, while old Joe nodded approvingly.
“Dat’s right; dat’s right, honey, chile,” he declared, and again betook himself to the waiting team and reaper. Freed from the danger of being compelled to wear boots, Guard had gone outside and placed himself by the doorstep, where he was, to all appearances, peacefully dozing when Joe started. But, before the team had turned the shoulder of the nearest hill, he arose, stretched himself lazily, and trotted slowly down the road after them.
Soon after Joe’s departure, Ralph and I, baskets in hand, started for the blackberry patch. Ralph’s basket was a little toy candy pail, which he assured Jessie he should bring to her “filled way up on ’e top wiv burries.” The blackberry vines grew along the upper edge of the wheat field. We stopped when fairly above the field to admire the square of yellow grain spread out below us, the bended heads of wheat nodding and swaying in the light breeze, and the tall stalks now and then rippling in soft, undulating waves, as if a gentle wind had moved over a sea of gold. Next to the wheat stood the corn in file after file, the leaves rustling and the tasseled heads held bravely aloft. Green uniformed soldiers of peace and plenty they seemed to me, bidding defiance to want and famine. I might better say that I stopped to admire the grain fields, for Ralph had no æsthetic enthusiasm. His one desire was to reach the “’ackburry” patch and begin stuffing them into that little red mouth of his.
“Tum on, ’Essie,” he said, tugging at my hand impatiently as I lingered. “Me’s so hungry.”
“Yes; it must be half an hour at least since you had breakfast,” I replied unfeelingly, but turning my back on the fields nevertheless and hastening on.
There were, as Joe had said, lots of blackberries, as we found on reaching the spot. I helped Ralph to fill his little bucket and he trudged along at my side, eating steadfastly, but sometimes suspending even that fascinating employment to cling to my skirts and shrink closer to me as we came upon a particularly luxuriant cluster of vines. They were so tall and arched so high above his sunny little head, and the prickly vines extended away and away in vistas that must have seemed so endless to his small stature that it was no wonder if he felt somewhat overawed at times.
We were well up on the hillside, and the fields below us were hidden from our view, when he suddenly announced that it was time to go home.