Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/77

 treacherous redskins were safely back at their job! Well, there was Jammery this morning, at any rate. He made up his mind to be out before any of the household. It would be a good thing, he thought, for them to see that he would do everything in his power to prevent waste, and it would be pleasant among the trees before the sun was up. He drew on a thin jersey and a pair of old duck trousers.

The bees were already humming in the tops of the locust trees. A pale saffron streak lay between lake and sky. A faint half-moon behind the orchard was casting her last, timid gaze upon the world.

He went to the apple-house and got some empty baskets, then entered the regular rows of the cherry orchard. Besides numerous ladders there were several tall wooden stands on top of which two people could sit at ease and strip the highest branches. Peering up, he could see Fawnie sitting cross-legged on one of these, her dress dimly blue as the brightening sky, her hair hanging unbound about her shoulders.

"Come on up," she said, softly, leaning towards him, "come and sit alongside o' me. I'll learn you how to pick our way."

He clambered up the rungs and sat beside her, his legs dangling. "This is ripping," he laughed. "I didn't expect anything so exciting."

"Don' you get excited or you'll fall."

He lit a cigarette. "Do you smoke, Fawnie? Will you try one?"

"I take a puff at the ole woman's pipe sometimes when she's not lookin,' but I don' want one o' them."

"Why?"

"It'd be like flirtin', surely." She resumed her cherrypicking with deft fingers.