Over the Fence
“Are you hurt, Veve?”
Connie scrambled down from her own ladder to help her little friend up
from the ground.
Veve brushed dirt from her Brownie uniform and picked up the beanie
which had fallen from her head. Ruefully she gazed at the spilled
cherries. Scarcely a handful remained in the tin bucket.
“Oh, I’m all right,” she muttered, rubbing an elbow. “But see what
happened! Now Mr. Hooper won’t want the Brownies to pick in his
orchard.”
Even as she spoke, the orchard owner hurried up, Cap barking at his
heels.
From a distance, he had seen Veve tumble from the ladder. He was afraid
she might have been injured.
“Didn’t I warn you to be careful?” he asked a trifle crossly. “If you
had broken an arm--”
“You don’t have to be liable for my fall,” Veve assured him. “I’m not
hurt a bit.”
Hurriedly she began to pick up the scattered cherries.
“We tried so hard,” Connie said. She felt quite crushed by the
disaster. “I--I guess we aren’t very good pickers.”
Pa Hooper patted her shoulder. “You’ve done well for the first time,”
he said, peering into her pail. “It was just an accident. They will
happen sometimes, despite precautions.”
“Then you think we’re good enough to get the job for the Brownies?”
Veve demanded. Pa Hooper’s words had revived her hope.
Before the orchard owner could reply, Cap gave a little yip to attract
attention. Then he sat up and begged, waving his two front paws.
Veve and Connie had to laugh. Cap looked very cute, and seemed to be
coaxing his master into saying that the girls might have the cherry
picking job.
“So you think I should, eh, Cap?” chuckled Pa Hooper. “That does it,
old boy. We’ll hire the Brownies! The entire troop!”
“Whoopee!” shouted Veve. She capered around so madly she nearly upset
Connie’s pail of cherries.
“Careful now,” warned Pa Hooper, rather sternly. “Cherry picking is
serious business. If you work here you’ll have to obey orders and not
act the fool. Furthermore, you’ll have to use the short ladders. I
can’t risk having you fall from the top of a tree.”
“We’ll do exactly as you say,” Veve promised. Because she couldn’t curb
her high spirits, she broke into a snatch of a Brownie song:
“We snip and paste and hammer too,
To aid folks young and old.
And after all our work and play,
A story we will tell.
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
The Brownies are with you to stay!”
“I hope the Brownies do stay and prove to be good pickers,” Mr. Hooper
said, sighing. “I’ve had plenty of trouble with the crop this season.”
“What sort of trouble, Mr. Hooper?” inquired Connie.
“Well, as I said, the larger orchard owners have hired nearly all
of the professional pickers. I’m supposed to have a crew coming in
tomorrow, but they may fail me. And my fruit is ripening fast.”
Mr. Hooper gazed thoughtfully up into a cherry tree as he spoke. The
fruit nearly all was bright red and so plump it looked as if it might
burst.
The orchard owner took Connie’s pail of cherries to the shed for
weighing.
“You’ve picked four pounds,” he said. “That’s six cents. After you’ve
practiced awhile, you’ll find you can strip the trees three times as
fast.”
Pa Hooper told the girls that a professional picker usually made from
six to ten dollars a day. The Brownies, of course, never could hope to
earn that much.
Instead of paying Connie for the cherries she had picked, Mr. Hooper
wrote her name on a card and the amount that was due.
“This is your account,” he said. “If you’re a good picker and stick to
it, the sum should grow and grow like Jack’s beanstalk.”
Then and there, both Connie and Veve made up their minds to be the
fastest pickers in the Rosedale Brownie troop. They scarcely could wait
to return home to relate their good news!
“Be at the orchard early in the morning if you want to get a good
start,” Mr. Hooper urged. “At least by seven o’clock.”
Now, as a rule, Connie and Veve scarcely had their breakfasts by that
hour. You may be sure, though, that they didn’t tell the orchard owner.
Instead, they merely nodded and promised to be on hand.
The girls felt quite happy as they trudged to the bus stop. Their arms
ached from such fast picking, and Veve had several cherry juice stains
on her pinchecked dress. But they were pleased to have obtained a
promise of work.
“We should make a lot of money for the troop,” Veve declared as they
waited for their bus.
“What if Miss Gordon shouldn’t let us pick?” Connie asked anxiously.
“After all, she only told us to find out about the job. Not to take it.”
“And it will be hard getting the Brownies to the orchard by seven
o’clock,” Veve added.
