"And please don't say I am too little, mamma," said Bessie. "John will take very good care of me, and carry me over all the hard places. And if we pick more berries than we want to eat for tea, Mrs. Porter is going to make them into blackberry jam for us to take home with us. So you see it will be very useful, as well as very pleasant, for us to go."
"Very well," said mamma, "that being the case, I think I must let you go."
Half an hour later the party started, armed with baskets and tin pails. Away they went, laughing and singing, by the lake road, and then down the side of the mountain to a spot where John said the blackberry bushes grew very thick. The way was pretty rough, and not only Bessie, but Maggie also, was glad of John's help now and then. Indeed, Bessie rode upon his shoulder for a great part of the way.
The blackberries were "thick as hops" when they came upon them,—some still green, some red or half ripe, others as black as ink; and these the children knew were what they must pick. The fingers of large and small were soon at work, but Maggie and Bessie did not find it quite as great fun as they expected.
"Ou, ou!" exclaimed Maggie, as she plunged her hand into the first bush. "Why, there are horrid prickers on it!"
"And on mine too," cried Bessie. "They stick me like every thing. Oh, my finger is bleeding!"
"To be sure," said Fanny; "you must be careful: blackberry bushes are full of thorns."
Maggie and Bessie had not bargained for the thorns, and felt somehow as if they had been rather imposed upon; but they picked away more carefully. Now and then a berry found its way into a small mouth instead of into the pails, and very ripe and juicy it tasted.
By and by Bessie gave a little sigh and said,—
"Maggie, do you think it is so very nice?"