Nearly every available grape-picker in the little valley was at
Bassett's vineyard. There was a faint murmur of surprise when Em walked
into the camp on Monday morning.
"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 clusters
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 casement 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!"