“Pick them?” I said, looking at him wonderingly.
“To be sure. Go ahead. I’ll hold your flowers. Only take the ripe ones, and see here—do you know how to pick strawberries?”
I felt so amused at such a silly question that I looked up at him and laughed.
“Oh, you do?” he said.
“Why, anybody could pick strawberries,” I replied.
“Really, now! Well, let’s see. There’s a big flat fellow, pick him.”
I handed him the flowers, and stepping between two rows of plants, stooped down, and picked the great strawberry he pointed out.
“Oh, you call that picking, do you?” he said.
“Yes, sir. Don’t you?”
“No: I call it tearing my plants to pieces. Why, look here, if my pickers were to go to work like that, I should only get half a crop and my plants would be spoiled.”