Stories of the Foot-hills Part 24

"I thought you weren't coming, Em," said Irene Burnham, curving her smooth, sunburned neck away from the tall young fellow who stood beside her.

"I changed my mind," said Em quietly.

"It's awful hot work," giggled Irene, "and I always burn so; I wish I tanned. But I'm going to hold out the rest of this week, if I burn to a cinder."

"'Rene's after a new parasol," announced her brother teasingly; "she's bound to save her complexion if it takes the skin off."

The young people gave a little shout of delight, and straggled down the aisles of the vineyard. The thick growth had fallen away from the gnarled trunks of the vines, and the grapes hung in yellowing cl.u.s.ters to the warm, sun-dried earth. The trays were scattered in uneven rows on the plowed ground between the vines, their burden turning to sweetened amber in the sunshine. The air was heavy with the rich, fruity ferment of the grapes. Bees were beginning to drone among the trays. The mountains which hemmed in the little valley were a deep, velvety blue in the morning light. Em looked at them with a new throb in her heart. She did not care what was beyond them as she walked between the tangled vine-rows. Stephen Elliott had left Irene, and walked beside her. The valley was wide enough for Em's world,--a girl's world, which is hemmed in by mountains always, and always narrow.

As the day advanced the gay calls of the grape-harvesters grew more and more infrequent. The sky seemed to fade in the glare of the sun to a pale, whitish blue. Buzzards reeled through the air, as if drunken with sunlight. The ashen soil of the vineyard burned Em's feet and dazzled her eyes. She stood up now and then and looked far down the valley where the yellow barley-stubble shimmered off into haze. As she looked, something straightened her lips into a resolute line and sent her back to her work with softened eyes.

"Do you get very tired, Em?" her brother asked, as she sat in the doorway at nightfall.

The girl leaned her head against the cas.e.m.e.nt as if to steady her weary voice.

"Not very," she said slowly and gravely; "it's a little warm at noon, but I don't mind it."

"I thought sure I'd be up by this time," fretted the invalid, the yearning in his heart that pain could not quench turning his sympathy to envy.

"The doctor says you're getting on real well, Ben," said Em steadily.

The young fellow looked down at his wasted hands, gray and ghostly in the twilight.

"Was 'Rene there?" he asked.

"Yes."

"It isn't like having your sister go out to work, Benny," said Mrs.

Wickersham soothingly; "just the neighbors, and real nice folks, too. I wouldn't fret about it."

On Wednesday morning, as Em neared the camp, she saw the grape-pickers gathered in a little group before the girls' tent. Steve Elliott separated himself from the crowd, and came to meet her.

"We've struck, Em," he said, smiling down at her from the shadow of his big hat.

"Who's we?" asked Em gravely.

"All of us. They're paying a dollar and a quarter over at Briggs's; we ain't a-goin' to stand it."

Em had stopped in the path. The young fellow stepped behind her, and she went on.

"Why don't you all go over to Briggs's and go to work?" she asked, without turning her head.

"Too far--the foreman'll come to time."

They came up to the noisy group, and Em seated herself on a pile of trays and loosened the strings of her wide hat; she was tired from her walk, and the pallor of her face made her lips seem redder.

Irene Burnham crossed over to the newcomer, shrugging herself with girlish self-consciousness.

"Isn't it just too mean, Em?" she panted; "I know they'll discharge us.

That means good-by to my new parasol; I've been dying for one all summer, a red silk one"--

"Let up on the parasol racket, Sis," called one of the Burnham boys; "business is business."

The hum of the young voices went on, mingled with gay, irresponsible laughter. Em got up and began to tie her hat.

"Where are you going?" asked one of the girls.

"I'm going to work."

"To work! why, we've struck!"

"I haven't," said Em soberly. "I'm willing to work for a dollar a day."

There was a little cry of dismay from the girls; Steve Elliott's tanned face flushed a coppery red.

"You ain't goin' back on us, Em?" he said angrily.

"I ain't going back on my word," answered the girl; "you needn't work if you don't want to; this is a free country."

"It isn't, though,"' said Ike Burnham; "the raisin men have a ring--there's no freedom where there's rings."

"I suppose they go into them because they want to," said Em, setting her lips.

"They go into them because they'd get left if they didn't."

"Well, if I was a raisin man," persisted the girl quietly, "and wanted to go into a ring, I'd do it; but if anybody undertook to boss me into it, they'd have the same kind of a contract on hand that you've got."

She turned her back on the little group and started toward the vineyard.

Irene had drifted toward Steve Elliott's side and was smiling expectantly up into his bronzed face. He broke away from her glance and strode after the retreating figure.

"Em!" The girl turned quickly.

"Oh, Steve!" she cried, with a pleading sob in her voice.

"Em, you're making a fool of yourself!" he broke out cruelly.

The curve in the red lips straightened.

"Let me alone!" she gasped, putting up her hand to her throat. "If I'm to be made a fool of, I'd rather do it myself. I guess I can stand it, if you'll let me alone!"

III.

When Ba.s.sett's foreman rode into the vineyard at noon to talk with the strikers, he saw a wide brown hat moving slowly among the vine-rows.

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing with his whip.

"Em Wickersham," said one of the group sullenly.