"Now if I only had a camera," said Alice as she and Mary Jane and her
grandmother were sitting out on the back porch one morning, shelling
peas for dinner, "I'd take a picture of you both. Wouldn't it make a
good one?"
Grandmother looked at Mary Jane. The sunshine splattered through the
cracks between the vine-covered lattice and shone on her bobbed brown
hair, on her pink play dress and on the bright green pea pods in her
lap. Mary Jane looked at her grandmother and saw the snow white hair,
the kindly face that smiled above the big work apron and the busy hands.
"Wouldn't it, though!" they both exclaimed at exactly the same minute.
And then they all three had a good laugh.
"All the same I wish I had a camera," insisted Alice.
"Does your mother think you're old enough to know how to use one?"
asked Grandmother.
"Old enough, Grandmother!" exclaimed Mary Jane. "Alice's twelve!" And
the way she said twelve showed that she thought twelve was very, very
old indeed.
Grandmother smiled and Alice added, "She's willing I should have one,
Grandmother, only I must buy it myself. And saving money out of my
allowance is slow work. I've a dollar now but I need seventy-five
cents more."
"Seems to me you should be able to earn that much," said Grandmother.
"Earn it?" asked Alice. "How?"
"Oh, by some sort of work," answered Grandmother.
"Oh, could I really?" exclaimed Alice delightedly. "What could I do?"
"Could I earn some too?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.
"What do you want money for?" laughed Alice, as though a little girl
wouldn't have use for such a thing as money! "You always want to do
everything, Mary Jane!"
"Of course she does," said Grandmother comfortably, "and you do too.
The thing I'm thinking about is more fun if done by two anyway. But
what do you want your money for, dear?" she asked the little girl.
"I want it to get a present for my dear mother," said Mary Jane, "a
present that she don't know anything about and that Daddah don't know
anything about and that nobody gives me the money for. Can I really
truly earn some money?"
"Surely," replied Grandmother. "See those woods, girls?" She pointed
across the garden and across the cornfield to the woods about a quarter
of a mile away. "In those woods are blackberry bushes, lots of them.
And this is about the beginning of the blackberry season. Now if you
girls really want to earn some money you may take your little baskets
and go berrying. I'll buy all you can pick at ten cents a quart. You
ought to easily get your seventy-five cents that way, Alice, for the
bushes ate usually loaded with berries."
"But the berries are yours to begin with," objected Alice, who liked to
be fair; "we can't sell you something that already belongs to you."
"Of course you can't," replied Grandmother, much pleased with Alice's
honesty. "I shouldn't have said 'buy the berries'; I should have said
'pay you for the picking' at ten cents a quart. If I 'bought' the
berries of any one I would have to pay fifteen or twenty cents a quart.
And if I hired some one to pick them for me as I have some years, I
would have to pay ten cents a quart, just as I offered you. So, you
see, I promised you no more than you will fairly earn."
"How do you pick berries?" asked Alice.
"There's only one way," laughed Grandmother, much amused at the
question. "You touch them and off they come! Just pick them off the
bushes and drop them in your basket and the thing is done."
"Let's go now," said Mary Jane eagerly.
"Not now," answered Grandmother, "because it's too near dinner time.
Wait till you have your dinner and a little rest of half an hour. Then
you can start and pick all afternoon."
By two o'clock the girls had hunted up the berry baskets Grandmother
told them to find in the attic (cunning little baskets with long,
curving handles they were, too) and, tying on their biggest sun hats,
they started out through the garden path.
They crossed the field, climbed the fence into the woods and turned
down the wagon road as Grandmother had directed them. And sure enough,
there were the berry bushes just as she had said. Bushes that were
fairly loaded with shining blackberries that glistened in the afternoon
sunshine.
[Illustration: "There were the berry bushes--fairly loaded with shining
blackberries."]
The girls set to work most enthusiastically and by the time Grandfather
came to see how they liked their job (for, of course, he had heard all
about it at dinner time) they had their baskets nearly full. He walked
home with them and helped them measure out their berries with
Grandmother's quart measure. Alice had a quart and a half and Mary
Jane a full, even quart and Grandmother paid immediately--fifteen cents
for Alice and ten cents, a bright new dime, for Mary Jane.
