The truck rumbled through clustering 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 Dick 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 Dick 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.
[Illustration: 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 class; 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. Dick 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 prickly 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!" Dick reminded her, squeezing her.
"Picnic my foot! I'm too old for such goings-on."
[Illustration: 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."
"We-we were s'posed to write thank-you letters!" Jimmie burst out
miserably. "She sat us all down to a table and gave us pens and
paper."
"And what did you do, Son?" Daddy asked, smoothing the bristly
little head. "I said could I take mine home," Jimmie mumbled,
fishing a tight-folded sheet of paper from his pocket.
"I'll write it for you," Rose-Ellen offered. She sat down and
began the letter, with Jimmie telling her what he wanted to say.
"But the real honest thing to do will be to tell her you didn't
write it yourself," Grandma said pityingly.
"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the
subject. "She said to bring Dick and Rose-Ellen."
Dick and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that
night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had
to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had
hardened their muscles did they go to the Center.
When they did go--Jimmie limping along with his clipped head
tucked sulkily between his shoulders as if he were not really
proud to take them-they found the place alive with fun. Besides
the three girls and the woman, there was a young man from a
near-by university. He was organizing ping-pong games and indoor
baseball for the boys and girls and even volleyball for some
grown men who had come. Everyone was busy and everyone happy.
"It's slick here, some ways," Dick said that night.
"For a few weeks," Daddy agreed.
"If it wasn't for the misery in my back, it wouldn't be bad,"
Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her
own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining
set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a
real house to live in."
"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said
Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed.
"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn
reading?" Daddy coaxed.
"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged.
Yet, as October passed, something happened to change Jimmie's
mind.
As October passed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking.
They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill
a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries
were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The
bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from
freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the
shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they
didn't find it hard work now.
"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as
she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled
and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd be lighting
little kindling fires in the furnace night and morning. And hot
water just by lighting the gas! Land, I never knew my own luck."
"But I like it here!" Jimmie burst out eagerly. "Do you know
something? I'm going to learn to read! I colored my pictures
the neatest of anyone in the class, and She put them all on the
wall. So then I didn't mind telling her how I never learned to
read and write and how Rose-Ellen wrote my letter to Jimmie Brown
in Cleveland."
He beamed so proudly that Grandpa, wringing a sheet for Grandma,
looked sorrowfully at him over his glasses. "It's a pity you
didn't tell her sooner, young-one," he said. "The cranberries
will be over in a few more days, and we'll be going back."
"Back to Philadelphia?" Rose-Ellen demanded. "Where? Not to a
Home? I won't! I'd rather go on and shuck oysters like Pauline
Isabel and her folks. I'd rather go on where they're cutting
marsh hay. I'd rather--"
"Well, now," Grandpa's words were slow, "what about it, kids?
What about it, Grandma? Do we go back to the city and-and part
company till times are better? Or go on into oysters together?"
The tears stole down Jimmie's cheeks, but he didn't say anything.
Daddy didn't say anything, either. He picked Sally up and hugged
her so hard that she grunted and then put her tiny hands on his
cheeks and peered into his eyes, chirping at him like a little
bird.
"I calculate we'll go on into oysters," said Grandpa.