"You won't often see a brighter spot when the sun is on it," said Winthrop. "It gets in the shadow of Wut-a-qut-o once in a while."
"The grass is kept very fresh here," said Rufus. "But the strawberry vines are all over in it."
So it was proved. The valley was not a smooth level as it had looked from the river, but broken into little waves and hollows of ground; in parts, near the woods, a good deal strewn with loose rocks and grown with low clumpy bushes of different species of cornus, and buckthorn, and sweetbriar. In these nooks and hollows, and indeed over the whole surface of the ground the vines ran thick, and the berries, huge, rich and rare, pretended to hide themselves, while the whole air was alive with their sweetness.
The party landed and scattered with cries of delight far and near over the valley. Even Elizabeth's composure gave way. For a little while they did nothing but scatter; to sit still and pick was impossible; for the novelty and richness of the store seemed made for the eye as much as for anything else, and be the berries never so red in one place they seemed redder in another. Winthrop and Asahel, however, were soon steadily at work, and then little Winifred; and after a time Miss Cadwallader found that the berries were good for more than to look at, and Rufus had less trouble to keep in her neighbourhood. But it was a good while before Elizabeth began to pick either for lip or basket; she stood on the viney knolls, and looked, and smelled the air, and searched with her eye the openings in the luxuriant foliage that walled in the valley. At last, making a review of the living members of the picture, the young lady bethought herself, and set to work with great steadiness to cover the bottom of her basket.
In the course of this business, moving hither and thither as the bunches of red fruit tempted her, and without raising an eye beyond them, she was picking close to one of the parties before she knew whom she was near; and as they were in like ignorance she heard Asahel say,
"I wish Rufus would pick — he does nothing but eat, ever since he came; he and Miss Rose."
"You don't expect her to pick for you, do you?" said Winthrop.
"She might just as well as for me to pick for her," said
Asahel.
"Do you think we'll get enough for mamma, Governor?" said little Winifred in a very sweet, and a little anxious, voice.
"We'll try," said her brother.