Grandma's face creased in an unwilling smile and she said, "You'll get enough peekaneeka before you're done, or I miss my guess."
"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted Dick and Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and split the air with thunder and lightning.
"My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the baby and Seth Thomas?"
For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping. For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought. After that came bedtime.
Rose-Ellen lay across the foot of Grandpa and Grandma's goosefeather bed, spread on the floor. After the rain stopped, fresh air flowed through the light walls.
Cranberry-picking did not start next morning till ground and bushes had dried a little. Grandpa and Daddy had time first to knock together stools and a table, and to find on a dumpheap a little old stove, which they propped up and mended so Grandma could cook on it.
"The land's sakes," Grandma grumbled, "a hobo contraption like that!"
While they washed the breakfast dishes and straightened the one room, the grown-ups discussed whether the children should work in the bog.
Their Italian neighbor in the next shack had said, "No can maka da living unless da keeds dey work, too. Dey can work. My youngest, he four year and he work good."
"Likely we could take Baby along, and Jimmie could watch her while we pick," Grandma said dubiously. "But my fingers are all thumbs when I've got them children on my mind.--Somebody's at the door."