THE BLACKBERRIES AND THE BULL
"Now, Joel," said Polly, a few days after, "you mustn't tease for the pie, you know, 'cause Mamsie may not be able to get the white flour."
"P'r'aps she will," said Joel, swinging his tin pail, and kicking the sweet fern with his bare feet; "then, Polly, we could have it, couldn't we?"
"Maybe," said Polly, with her thoughts not so much on blackberry pie, as how good it was to be out of doors for a whole afternoon. "Oh, Joe, what a big butterfly!"
"Hoh--that's nothing!" said Joel, who was rather tired of butterflies. "I'm going to pick bushels and bushels of blackberries, Polly."
"You'll do well if you pick a quart," said Polly, laughing, remembering his past experiences. "Oh, Joel, isn't it just lovely to go blackberrying like this!" and her brown eyes sparkled.
"The bushes scratch like everything," said Joel, with another kick at the sweet fern.
"It's nice to go blackberrying," hummed Phronsie, holding fast to a little tin cup the rag-man had presented her on his last visit. "I'm going to pick ever and ever so many, to carry home to my Mamsie."
"So you shall," cried Polly, rapturously; "and, children, I never saw anything so perfectly beautiful as it is this afternoon! Isn't the sky blue!"
Little David looked up and smiled. Joel threw back his head and squinted critically. "I wish I could go sailing up there on that cloud," he said.