"My, but I do be rich!" exclaimed Mary Jane delightedly. "I can get my
dear mother the nicest thing!"
"Of course you can, Pussy," said Grandfather, "and Alice will have her
camera in no time. I get the best of all, though," he added with a
mysterious nod of his head.
"How do you?" asked both girls at once.
"I get to eat the jam!" replied Grandfather in a comical attempt at a
whisper.
"They do too, bless their hearts!" exclaimed Grandmother. They shall
eat all they want. I'll make it first thing in the morning."
"And first thing in the morning I mean to get more berries," said
Alice. "Let me see--fifteen into seventy-five:--in four more days I'll
have enough money to get my camera!" And she danced around gayly, she
was so delighted.
"Not quite," laughed Grandfather; "don't be in too big a hurry,
Blunderbuss; you have to give the berries a chance to ripen. Better
plan to go every other day. You'll get more at a time that way."
"And I'm going, too," put in Mary Jane, "so I can get more money for
Mother's present."
"I was thinking about that present while you girls were gone," said
Grandmother. "You'd better get that present in the city where the
stores are good. Why don't you save it for her Christmas gift? That
would be nice."
"But I wanted to give her something when she comes to take me home!"
objected Mary Jane, who had set her heart on making her mother a gift,
"something that I did."
"That's all right," Grandmother assured her; "give her something then,
too. Something you made yourself and save the money you earn till
Christmas. How would you like to make her some blackberry jam? She
likes blackberry jam and you could make that."
"Could I really?" exclaimed Mary Jane, and she sidled over to where her
grandmother was standing.
"How silly!" cried Alice. "You know she can't make jam, Grandmother;
she's only five years old. Why, even I don't know how to make jam and
I'm twelve!"
"Is that so?" laughed Grandmother, and she slipped her arm around Mary
Jane. "Well, what you can do and what Mary Jane can do has no
connection. You don't know what she can do. She's going to be a good
cook; she's begun already. And if she wants to make a glass of jam for
her mother, all by herself, she shall do it, so there! And you can
make some, too, if you want to, dear," she added kindly to Alice.
"Thank you, Grandmother," said Alice, "and I'm sorry I spoke so about
you, dear," she added to Mary Jane; "go ahead and make your jam, pet,
and I'll make Mother something else. I know it would be more fun for
you to make it without me. May I make her a cake, Grandmother? Make
it the day before she comes?"
Grandmother assured her that she could and they all went in to get
supper.
The next morning Mary Jane put on her cooking cap and apron and she and
Grandmother went at the jam while Alice and Grandfather rode to the
village on an errand.
"Measure out a good big cup full of berries," said Grandmother; "pile
it full as it will hold and wash them and put them in this pan."
Mary Jane picked out nice big, juicy berries; that wasn't hard to do
because most of the berries were very fine; the girls hadn't picked any
other kind. Then she washed them carefully and put them in the pan
Grandmother had given her.
"Now measure an even cupful of sugar," said Grandmother, "and pour it
over your berries." And Mary Jane went to the sugar bin and did as she
was told.
"Now," continued Grandmother, "shake the berries till the sugar's well
mixed in and then set the pan on the stove."
While the berries were cooking Grandmother had her hunt out a nice
jelly glass, one that the top fitted on firmly; wash and dry it ready
for the jelly. Then Mary Jane took a big spoon and Grandmother took a
big spoon and they stood by the stove and watched the jam boil. When
the bubbles got big, oh, very big, and looked as shining as big glass
beads, Grandmother said it was about done and must be tested. She put
her spoon in and then, holding it over the pan of jam, let the hot jam
drop off.
"Almost done," said Grandmother, with a satisfied nod; "now you try it,
Mary Jane."
So Mary Jane dipped her spoon in just as her grandmother had done and
again the jam dropped off, this time a little slower and with longer
drops. Grandmother told her to put the glass on a chair, on a paper,
and by the time she had done that the jam was ready to pour into the
glass.
When Alice and Grandfather came home from their errand the glass of jam
was all done and was on the table near the window, covered neatly with
its tin cover ready to give to Mrs. Merrill when she should come.
"And that won't be so many days now either," said Grandmother. "I
declare, how this summer has gone!"