“Maybe they have not been picking—except for their own use,” responded Cora. “But here we are. Get out now, and we will walk over to the shanty where they crate the fruit.”
“What an ocean of green!” exclaimed Belle, the aesthetic one, looking over the strawberry patch.
“An ocean of dust, I think,” said Bess, as from the afternoon sun and breeze the grind of the picker’s feet in the dusty rows between the countless lines of green vines just reached her eyes.
“There are plenty of them,” remarked Cora, wending her way along the narrow path, toward the shanty.
“And so many people picking,” added Belle. “Just look at those boys! They are as brown as—their clothes. And see that poor old woman!”
“Yes, her back must ache,” replied Cora. “What a shame for her to be out in this sun.”
“She looks as if she could never bend again if she should straighten up,” said Bess. “See how she stares at us from under her own arms.”
This peculiar remark caused the other girls to smile, but Bess meant exactly what she said—that the old woman was looking up from an angle lower than her elbows.
Just then the autoists faced two of the pickers—two girls.
Both stopped their work and looked up almost insolently. Then they spoke under their breath to each other and “tittered” audibly.