GREEN LEAVES
"So the great day has come at last! My word, but you've had the courage
of your convictions! What a stretch of 'em!"
"Of convictions? Well, they're certainly embodied in those seven acres,
whether there are any strawberries there or not. Don't you want to get
over the fence and stroll up one of the rows? You may find a specimen or
two of fruit worth setting your teeth into."
Neil Chase, correctly clad in light flannels, eyed the fence critically
before he clambered over it. "I can be trusted to tear myself if there's
a twopenny splinter anywhere," said he. "Must admit it looks rather worth
while over here, though. Hello--Dorothy's over already. Who's that
assisting her? The Reverend Donald--in blue overalls! It's lucky Old
Dutch can't see him now! I say, you've got a lot of pickers. Are they all
members of the firm?"
Jarvis laughed as he followed Chase's glance up the rows. "You've
struck us on our first day," he admitted. "We agreed to make it a
special celebration among ourselves, since only a small part of the
berries are ripe."
"The pink sun-bonnet covers an acquaintance, then," inferred Neil,
watching it approach from a distance. "Hello--it's Sally!" and he pulled
off his hat to wave it in response to a salutation from the pink
sun-bonnet, whose removal had disclosed a fair head whose locks the June
sunshine was turning into gold. "I suppose the blue one conceals Jo
Burnside, the white one Miss Ferry, and so forth. I always said you
people were no farmers--to dress for the part like stage
strawberry-pickers," he added, as Sally came within hearing.
"Why not? Could any stage be set to equal this one?" inquired Sally Lane.
"No, no--you can't shake hands with me--" She held up ten carmine-tipped
fingers. "What could be more appropriate for picking strawberries than a
pink gingham?"
"It's mighty becoming, anyhow," Neil offered tribute. "Jove, Sally, but
farming certainly does agree with you. Talk of roses--Dorothy!" he
called, "come here and look at these cheeks! Full in the sunlight, too.
I'll wager yours couldn't stand such a test."
Sally promptly put on her sun-bonnet. "A strawberry patch is no
place for flattery, Mr. Neil Chase," said she. "Come with me,
Dorothy. I'll show you the biggest berry you ever saw in your
life--and you may eat it, too."
Mrs. Chase gathered her white skirts about her, planted her white-shod
feet recklessly in the wake of Sally's, and arrived in due time at the
point where Sally had been picking. From nearby rows Josephine Burnside,
Janet Ferry, and Constance Carew lifted heads to greet her.
"How awfully busy you all are!" cried Dorothy, consuming a fat berry with
which Sally presented her. "Too busy to greet your friends!"
"This isn't a reception, it's a working affair," Janet replied gayly.
"Guests may help themselves to refreshments, but mustn't expect the
hostesses to stop picking."
"You have no trouble about getting the men at your entertainments,
Sally," observed Dorothy, scanning the field. "They're all here, I
see--even Max. Has he left the bank?"
"Yes, the first of May. This is our third season, you know--but the first
one of bearing. Max is as enthusiastic as anybody, now. When you see him
nearer you'll discover a great change in him. No more banks for him, if
we can make anything like a success with the strawberries."
"How do you know that you will? You're such amateurs at it."
"We're not, if study of the subject amounts to anything," Sally
asserted, with a little air of pride. "Between books and experiment
stations, and Alec's course at an agricultural school last winter, and
Jarvis's visits to practical strawberry-growers, it would be strange if
our methods went all astray. But they're not going astray. Look at these
berries you're eating!"
Down the rows Jarvis was pursuing much the same line of argument with
Neil Chase. "It's not in reason, you know," the visitor objected,
critically selecting choice specimens of fruit along the rows and eating
them with evident relish, "it's not in reason for a lot of fellows like
you, fresh from books and banks, to jump into this sort of thing and make
it go without a hitch."
"Well, you have the evidence of your eyes before you," Jarvis returned
with great good humour, from his knees among the vines where he was now
picking busily again. "To be sure it hasn't gone without a hitch. Last
season we had a long spring drought to fight--and fought it, too, with
irrigation. This spring the shot-hole fungus attacked us, but we overcame
it with spraying. Of course next year a killing frost may come along and
finish the crop for the year--we can't fight that. Such a frost is to
be reckoned with on an average of about once in five years. But on the
other years we expect to make up. Don't you think we can get our prices
for such berries as these? And will you tell me why brains, even amateur
ones, can't solve such problems as we have to face? You lawyers tackle
hard cases and win them, even while you're green--if you possess certain
qualities to begin with. We may be conceited, but we have an idea we
possess the qualities necessary to successful strawberry culture. As a
game, it's certainly a mighty interesting one."
