Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/75

 tea supplied at noon. Bob and Jim and Phœbe and I can turn right in now."

That afternoon as Derek stood beside a prolific young Montmorency, dropping its blood-red clusters into an eleven-quart basket at his feet, Mr. Jerrold called.

"I hear your Indians have decamped," he said. "Gone over to our friend Chard, eh?"

"Yes. We're all doing our best to save the cherries, but the raspberries need going over and I don't see how it's to be done. Jammery went to Brancepeth after pickers. Had no luck at all. And I wish you could see the bunch Windmill got at Mistwell: two fat old women, three little boys, and a young married woman named Orde with a two-year-old child that has to be suckled every ten minutes or so."

"Oh, I know the Ordes. He fishes in the winter and loafs all summer while she supports him by picking berries. I tell you, Vale, small fruit is the very devil. That's why I ploughed mine under. I know a poor chap from the city who got a place beyond mine, and planted an immense lot of gooseberries. Last summer he came to me with tears streaming down his face. He couldn't get a soul to pick the damned gooseberries and he had been working at them alone till he was worn to fiddle-strings and his hands all scratched and bleeding. His wife was going to have a baby, too."

"Lord! What became of them?"

"We got a spell of heat and drought then and they all withered up on him. He was sold out last spring."

"Poor beggar. Well, Jammery's coming over at daybreak tomorrow to pick till noon when we ship. He is quite a decent fellow."

"I shouldn't trust him. Look here what I've done for you." Holding his walking-stick under one arm he had picked cherries till one large, shapely hand was brimming.