"You may as well set, yourself, for we come to see you more'n anybody else. Besides, you haven't got any mother. I know all about you."
"Indeed! How can that be, since I came to Skyrie only last night? And I came out to find some wild strawberries for my father's breakfast—we haven't had it yet."
If this was intended for a polite hint that it was too early in the day for visiting it fell pointless, for Alfaretta answered, without the slightest hesitation:
"We haven't, neither. We've come to spend the day. Ma she said she thought you might be lonesome and 'twasn't no more'n neighborly to start in to once. More'n that, she's glad to get us out the way, 'cause she's going down mounting to the 'other village' to 'Liza Jane's store—Claretta, stop suckin' your thumb! Dorothy Chester don't do that, and ma said she'd put some more that picra on it if you don't quit—to buy us some gingham for dresses. She heard 'Liza Jane had got in a lot real cheap and she's going to get a web 'fore it's all picked over."
Tired of standing, Dorothy had also dropped down upon the bowlder and now was regarding her uninvited guests with much of the same curiosity they were bestowing upon her, and Alfaretta obligingly shoved her smallest sister off the rock to make more room for their hostess.
"Don't do that! What makes you so rough with them? Besides, I must go. Mother will need me and I don't see any berries," said Dorothy, springing up. "Excuse me, please."
As she stooped to pick up the tin pail she had left on the grass, Alfaretta snatched it from her grasp and was off down the slope, calling back:
"Come on, then! I know where they're thicker 'n molasses in the winter time!"
With their unvarying imitation of their elder sister the two little girls likewise scampered away, and fearing she would lose mother Martha's new "bucket" Dorothy followed also. Across a little hollow in the field and up another rise Alfaretta led the way and there fulfilled her promise, for the northern hillside was red with the fruit. With little outcries of delight all of them went down upon their knees and began to gather it; the younger ones greedily stuffing their mouths till their faces were as red as the berries, but Alfaretta scrupulously dropping all but a few extra-sized ones into the rapidly filling pail. But she kept close to Dorothy and laughingly forced these finer ones between her protesting lips, demanding once:
"Ever go berryin' before, Dorothy C.?"