"The average farmer," Neil argued, "isn't a rich experimenter like you.
He can't afford to put good gold into fertilizers and irrigating pumps. I
should think these fellows all around you would hate you for having the
advantage of them."
"On the contrary, as a matter of fact all but one or two are our very
good friends, and much interested in our schemes. They've given us a lot
of valuable advice--not on strawberry culture, because that's not in
their line, but in other ways. They enjoy our mistakes hugely--that's
only human--but they don't do it in an ill-natured way. Last spring when
we sowed clover-seed for millet and didn't recognize it till the crop
appeared, it was worth it to see them laugh at the joke, particularly as
we didn't mind laughing with them. But I can tell you where we're scoring
the biggest success after all, _and the one that would pay if half our
crops turned out failures_. You haven't been out here for a year, at
least. Take a look at Max, Alec, and Bob, when you get close to them, and
tell me if they look like the same chaps you used to know in town."
"You don't, yourself," admitted Chase, somewhat grudgingly. He, himself,
was decidedly slender of limb much to his regret. Also, in spite of
incessant motoring, his face was not that of unexceptionable health. "You
look as rugged as a rock. Never thought you were cut out for an athlete,
either, when you were in college."
"I rather think that siege with my eyes was the best thing that ever
happened to me--though it didn't seem much like it at the time. Look at
that berry." He held out a fine specimen. "That goes in Class
A--specials, all right."
"How many classes do you have?" Neil inquired, making way with the
specimen from Class A in one huge mouthful, and finding it so juicy he
was forced to make prompt use of his handkerchief.
"Two, but we're going to draw a strict line. The big ones are to be big
to the bottom of the basket--and no false bottoms. A reputation is what
we're after--then the prices will take care of themselves."
Neil strolled down the row. He had information enough. He wanted to
inspect the strawberry-pickers, one at a time. It was not every day that
one could meet distinguished young clergymen, accomplished pianists, and
singers of unusual promise, between rows of strawberry vines.
The Chases had not been invited to be present at this special celebration
of the first day of the strawberry picking, but they unhesitatingly
accepted the invitation to stay to luncheon offered them as the hour for
that meal drew near. When the party left the field for the house it was
discovered that Joanna, assisted by Mrs. Burnside and Mrs. Ferry, had
moved the luncheon-table from the dining-room to the big porch.
"Well, of all the romantic, impractical farmers!" ejaculated Neil Chase,
as he beheld this arrangement at close range, the table set with old
blue-and-white china, a great bowl of Sally's old-fashioned pink roses
in the centre. "Don't you know that fried salt-pork and potatoes, in
the kitchen, in your shirt-sleeves, is your only consistent meal, in
the work season?"
"If you will insist on our living up to your notion of the real thing, we
can set a special table for you in the kitchen. I've no doubt we can
borrow some pork somewhere. You can take off your coat and eat your noon
meal there, if you like, sustained by your sense of what is fitting,"
offered Alec. "As for me, I'm going in to wash up, put on my coat, and
eat about twelve square inches of the strawberry-shortcake Joanna's
building for this table. There won't be any of that served in the
kitchen, I warn you, Mr. Chase."
"Thank you, I'm not pointing out my course of action, but criticizing
yours," retorted Neil, surveying with favour a vine-wreathed platter of
broiled chicken, and eyeing hungrily a large salad-bowl filled with a
compound which he knew by experience to be one of Joanna's choicest. "I
say, to be consistent--"
But he found himself delivering his views to Mrs. Burnside alone, for the
rest had trooped in to make themselves presentable.
"You people certainly do manage to get a lot of fun out of your
farming," observed Dorothy Chase, as she watched Sally splashing her
round arms in a vain effort to remove the tan. "We live just as far out
from town as you do, but nothing could be more different than our way of
living from yours."
"Well, if we depended on tennis, golf, and bridge for our fun we'd be
just like you. As we like hayfields, strawberry-patches, and pine groves
better--with tobogganing in winter--we continue to be different."
"I should say golf and tennis were just as healthy exercise as haying and
picking strawberries."
"No doubt they are--but the company isn't so select," declared Sally
audaciously, towelling her wet face so briskly that it emerged looking
more than ever like the roses to which Neil had that morning compared it.
