Dorothy obeyed; but alas! her self-elected task grew very wearisome. The heat was still great and the afternoon sun shone full upon her back, and there seemed positively no end to the berries. There were rows upon rows of them, and the woman had only just begun when Dorothy joined her. Or so it seemed, though there were already several crates waiting in the little shed till the full day's crop should be garnered.
At the end of one row of vines she stood up and protested:
"I can't pick any more. I'm so tired. Please tell me where I am and what your name is. Tell me, too, when I can go home and the way."
"No matter. Go. Write. I'll take it. Here;" and this big woman of small speech held out on the palm of her great hand a half-dozen over-ripe berries, which Dorothy hesitated to accept, yet found delicious when she did so.
"Thank you! and if you won't tell me who you are or where I am, I shall call you Mrs. Denim, after the clothes you wear; and I shall find out where this farm is and run away from it at the first chance. I'd rather that horrid old dog would eat me up than be kept a prisoner this way. Is that long boy your son? May I go talk to him? May he show me the way home to Baltimore?"
To none of these questions was any answer vouchsafed, and offended Dorothy was moved to remark:
"Humph! You're the savingest woman I ever saw! You don't waste even a word, let alone a spoiled strawberry. Oh! I beg your pardon! I didn't mean to be quite so saucy, but I'm almost crazy to go home. I want to go home—I want to go home!"
There was such misery in this wail that the long boy, weeding onions a few feet away, paused in his tedious task and raised his shock head with a look of pity on his face. But the woman seemed to know his every movement, even though her own head was bowed above the vines, and shot him such an angry glance that he returned to his weeding with no further expression of his sympathy.
Poor Dorothy C.! Homesickness in its bitterest form had come upon her and her grief made her feel so ill that she dropped down just where she was, unable longer to stand upright. Instantly, she was snatched up again by "Mrs. Denim's" strong arms and violently shaken. That anybody, even an ignorant stranger, should lie down in a strawberry patch and thus ruin many valuable berries was the height of folly! So, without more ado, Dorothy was carried indoors, almost tossed upon the bed in the kitchen, and the paper and pencil thrown upon the patchwork quilt beside her. Then she was left to recover at her leisure, while whistling to Tige to watch the girl, "Mrs. Denim" returned to her outdoor labors; nor was she seen again till darkness had filled the narrow room.
Then once again Dorothy was lifted and was now carried to a loft above the kitchen, where, by the dim light of a tallow candle, she was shown a rude bed on the floor and a plate of food. Also, there was a bowl of milk, but at this the girl looked with a shudder. She wasn't hungry, but she reflected that people grew faint and ill without food, so she forced herself to nibble at the brown bread, which had been dipped in molasses, instead of being spread with butter, and its sweetness gave her a great thirst. Slipping down the stairs, she found the pail and dipper and got her drink, and it was with some surprise that she did this unreproved.