Chapter XVII: In the Berry Patch

As if in a dream Alene heard a voice:

"It's after five o'clock, Miss Alene. You better get up if you want to be ready by six!"

Alene sat up with a yawn. She blinked her eyes and gazed solemnly at the rosy, smiling face of the little maid.

"I wonder why it's so much easier to get up the night before!" she ejaculated.

Kizzie laughed as she crossed the room and raised the blinds. The lace curtains billowed in the fresh air and the soft light of dawn stole into the room. A pretty room it was, too, with blue and gray matting, blue tinted walls, its white stand and dresser, and little brass bed.

With another yawn Alene slipped her feet to the white rug beside the bed, stood up, and lifting her gown as if for a skirt dance, skipped lightly to a willow rocker which stood invitingly before one of the tall windows overlooking the terrace and the town.

"I'll run downstairs and get some breakfast ready, and then come back and help you with your hair and buttons," said Kizzie.

Alene knelt down beside the chair and buried her face in its blue cushions to say her morning prayers.

There was a time when she had first come to the Towers when to her regular prayers she always added a sort of petition--"Please, dear Lord, I am so lonely!"

Now her heart was filled with the beauty of the day, its promises of joy. She had so much that for herself there was nothing more to ask--only thanks to give, but for her friends, beginning with Mrs. Kump, the latest, and ending with her parents, the oldest and best beloved, she petitioned many blessings.

Only a few moments given to God, but they were a consecration for the day!

Alene rose with a song on her lips and proceeded with her bath and dressing. She found herself doing so many things now-a-days that a few months before would have seemed an impossibility.

"I used to be a bigger baby than Nettie or even Lois," she reflected as she buttoned her shoes and started to comb her hair. This was always a difficult task. The comb that went through those long locks so smoothly when manipulated by some one else, encountered many snarls, and Alene was glad when Kizzie came back to relieve her. A vigorous brushing and curling soon brought the refractory hair to the required state, and the glossy brown curls were finally tied at the nape of her neck with a bow of blue ribbon.

She was too excited to eat her breakfast; it was only Kizzie's reminder that, "Mr. Fred will ask if you ate a good breakfast. He will be displeased if you don't," that induced her to partake of anything.

She had scarcely finished her bowl of milk and crackers when the big gate clanged through the still air, then came a medley of gay voices; the walk resounded beneath the tread of light footsteps, and Prince's sonorous bark gave forth a challenge.

"There they come!"

"Here they are!" Alene rushed from the table.

She paused for a moment in the open doorway in sheer amazement and then she gave a peal of laughter.

"No wonder Prince was scared!" she cried.

For there stood the girls with their sunbonnets drawn over their faces, and their skirts spread out to display each rent and patch, of which there were not a few. Laura put one foot forward that a dilapidated shoe, from which her toes peeped, might not escape notice, and Ivy seemed proud of a pocket, turned inside out, that was apparently all holes.

A snickering sound came from the depths of the bonnets and then their laughter rang out loud and long.

"We had rehearsed a speech about tramping along the tracks all night, but I couldn't say a word to save my life when I saw your bewildered face!" explained Ivy when their mirth had subsided.

"You poor girl!" remarked Laura with a commiserating glance at Alene's neat blue gingham gown with its trimming of fancy braid; "is that the 'very worstest' you could scare up?"

"Kizzie helped me to look through my trunk and wardrobe and we couldn't find a thing plainer. I looked it over but there's not a tear in it! I might have sewed a patch on, but that would have been make-believe!"

Alene's tone was disconsolate.

"Well, never mind, come along! There's Hugh waiting near the gate and Mat's minding the rig! You needn't take your hat, I brought Nettie's bonnet; it will do fine. It's too big for her!"

They ran along the walk and scrambled into the surrey. The girls took the back seat, Hugh jumped in beside Mat, and with gay good-byes to Kizzie and Prince they were off on their way to the country.

The bells of the factories rang out, calling the men to work. Few pedestrians, however, were seen for the majority of the working people lived in the streets nearer the river, while the merchants and leisurely class occupied residences in the upper streets, along which they drove. Occasionally an energetic maid was seen cleaning the front steps or porch, and just on the out-skirts of the town they passed a group of boys going the same way, who eyed them curiously.

"Hey, Hughie," cried one, "where are you bound for?"

"Berryin'!"

"So are we!"

Mat gave the grocer's slow-going nag a touch that livened him and they were soon carried out of range of the lads.

"It's that Stony Road gang!" Hugh glanced round to explain.

"The ones who tried to steal our lunch that day? But I didn't see Mark Griffin with them--he's your fish-boy, Alene," said Ivy.

"I guess he'll join them later on; that's his home!"

Hugh pointed to a low stone house that stood some distance in from the road, beyond a well-trimmed hedge and broad stretch of lawn, with grape-arbors and barns showing in the rear.

"Why, his folks must be well off," said Laura in surprise.

"Old man Griffin owns the boat-yards over in Westville."

"Well, his son might find better company than that, surely!"

"Mark's been away at school most of his life and when he came home this vacation, the first thing we knew he was hobnobbing with that gang. They steal and play cards and torture animals!"

"Horrors!"

"I don't think he would torture anything, he doesn't look like that kind of a boy!" exclaimed Alene, warmly.

"Might as well be bad as in bad company," returned Hugh, with that "preacher air" of his which Alene always found exasperating.

"Mark and Jack Lever used to be thicker'n flies, but I've not seen 'em together this year," interposed Mat.

"Jack's fine as silk, couldn't stand the Stony Road pace, I guess! Fact is, I haven't seen him for six weeks. He's never in his father's store; must be out of town."