"You impertinent girl! What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that Tom Westlake isn't to be spoken of in the same breath with
Donald Ferry. Billy North is an idiot compared with Jarvis Burnside.
There aren't two girls among all your society friends who can equal Janet
and Constance, and--"
"And Sally Lane, as a hostess, is infinitely superior to Dorothy Chase!"
"Don't put words into my mouth." Sally came close and laid a warm pink
palm on either of Dorothy's cheeks. "Sally Lane is such a bad hostess
she says insulting things to her guests. Don't mind her. She's so excited
and happy to-day over her strawberry acres she's not responsible for what
she says. Come, let's hurry down."
"You people look more like a set of golfers at a summer hotel than you do
like farmers," began Neil Chase, still harping on the theme which seemed
to cause him so much unrest, as the party sat down.
Max opened his mouth for a retort. But, with one look at Donald Ferry,
who sat across the table, he closed it again. He met an amused glance of
comprehension. Then Ferry also opened his lips to speak. But before the
words found breath Mr. Timothy Rudd rose to the occasion.
"Mr. Chase," said he, "since a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet, let me suggest that you call us strawberry gardeners. Not that we
object in the least to being called farmers, for we consider the title
one of honour. But I am confident that you will then be able to reconcile
our having luncheon on the front porch, our coming to the table with our
coats and collars on, and our having strawberries to eat in spite of the
fact that we raise them ourselves, with the indisputable truth that we
make--or are attempting to make--our living off the soil. We profoundly
respect the desire of a member of the legal profession for exactness, not
only in the use of terms, but in the conformity of facts to those terms.
I trust, however, that the compromise I suggest--"
But he got no further. A burst of appreciative laughter, in which Chase
himself was forced to join, bore witness to the effectiveness with which
the cynical critic had been politely answered. However it might be on
after occasions, for to-day Chase became content to enjoy his broiled
chicken and strawberry-shortcake without further comment on the
inconsistency of their appearance upon the table at Strawberry Acres.
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon. The Chases had reluctantly taken their
departure, bearing with them gifts of strawberries and roses. In the
strawberry-patch sunshine and silence reigned undisturbed, except by the
light June breeze which rustled the leaves enough to show beneath them
the fruit which by day-after-to-morrow would be ripe enough to pick. The
first picking had been a small one, and had gone wholly to neighbours and
friends and to consumption upon the home table. In two days more the
gathering of the harvest would begin in earnest. It may not have been
strictly business-like, this opening of the season by feasting and
bestowal, but it had pleased the "Lady of the Garden" so to elect, and
there had been no dissenting voice--not even that of her brother Max.
Everybody else, it may be presumed, had retired to rest and dress for the
evening, which was always spent, when the weather was fair, upon the
porch, when Sally, alone, slipped quietly out of the door at the back of
the hall and betook herself over the grass, through the garden, to the
path which led up the slope to the woods. The path wound past the
orchard, past the strawberry field, and by the side of the pasture where
Cowslip and Whiteface were already turning their faces toward the bars.
Its appearance was an example of the fashion in which utility and
sentiment were likely to find themselves mixed upon the farm called
Strawberry Acres.
Along its borders ran a riot of vines, wild bushes, even of weeds, only
such of the latter having been cut as were pests of the sort which
scatter their seeds to the winds. Trim and workmanlike as was the
clearing up of the ground just beyond the lane, on either side the lane
itself was very nearly in a state of nature. It was, therefore, a
picturesque roadway enough, and Sally walking along it bareheaded, clad
still in the pink gingham of the morning, found it so to an unusual
degree. Yet it must be admitted that it would have been an object ugly
indeed which would have seemed devoid of all beauty to Sally Lane, on
this, the sixteenth of June.
She kept on, straight up the winding lane, to the border of the woods.
When she had reached the first trees, a fine group of oak and chestnut,
lifting stately limbs, long uncut, far into the summer air, she turned
and paused to look back. From this point she could see far, and the whole
of her family's possessions lay before her, outspread in all the beauty
of June at its bonniest. Impulsively she stretched out her arms.
"Sally Lane," she said softly to herself, with her eyes scanning it all,
"if there's a happier girl than you in the world to-day, she must be
entirely out of her senses with joy."
After a little she sat down, her back against a tree-trunk, her face
toward the distant view.... Presently a big green oak leaf fluttered down
past her eyes, and fell into her lap. "That's odd," she thought, and
looked up. Nothing could be seen but the great limbs, rugged with years,
of the oak beneath which she sat. She looked off again at the view.
