Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/80

 cherries and raspberries and had lost such a considerable portion of the crop through lack of pickers, that, though Chard had been the cause of his troubles, he felt himself better able to bear the loss than a man with a family of young children. He had heard, too, that Mrs. Chard worked slavishly between her periods of child-bearing, and now there would be still more to do.

He felt disgusted with the Indians. They were like naughty children. Yet they were infinitely more efficient as pickers than the women and boys of Mistwell. He could see some of the boys now scuffling among the black caps, probably trampling them. He told Newbigging to go and make order among them, and himself went to inspect the raspberries. They were almost over, and gentle little Mrs. Orde was cleaning up the last of them, handicapped, as usual, by her greedy son.

He strolled among the canes, the new growth as high as his shoulder, the last, sun-warmed berries smelling strangely sweet, like violets. Some milkweed had come up among them and, here and there, a bursting pod scattered its shimmering fluff. He found the nest of a yellow warbler dangling, light and dried, from a curving cane. It seemed abnormally deep and when he pulled it apart to examine it he discovered a tiny separate compartment in the bottom almost filled by a large, whitish egg and a very small blue one.

"Look here, Fawnie," he called, for he saw her wandering among the canes a short way off. She came slowly, picking raspberries and poking them into her childish mouth. "I'm gettin' my breakfas' off your berry patch," she said. "I'm mad at everybody and I won' eat with them."

"What made you mad, Fawnie?"

"The ole man. He wants me to go pickin' hops and I won't. I got my hen and chickens to look after, and Jam-