The next summer after this, when Flaxie was "going on seven years old," she and sister Ninny and Lucy Abbott made a bargain with Mrs. Prim to pick strawberries for her at three cents a box. They were glad to do it, for they were saving money to buy a pretty white vase for Rosa's grave; and they wanted to earn it all themselves. Flaxie thought she helped as much as anybody; but, the truth was, she spent half the time talking and picking the dirt out of her shoes.
Now, though Mrs. Prim lived in a beautiful large house, and had the finest grounds in town, the children did not like her very well: they considered her cross.
And, just here I must tell you what a time they had with her one day about the strawberries. It was a very warm morning; and they were all three stooping over the vines in the garden, with a great yellow basket before them.
"What a blazing hot sun," groaned Lucy, from the depths of her speckled shaker.
"O, dear, yes," responded Ninny; "and only three cents a box for picking!"
"I feel the sun on the end o' my nose," said Flaxie.
Just then a man went by, chanting musically,—
"'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.'"
"How nice and cool that sounds," said Ninny, wiping her forehead.
"Who lied down in the pasture, Ninny?"