Another leaf came swirling down past her, lighting on the ground. "It's
probably a squirrel," she explained to herself, concerning this
phenomenon of falling leaves in June, and tried again to descry its
source, without success. When, however, a shower of the green missiles
came down together, she got to her feet, and walked around the tree.
"They had to come, thick as leaves in Vallombrosa," remarked a familiar
voice from far above her, "before you would pay attention. I fired for at
least ten minutes before you would so much as look up. Will you come up,
or shall I come down?"
"I'd like to come up," Sally replied, smiling up into Jarvis's brown
face, as she espied him, sitting astride a limb well up in the branching
foliage. "But I don't think it's practical."
"Why be practical? Nobody is practical on Strawberry Acres, according
to a certain brilliant but skeptical attorney from town. Your
greatest aim has been to remain a girl as long as possible. Girls
climb trees. _Ergo_--"
He began to descend. "Wait!" cried Sally, as he set foot on the lowest
limb, a matter of ten feet above her head, and paused to look down at
her. "Stay there, please--Do you really want me to come up?"
"Very much. It's entirely possible. Set your foot on that knob, reach up
your arm, I'll let myself down far enough to get hold of your hand, and
the next thing you know you'll be sitting beside me here."
"Then what will happen?"
"Then--we'll have a little talk I've been waiting for all day. I began
to think I couldn't get it till evening fell, when the garden might
help me out."
"I think the garden is a very nice place for conversation." Sally put
both hands behind her back, looking up at him.
"Better than the limb of an oak tree? I admit it--for some sorts of
conversation. Up here I should be forced to hold on with one arm. But
there would be compensation in that, for with the other arm I should be
forced to hold you on!"
His laughing eyes looked down at her. She shook her head. "If I came up
the tree I should prove that I am still a girl. If I am still a girl--"
"Are you still a girl? Is that still your greatest desire?" He leaned
forward, and the smile suddenly left his lips. His eyes searched hers.
The face she bravely lifted to him was a girl's for youthful beauty, but
into it had come something very sweet and womanly, which at last gave him
the leave he had waited so long for. "No--I think I've grown up." she
said, quite clearly.
With an exclamation, the sinewy figure in the tree made short work of
the ten feet to the ground, swinging itself off from the limb by both
hands and dropping lightly down.
"I don't think I could have waited a day longer," said Jarvis Burnside.
Then, with the sheltering trunk of the great oak shutting off all
possible vision from the far distant house, he drew Sally Lane into his
eager arms.
* * * * *
"Why so late?" Maxwell Lane looked up to ask, as his sister Sally came
somewhat hurriedly in to dinner, when the rest of the household were
half through.
"Please excuse my pink gingham," apologized Sally, as she dropped into
her chair. She glanced from Mrs. Burnside in cool white to Josephine in
crisp blue.
"Nothing could be more becoming," Josephine asserted, always ready to
defend her friend.
"There's a strawberry stain on her right sleeve," Bob pointed out.
"Where's Jarve?" asked Alec.
"I saw him as I came in. He was on his way," replied Sally, lifting a
glass of water to hide a pair of lips which wanted to laugh.
Jarvis appeared. He also was in the garb be had worn all day. The pair
seemed oddly similar in the nonchalance they could not quite
successfully carry through.
"Look here!" Alec scanned both faces. "You two have been up to
something."
"I've been up a tree," Jarvis replied.
"Have you been up a tree too?" Alec questioned his sister.
"Not at all."
"Did you get him up one?"
Sally attempted to answer, but the merriment upon her lips would not be
controlled. She gave way to it. Her eyes, in spite of themselves, met
Jarvis's. He was laughing too. His face, red showing beneath the tan,
was too radiant with his happiness for him to be able to help Sally with
any further effort at concealment.
"Don't you think we may as well own up?" he questioned her.
"Own up!" cried Alec. "Do you people flatter yourselves there's anything
for you to own up to, that we don't already know?"
"Good for you!" And Max rose up to shake Jarvis's hand.
"It's nothing new, but it's great!" roared Bob, and patted his
sister's shoulder.
"My dear!" said Mrs. Burnside. She rose, and Sally ran to her. Josephine
followed eagerly, pausing to embrace her brother on the way.
"I don't see," said Uncle Timothy, "but that I am the one to say the
only fitting thing. Therefore I say it--from my heart." He seized
Jarvis's hand. Sally turned from Josephine to put her arm about his neck.
"God bless you, my children," said Uncle Timothy.