"Well, it's different. I got to keep ahead of Pedro," he explained, and every night he learned a new lesson.
Of all the family, though, Jimmie was the only contented one. Most of the trouble centered round Dick. He was fourteen now, and not only his voice, but his way, was changing. Through the day he picked hops, but when evening came, he was off and away.
"He's like the Irishman's flea," Grandma scolded, "and that gang he's running with are young scalawags."
"Dick hasn't a lick of sense," Daddy agreed worriedly. "I'll have to tan him, if he keeps on lighting out every night. That gang set fire to a hop rack last week. They'll be getting into real trouble."
"Dick thinks he's a man, now he's earning his share of the living," Grandpa reminded them. "When I was his age I had chores to keep me busy, and when you were his age you had gym, and the Y swimming pool. Here there's nothing for the kids in the evening except mischief."
"Well, then," Grandma suggested, "why don't we pull up stakes and leave?"
"They don't like you to leave till harvest's over," Daddy said. "But it would be great to get into apples in Washington, for instance. We'll have to get the boss to cash our pay tickets first."
There came the trouble. The tickets would be cashed when harvest was done, not before. Grandma sagged when she heard. "I ain't sick," she said, "but I'm played out. If we could get where it was cooler and cleaner. . . ."
"Well, we haven't such a lot of pay checks left." Grandpa looked at her anxiously. "Looks like, with prices at the company store so high, if we stayed another month we'd owe them instead of them owing us. We might cash our tickets in groceries and hop along."