“It’s easy the first hour,” he declared. “After that—well, we’ll see how you hold up.”
Then and there the Brownies made up their minds that even though the job was hard, they would not give up!
Mr. Hooper led the girls to a group of nearby trees. Each Brownie received a pail and was shown exactly how to strip a branch.
“Pick clean and don’t bruise the fruit,” he instructed. “When your pail is filled, weigh in at the shed.”
The orchard owner told the girls to strip only the lower tree branches. He said he could not risk having them fall from the stepladders, and so would leave the higher picking for older persons.
After Mr. Hooper had gone to the shed, the Brownies fell to work with a will. At first the cherries thudded into the tin pails, making a tinkling sound. Soon the bottoms of the buckets were covered.
“I have almost two inches of cherries in my pail!” Rosemary called after a few minutes.
“Oh, I’m ahead of you,” laughed Jane, who was picking in the next tree.
Hearing the report, Veve began to strip at a faster rate, for she was far behind. She had stopped too often to sample a cherry and to look around.