Across the Fruited Plain Part 2

2: THE CRANBERRY BOG

The truck rumbled through cl.u.s.tering cities, green country and white villages. All the children stared in fascination until Jimmie grew too tired and huddled down against Grandma's knees, whining because he ached and the sun was hot and the truck was crowded.

Grandpa kept pointing out new things-holly trees; muskrat houses rising in small stick-stacks from the ponds; farms that made their own rain, with rows and rows of pipes running along six feet in air, to shower water on the vegetables below.

It was late afternoon, and dark because of the clouds, when the truck reached the bogs. These bogs weren't at all what Rose-Ellen and d.i.c.k had expected, but only wet-looking fields of low bushes.

There was no chance to look at them now, for everyone was hurrying to get settled.

The _padrone_ led them to a one-room shed built of rough boards and helped dump their belongings inside. Grandma stood at the door, hands on hips, and said, "Well, good land of love! If anybody'd told me I'd live in a shack!"

Rose-Ellen danced around her, shrieking joyously, "Peekaneeka, Gramma! Peekaneeka!"

Grandma's face creased in an unwilling smile and she said, "You'll get enough peekaneeka before you're done, or I miss my guess."

"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and split the air with thunder and lightning.

"My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the baby and Seth Thomas?"

For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping.

For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought.

After that came bedtime.

Rose-Ellen lay across the foot of Grandpa and Grandma's goosefeather bed, spread on the floor. After the rain stopped, fresh air flowed through the light walls.

Cranberry-picking did not start next morning till ground and bushes had dried a little. Grandpa and Daddy had time first to knock together stools and a table, and to find on a dumpheap a little old stove, which they propped up and mended so Grandma could cook on it.

"The land's sakes," Grandma grumbled, "a hobo contraption like that!"

While they washed the breakfast dishes and straightened the one room, the grown-ups discussed whether the children should work in the bog.

Their Italian neighbor in the next shack had said, "No can maka da living unless da keeds dey work, too. Dey can work. My youngest, he four year and he work good."

"Likely we could take Baby along, and Jimmie could watch her while we pick," Grandma said dubiously. "But my fingers are all thumbs when I've got them children on my mind.--Somebody's at the door."

A tall young girl with short yellow curls stood tapping at the open door. Grandma looked at her approvingly, her blouse was so crisply white.

"Good morning," said the girl. "I've come from the Center, where we have a day nursery for the little folks." She smiled down at Jimmie and Sally. "Wouldn't you like us to take care of yours while the grown-ups are working?" She made the older children feel grown-up by the polite way she looked at them.

"I've heard of the Centers," Grandma said, leaning on her broom.

"But I never did get much notion what you did with the young-ones there."

"Well, all sorts of things," said the girl. "They sing and make things and learn Bible verses. And in the afternoon they have a nap-time. It's loads of fun for them."

"They take their lunch along?" Grandma inquired.

"Oh, no! A good hot lunch is part of the program."

"But, then, how much does it cost?"

"A nickel apiece a day."

"Come, come, young lady, that don't make sense," Grandpa objected. "You'd lose money lickety-split."

The girl laughed. "We aren't doing it for money. We get money and supplies from groups of women in all the different churches.

The owner of the bog helps, too. But we'll have to hurry, or your row boss will be tooting his whistle." Her eyes were admiring children and shack as she talked. Though not like Grandma's lost house, this camp was already clean and orderly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the way to the Center]

So the three went to the Center, the girl carrying Sally, and Jimmie hobbling along in sulky silence.

Jimmie had stayed so much at home that he didn't know how to behave with strangers. Because he didn't want anyone to guess that he was bashful, he frowned fiercely. Because he didn't want anyone to think him "sissy," he had his wavy hair clipped till his head looked like a golf ball. He was a queer, unhappy boy.

He was unhappier when they reached the big, bright, shabby house that was the Center. Could it be safe to let Sally mingle with the ragged, dirty children who were flocking in, he wondered?

His anxiety soon vanished. The babies were bathed and the bigger children sent to rows of wash-basins. In a jiffy, clean babies lay taking their bottles in clean baskets and clean children were dressed in clean play-suits.

Besides the yellow-haired girl (her name was Miss Abbott, but Jimmie never called her anything but "Her" and "She"), there were two girls and an older woman, all busy. When clean-up time was past and the babies asleep, the older ones had a worship service with songs and stories.

After worship came play. Outdoors were sandpiles and swings.

Indoors were books and games. Jimmie longed for storybooks and reading cla.s.s; but how could he tell Her that he was nine years old and couldn't read? He huddled in a corner, scowling, and turned pages as if he were reading.

Meanwhile the rest of the family had answered the whistle of the row boss, and were being introduced to the cranberries. d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen were excited and happy, for it was the first fruit they had ever picked. Though the wet bushes gave them shower baths, the sun soon dried them. Since the ground was deep in mud, they had gone barefoot, on the advice of Pauline Isabel, the colored girl in a neighboring shack. The cool mud squshed up between their toes and plastered their legs pleasantly.

The grown folks had been given wooden hands for picking--scoops with finger-like cleats! At first they were awkward at stripping the branches, but soon the berries began to drop briskly into the scoops. The children, who could get at the lower branches more easily, picked by hand; and before noon all the Beecham fingers were sore from the p.r.i.c.kly stems and leaves. In the afternoon they had less trouble, for an Italian family near by showed them how to wrap their fingers with adhesive tape.

But picking wasn't play. The Beechams trudged back to their shack that night, sunburned and dirty and too stiff to straighten their backs, longing for nothing but to drop down on their beds.

"Good land of love!" Grandma scolded. "Lie down all dirty on my clean beds? I hope I ain't raised me up a mess of pigs. You young-ones, you fetch a pail of water from the pump, and we'll see how clean we can get. My land, what wouldn't I give for a bathtub and a sink! And a gas stove!"

"Peekaneeka, Gramma!" d.i.c.k reminded her, squeezing her.

"Picnic my foot! I'm too old for such goings-on."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lying down on the beds]

Though Grandma's rheumatism had doubled her up like a jack-knife, she scrubbed herself with energy and soon had potatoes boiling, pork sizzling, and tea brewing on the rickety stove. Daddy brought Jimmie and Sally from the Center. After supper they felt a little better.

Jimmie wouldn't tell about the Center, but from inside his blouse he hauled a red oilcloth bag, and emptied it out on the table.

There were scissors, crayons, paste, pencil, and squares of colored paper. And there was a note which Jimmie smoothed out and handed to Daddy.

"From Jimmie Brown," he read, "Bethel Church, Cleveland."