“Some of ’em’s black enough,” declared the boy. “Come on! Let’s get some.”
Sammy scrambled up the rough side of the gully. Tom Jonah bounded after him and then looked back at his little mistresses to see if they were coming too.
“Well! I won’t be beaten by a boy,” said Tess, with sudden decision. “Let’s go too, Dot.”
It was a rather hard pull for the little girls; and Dot got her knees “scrubby,” although she saved the Alice-doll’s dress. They came to the top of the height all but breathless and with flushed faces.
Sammy was coolly picking the best berries and cramming them into a mouth which betrayed to all who might behold his greediness. “You better hurry up,” he advised, with a lofty detachment from all chivalry, “or there won’t be any left. There ain’t many ripe ones, after all.”
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Tess. “You aren’t very polite, Sammy Pinkney.”
“You—you might have saved us some!” protested Dot.
The little girls looked all about. They did not see any other blackberry bushes in the vicinity. But Tess sighted something else.
“Oh, Dot! Roses! Lovely, pink, wild, roses! Did you ever see so many?”
There was a veritable hedge of the pretty, fragrant, delicate flowers at the far side of this little field. The two girls raced over to them at once, forgetting both Sammy’s greediness and the berries. Tom Jonah bounded after them, and rushed through a gap in the rose hedge. Instantly there was excitement on the far side of the hedge, just out of sight.