“Mr. Hooper really needs our help though. If he doesn’t get pickers
soon, his crop will be lost. When the Brownies hear about that, I’m
sure they’ll want to pitch in.”
“Sure, they will,” Veve agreed confidently. “If they don’t, we’ll make
’em!”
The arrival of a city-bound bus brought the talk to an end. During
the ride into Rosedale, Veve had little to say. After awhile, Connie
noticed her companion’s unusual silence.
“What’s the matter with you anyhow, Veve?” she demanded. “Tired?”
“Not very.”
“Then what is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Veve said in a tone which meant just the opposite.
“Aren’t you glad we got the job?”
“Of course! Only--”
“Only what, Veve?”
“Well, I was wondering if Mr. Hooper will treat the Brownies right.”
“Treat them right?” Connie couldn’t understand what Veve meant. “Why,
he agreed to pay a cent and a half a pound. That must be a fair price,
even if some of the larger orchards pay two cents.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean money, Connie. I was wondering if Mr. Hooper will
beat the Brownies if they make mistakes.”
“Beat them! Whoever heard of such a thing! He wouldn’t dare!”
“Well, he might.”
Connie stared at her little friend, who now was etching a face on the
dusty bus window.
“What ails you, Veve?” she asked. “Didn’t you like Mr. Hooper?”
“’Course, I did.”
“Then what put such a thought into your head? He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Maybe not,” Veve admitted, “but some of the orchard owners beat their
pickers.”
Connie had become a bit annoyed. She was quite certain Veve had no
reason for making such remarks.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Because I _saw_ it.”
“You _saw_ it?” Connie echoed in disbelief. “Well, I didn’t. And I’ve
been with you every minute this afternoon.”
Veve smoothed wrinkles from her skirt. “I saw it from the tree,” she
revealed. “That was what made me fall. I was so startled.”
“You must have been looking over into Carl Wingate’s orchard. What did
you see, Veve?”
“Mr. Wingate struck Juan with a stick, Connie. I saw it plainly. He hit
him hard too.”
The information worried Connie, even though she knew the Brownies
never would pick cherries in the Wingate orchard.
“Mr. Wingate is a cruel man,” she declared. “I’m surprised that the
Mexicans pick for him even if he does pay two cents a pound instead of
only a cent and a half.”
“You see now why I fell out of the tree,” Veve defended herself. “I
wasn’t awkward. You’d have tumbled too if you’d seen what I did!”
Connie told her little friend that she thought it would be wise not to
alarm the Brownies by repeating the story. If they heard about Juan
being whipped, they might refuse to pick for Pa Hooper.
“And he isn’t in the least like Carl Wingate,” she declared.
The bus now had reached a familiar street. Veve and Connie alighted to
walk to their homes. However, because they were in such haste to tell
Miss Gordon the good news, they stopped at a drugstore to telephone her.
Pa Hooper’s offer surprised the Brownie leader very much. At first,
she hesitated and declared she hardly knew what to say about the girls
taking on the picking job.
“Mr. Hooper really needs our help,” Veve urged. “And think how much
money we will make for the troop.”
Finally, the Brownie leader gave her consent. She said she would
telephone each girl personally. If parents were willing, the troop
would meet at Miss Gordon’s home the next morning at six-thirty sharp.
From there they would drive in the Brownie leader’s car to the cherry
orchard.
“Be sure to wear old clothing,” she warned Veve and Connie. “Cherry
picking could be very hard on Brownie uniforms.”
The two girls were jubilant as they hung up the receiver. If Miss
Gordon called the other Brownies, the cherry picking job was assured!
“We’ll have a lot of fun at Mr. Hooper’s orchard,” Connie declared
gaily. “I like him so much.”
“He’s a queer one though.”
“Queer?” Connie considered Veve’s remark most strange.
“He must be a hermit or a miser or something, living all alone at the
orchard.”
“How do you know he does, Veve?”
“He sleeps in the packing shed.” Veve was proud that she had made the
observation. “I saw his cot in one corner of the room. He had an
electric plate too where he cooks his food.”
“Well, I suppose he has to stay there, because he has no house.”
“That’s another strange thing, Connie. His home must have burned down a
long time ago. Why didn’t he rebuild it?”
“Maybe he didn’t have the money. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to.”
Veve had been reading mystery books and considered Connie’s explanation
entirely too matter-of-fact.
“That isn’t it at all,” she insisted. “Mr. Hooper must have a special
reason for not rebuilding his house. While we’re picking cherries at
his orchard, I intend to learn all about it!”