"Oh, and I nursed him and fed him, and when I let him go he bit my
finger! I remember that! I was so cross at him I cried."
"Wretch that he was," said Martin. "But if we begin talking about those
days I won't get to work. I stopped in to ask you to go berrying with
us this afternoon. I get out of the bank early. We can go up to the
woods back of the schoolhouse. The youngsters are anxious to go, and
Mother won't let them go alone, since that copperhead was killed near
here. I promised to take them, and we'd all like to have you come."
"I'd love to go. I'll be all ready. I haven't gone for blackberries all
season."
"That's true, we've been missing lots of fun." He looked at her as
though he were seeing her after a long absence. Somehow, he had missed
something worth while from his life during the time his head had been
turned by Isabel, and he had passed Amanda with a smile and a greeting
and had no hours of companionship with her. Why, he didn't remember
that her eyes were so bright, that her red hair waved so becomingly,
that-"I'll bring a kettle," she said. "I'm going to pick till I fill it,
too, just as we did when we were youngsters."
"All right. We'll meet you at the schoolhouse."
The spur of mountains near Crow Hill was a favorite berrying range for
the people of that section of Lancaster County. In July and August
huckleberries, elders and blackberries grew there in fragrant
luxuriance.
When Amanda, in an old dress of cool green, a wide-brimmed hat on her
head, came in sight of the schoolhouse, she saw the Landis party
approaching it from the other direction. She swung her tin pail in
greeting.
"Oh, there's Amanda!" the children shouted and ran to meet her, tin
pails clanging and dust flying.
Martin, too, wore old clothes that would be none the worse for meeting
with briars or crushed berries. A wide straw hat perched on his head
made Amanda think, "He looks like a grown-up edition of Whittier's
Barefoot Boy."
"Here we are, all ready," said the leader, as they started off to the
crude rail fence. Martin would have helped Amanda over the fence, but
she ran from him, put up one foot, and was over it in a trice.
"Still a nimble-toes," he said, laughing. "Mary, can you do as well?"
"Pooh, yes! Who can't climb a fence?" The little girl was over it in a
minute. The smaller children lay flat on the ground and squirmed
through under the lower rail, while one of the boys climbed up,
balanced himself on the top rail, then leaped into the grass.