At the Little Brown House Part 20

"Lots of people around here have raspberries," said Peace.

"And they want money for them, too."

"Mr. Hardman doesn't pay any 'tention to his down in the pasture. I've helped myself there lots of times."

"But his wife does. I saw her there this morning."

Peace said no more, but, waiting until she saw their neighbor bring up his cows to be milked, she slipped through the fence onto his land and accosted him with the abrupt question, "How much will you take for the rest of your raspberries?"

"What?"

She repeated her inquiry, and after scratching his head meditatively, he exclaimed, as if to himself, "Another money-making scheme! If she don't beat the Dutch!"

"This is a jelly-making scheme," returned Peace, with comical dignity.

"There is no money in it."

"Oh! Well, don't you know that raspberries are expensive?"

"Most people's are, but you never paid any 'tention to yours, so I thought you would be glad to get rid of them for little or nothing."

"Oho!" he teased. "Begging again!"

"I'm not!" Peace denied hotly. "I'll pay for them if you don't charge too high."

"How much will you pay?"

"I haven't any money, but I'll pick on shares."

"Share and share alike?"

"Yes; I'll keep half for my trouble, and you will get half for no trouble."

Her method of figuring always amused him, and now he laughed outright, "Seems to me I am ent.i.tled to them all. They are my berries, you know."

"Well," stormed Peace, "if that's the way you look at it, you can pick 'em, too!"

"Aw, don't get mad," he said soothingly. "I was just teasing. Of course you can pick all the raspberries you want. My wife said just this morning that the bushes were loaded, and she couldn't begin to handle them all herself. But--say--that reminds me--I've rented the pasture to old Skinner, and he's put his bull in there. You will have to watch your chance when the old critter is out, to pick your berries."

"All right," cried Peace, expressing her elation by hopping about on one foot. "It's awfully nice of you to give us the berries you don't care to pick yourself, and we will see that the bull doesn't bother."

She was half way across the field by the time she had finished speaking, eager to tell the good news to the girls; and before the dew was dry on the gra.s.s the next morning, three sunbonneted figures scampered down the road to Mr. Hartman's lower pasture, armed with big pails and Allee's red wagon, intent on picking all the berries they could for Faith's jelly.

"We'll have to leave Allee's cart outside the fence," said Peace, climbing the high rails with astonishing agility and dropping nimbly down on the other side. "Do you see the Skinflint's bull anywhere?"

"No," answered Cherry, taking a careful survey of the field from her perch on the top rail. "There isn't a thing stirring."

"Then maybe we can pick all we want before the deacon brings him down.

Hurry, and keep a sharp lookout for the old beast. My, but these bushes are stickery!"

"I should say they are," Cherry agreed, ruefully eyeing her bleeding hands. "I don't believe it is going to be any fun picking raspberries.

They are lots worse than blackberries."

"S'posing we had been the prince who crawled through the hedge to wake Sleeping Beauty. I bet he got good and scratched up, but he kept right on and fin'ly kissed the princess awake."

"There ain't any princess in these bushes," grumbled Cherry, pausing to suck a wounded thumb.

"No, but there are _berries_, and they are more important than princesses. We couldn't make jelly out of a princess, but we can out--Mercy, what was that noise?"

"It's the bull! Run, run! There it comes down the hill!" shrieked Cherry, standing as if rooted to the spot, and staring with horror at the angry animal tearing across the pasture toward them.

"Run yourself, you ninny!" screamed Peace, giving the older girl a push, and then scrambling for the fence with Allee dragging by one arm behind her.

There was no time to climb over, and the lower rail was too close to the ground for them to crawl under, but Peace did not linger to discuss the question. Grabbing the frightened baby by the heels, she thrust her between the slats, and gave her a shove that pitched her head first into a stagnant mudhole just outside the fence. Then pausing only long enough to see that Cherry was safely through, she followed, still clutching her now empty pail, and landing beside Allee in the mud.

"Whew! What a smell!" she spluttered, righting herself and trying to dig her sister out of the pool. "And all on account of that miserable, cowardly bull! Why don't you take someone your own size to fight?" She shook her fist defiantly at the pawing, bellowing brute by the fence, and not satisfied with that method of expressing her anger, she flung the empty bucket at his head, crying in frenzy, "Take that, you old sinner! It b'longs to the berries you've already got."

Her aim was truer than she had antic.i.p.ated, and the pail fell with a rattling clatter over the beast's ugly-looking horns, frightening him so that for a brief moment he stood perfectly still. Then, with a snort of fear and fury, he set off across the field at a mad gallop, with the bucket still tossing on his head.

Peace glared angrily after the retreating enemy, too indignant over her loss to think of their peril until Cherry quavered, "Hadn't we better run while we have a chance? Suppose he should batter the fence down."

"No danger," Peace muttered shortly; but she picked herself up from the ground, where she was trying to sc.r.a.pe the ill-smelling mud off her shoes, and marched majestically up the road, trundling the cart behind her.

"Where are you going?" cried Cherry, when they reached the first cross street. "Here's where we turn."

"Turn, then! I'm going on to old Skinflint's house and tell him to keep that ugly bull out of Hartman's pasture until we get those raspberries picked."

"With that nasty mud all over you?"

"Mud and all," was the stubborn answer, and from force of habit, Cherry fell into step beside her again, tramping along in silence until the Skinner place was reached.

It just happened that the old man himself was hurrying up the path from the barn as they approached, and Peace stopped him with an imperious wave of her hand, speaking straight to the point before he could even ask her what she wanted.

"Your bull won't let us pick raspberries in the lower pasture. Mr.

Hartman said we might, but just when we got our pails 'most full, that old thing had to come along and bunt at us. We skipped, but he made us lose all our berries. We'd like to have you tie him up or take him out until we can get those berries picked."

The grouchy old fellow stood with open mouth, glaring at the mud-bespattered figures, as if he doubted his senses, and as Peace finished her speech, he laughed mirthlessly, screeching in his harsh, cracked, rasping voice, "I put that bull in pasture myself, and there he stays! I don't do any tying up, either. I rented that field and it's the same as mine for as long as I hire it. You can't have them berries at all. They are mine."

"Mr. Hartman said we could have them," Peace insisted; "and I guess he wouldn't give away what didn't b'long to him. He may have rented the pasture to you, but he never rented the berries."

Suddenly the old man changed tactics. "You can have all the berries you can get," he taunted, shaking a warning finger in their faces, "but that bull stays right there in that field!"

"All right, old Skinflint!" roared Peace, forgetting everything else in her furious pa.s.sion, and shaking an emphatic finger back at him. "Just 'member that, will you? We'll get the berries in spite of your old _animule_!"

She stamped out of the yard and down the road toward home once more, nursing her wrath and trying to think of some way whereby she might get the disputed fruit, for she well knew that the deacon would do all he could to prevent her now.

Early the next morning she was at the pasture again, only to find the vicious enemy grazing close by, watching with wicked eyes every flirt of her dress, as if defying her to gather the luscious red berries hanging so temptingly near.

The second day it was the same, and the third. It looked as if the enemy had conquered; but Peace was not to be easily defeated. She had set her heart on picking that fruit, and she meant to have it at any cost.