Tired as she was after the exertions and excitement of that eventful picnic, Peggy could not sleep till she had written a letter to her mother describing her brilliant scheme in detail. Two days later, the Rural Free Delivery wagon brought encouraging news. Dick had canvassed the houses on both sides the Terrace, and nearly every housekeeper had fallen in with Peggy’s plan. Every one seemed pleased at the prospect of getting berries picked only the day before, and Dick, in spite of his responsibilities as first baseman for the Junior Giants, readily undertook to see that the fruit reached its various destinations safely.
But even now Peggy was not satisfied. “You see, girls,” she explained to the interested circle around the supper-table, “it’s just preserving time, and the Terrace folks will be glad to buy more berries than Lucy can possibly pick. Let’s have a bee and help her out. She took a day off to drive us to the picnic, and it’s only fair that we should take a day to work for her.”
It was not necessary for Peggy to use her persuasive arts to induce the others to agree to the plan. Berry-picking as an occupation had lost its charm for most of them, but berry-picking with the generous purpose Peggy had suggested, was quite another matter. After they had calculated Lucy’s probable profits for a single day, if she could be sure of five or six volunteer helpers, enthusiasm ran high. Claire’s pensive hope, voiced with a sigh, that it wouldn’t be too blisteringly hot, was passed over without comment.
It was decided to carry a picnic luncheon to the berry pasture and have the hearty meal of the day after their return. Aunt Abigail though heartily approving the plan, begged off from joining the party. “Dorothy and I are not quite old enough yet to be of much assistance,” she said with a funny little grimace. “We lack the patience that will come with years.”
“But, Aunt Abigail,” Ruth protested, “you couldn’t stay here all by yourself. You’d be lonely.”
Aunt Abigail’s laugh indicated derision. “It’ll be a pleasant sensation. Why, you chatter-boxes keep things in such an uproar that I haven’t had a chance for quiet, connected thought since I landed here. Go along. I shall be glad to be rid of you.”
The season for the red raspberries was nearly over, but the blackberries were ripening fast. “My, but I’m glad they’re not blueberries,” Amy confided to Peggy. “Think of picking a six-quart pail full of shoe-buttons, or what amounts to that. Now, blackberries count up.”
The adage that many hands make light work was never better exemplified than on that July day in the berry pasture. Even Lucy lost a little of her air of stern resolution and found herself curiously observant of her surroundings, as if she were regarding them through the unaccustomed eyes of girls who were city bred. She even joined, though with all the awkwardness of a novice, in the gay chatter which went on about the laden bushes. Lucy had always looked on picking berries as a serious business, like life itself. She was a little astonished to see these girls turning it into play, leavening it with laughter. Lucy had been brought up on the saying, ‘duty first, pleasure afterward,’ though in her particular case, duty engrossed the day so completely that pleasure was of a necessity postponed to some indefinite future. It was a new idea to her that the two might be blended without injury to either.
Hobo who had insisted on joining the party against Claire’s protests, for she rather boasted of the fact that she was afraid of dogs, divided his attention equally between Peggy and Dorothy. Peggy he adored, but he had an air of feeling responsible for Dorothy, and as she scampered about the pasture, Hobo followed her, not with any pretext of devotion, but much as a faithful nurse-maid might have done. The girls laughed at his conscientious air as they laughed at everything Dorothy said. It seemed to Lucy she had never seen people who found so many things to laugh about. She wondered how it would seem if gaiety were the habit of life instead of the rare exception.
But though the berry-picking went on with none of the relentless haste which would properly characterize contestants in a Marathon race, though blackened lips gave convincing testimony that all the berries had not found their way into the shining pails, though the incessant talk and almost incessant laughter were suggestive of a flock of blackbirds, and though luncheon turned into a protracted feast, which left only crumbs for the ants and squirrels, yet the pails filled up before Lucy’s eyes. And when the declining July sun intimated that he for one had done about enough for a day, the little group in the berry pasture had reason to be well satisfied with their efforts.