"Gee up!" interposed Mat. "If I didn't keep up a perpetual song, I believe Old Hurricane'd stop still and never go on again; can easily see he used to be a race horse!"

"Yes, he always raced the last few yards home for his grub!"

"He's doing splendiferous. Only for him we wouldn't be here, so don't spurn the ladder by which we climb," cried Ivy.

"Well, he'd make a better ladder than anything else, he's so bony; besides that he'd rather stand still any day and let us climb him!"

"You ungrateful Mat! But, Oh, girls and boys, to sit and let the air blow upon us, and feast our eyes on the glorious sunrise and the lovely green fields and flowers! The air is like champagne I tasted once, kind of thin and clear and nippy and refreshing!"

"If I knew you were a boozer, Miss Bonner, nothing would have induced me to undertake the management of this nervous racer. If the air brings on an attack of the delirium tremenjous, how can I manage the two of you?"

"Just manage your own tongue, Mr. Lee, but that would be an impossibility," said Ivy.

"Talking of wine and things reminds me of Claude," said Laura. "I overtook him coming down street the other day and we walked together. He stopped to peer in at the bars of the jail. 'I'd hate to be put in a stall like the poor drunkards.' (He called them Dunkards.) 'And I'm sure you never will, Claude,' said I. He threw back his shoulders and said, 'Well, I drank root-beer till I was six years old and then swore off and haven't drank a drop since!' I could have screeched!"

Hugh laughed heartily.

"The little scamp! He insisted on taking the pledge when I did last year! The temperance lecturer was here. He was a speaker, I can tell you! When he cried that ancient warning:

'Young men, Ahoy there!
'What is it?'
'The rapids are below you.'

I could see some of our old soaks shrinking in their seats; and when he wound up, 'Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go,' it was simply immense! There was such a stampede for the platform that you'd think we were drowning, and scrambling for life-buoys. I knew from the way Mother spoke when I set out for the hall that she would like me to pledge myself. Someway I didn't see any use in it, but that lecturer made me see lots of things, so I up and followed old man Potter who hadn't drawn a sober breath ever since I could remember. Claude clung to my coat-tails. "I want a ribbon, too!" he screamed. The lecturer gave one look at the little shaver and the crowd roared as he pinned a badge on the boy's coat. Ah, here we are at the patch!"

Mat turned the horse into a lane leading to the left.

"Here's your bonnet, Alene," cried Laura. "Don't forget the buckets, boys!"

Mat tied Old Hurricane to the fence beneath a shady tree and they started for the nearest clump of bushes, each carrying a tin cup, which, when filled with berries, was to be emptied into one of the buckets placed at a convenient spot.

Alene gave a gasp of joy, when parting the branches she found an abundance of delicious fruit. Her first scratch, a tiny one on the back of her hand, was proudly exhibited to the others.

"How many have you eaten?" inquired Laura.

"Not a one!"

"Show your tongue, little girl," said Ivy in a doubting tone. "Why, you poor thing, you haven't tasted one! Look at mine," she opened her mouth.

"Poor Mrs. Kump!" said Alene.

The others laughed.

"Oh, there will be plenty for her. Eat all you wish, Alene; Mat and Hugh are noted pickers, there's no fear of our taking home empty buckets," said Laura.

Alene's lips were soon in the same state as Ivy's. The air had given her a sharp appetite, and when in the course of the morning, Laura found a package of sandwiches and tarts hidden under the seat of the surrey, she declared that nothing had ever tasted quite so good as the portion she disposed of, along with her tin of clear cold water from a neighboring well.

While enjoying luncheon her eyes wandered over the berry patch which sloped gently upward to the road. A great many children and a few men and women were scattered over the field, stripping the bushes.

Across the patch a barred gate led to fields of pasture, and some of the boys on the safe side of the fence were goading a great red bull into a state of frenzy.

As he tossed his head and bellowed, stamping and goring the ground, Alene was glad there was a strong fence between them. She thought she recognized among the mischievous lads one of the crowd they had passed on the road in the early morning.

The girls brushed away the crumbs of the feast and went back to the bushes, while the boys returned the borrowed water bucket to its owner, who lived a short distance up the lane.

Alene was busy picking the ripe berries from an unusually heavy-laden branch, rejoicing to see her measure filling so rapidly, when she heard a terrified shriek.

She jumped to her feet, letting the cup fall from her grasp, and turned to find the other girls standing with horror-stricken faces, gazing across the patch. In a moment she knew what had happened. The wide, barred gate had become unfastened in some way, probably by one of the boys. It was standing wide open and the angry bull had come through and was seen tearing like a mad creature in the middle of the patch.

Everyone sought places of safety, the small children clinging to their elders with frightened cries, while one or two of the more courageous young men who tried to head the animal and turn him back to his pasture were compelled to fly, to escape injury.

The three girls stood for a moment as if paralyzed; then Laura grasped Ivy's arm.

"Quick, quick, to the fence! He's coming straight upon us!"

"It's my red dress," gasped Ivy.

Alene glanced round. She saw they were not far from the fence but that it would be necessary to skirt a row of thick-grown bushes in order to reach it. Could they do so in time?

In the meantime Mat and Hugh, returning leisurely along the lane, were startled into activity by the sight that met their view. Their gaze at once sought the place where they had left the girls. It was deserted; but not far away, Ivy's dress made a bright spot that immediately held their glance, and the bull apparently had singled it out for attack; his mad flight led straight in the path of the girls.

The boys, with one impulse, made a dash across the fence; with clenched hands and set teeth they stumbled onward; but alas, they were too far away to render any help!