IN THE BERRY PATCH

As if in a dream Alene heard a voice:

"It's after five o'clock, Miss Alene. You better get up if you want to be ready by six!"

Alene sat up with a yawn. She blinked her eyes and gazed solemnly at the rosy, smiling face of the little maid.

"I wonder why it's so much easier to get up the night before!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

Kizzie laughed as she crossed the room and raised the blinds. The lace curtains billowed in the fresh air and the soft light of dawn stole into the room. A pretty room it was, too, with blue and gray matting, blue tinted walls, its white stand and dresser, and little bra.s.s bed.

With another yawn Alene slipped her feet to the white rug beside the bed, stood up, and lifting her gown as if for a skirt dance, skipped lightly to a willow rocker which stood invitingly before one of the tall windows overlooking the terrace and the town.

"I'll run downstairs and get some breakfast ready, and then come back and help you with your hair and b.u.t.tons," said Kizzie.

Alene knelt down beside the chair and buried her face in its blue cushions to say her morning prayers.

There was a time when she had first come to the Towers when to her regular prayers she always added a sort of pet.i.tion--"Please, dear Lord, I am so lonely!"

Now her heart was filled with the beauty of the day, its promises of joy. She had so much that for herself there was nothing more to ask--only thanks to give, but for her friends, beginning with Mrs.

k.u.mp, the latest, and ending with her parents, the oldest and best beloved, she pet.i.tioned many blessings.

Only a few moments given to G.o.d, but they were a consecration for the day!

Alene rose with a song on her lips and proceeded with her bath and dressing. She found herself doing so many things now-a-days that a few months before would have seemed an impossibility.

"I used to be a bigger baby than Nettie or even Lois," she reflected as she b.u.t.toned her shoes and started to comb her hair. This was always a difficult task. The comb that went through those long locks so smoothly when manipulated by some one else, encountered many snarls, and Alene was glad when Kizzie came back to relieve her. A vigorous brushing and curling soon brought the refractory hair to the required state, and the glossy brown curls were finally tied at the nape of her neck with a bow of blue ribbon.

She was too excited to eat her breakfast; it was only Kizzie's reminder that, "Mr. Fred will ask if you ate a good breakfast. He will be displeased if you don't," that induced her to partake of anything.

She had scarcely finished her bowl of milk and crackers when the big gate clanged through the still air, then came a medley of gay voices; the walk resounded beneath the tread of light footsteps, and Prince's sonorous bark gave forth a challenge.

"There they come!"

"Here they are!" Alene rushed from the table.

She paused for a moment in the open doorway in sheer amazement and then she gave a peal of laughter.

"No wonder Prince was scared!" she cried.

For there stood the girls with their sunbonnets drawn over their faces, and their skirts spread out to display each rent and patch, of which there were not a few. Laura put one foot forward that a dilapidated shoe, from which her toes peeped, might not escape notice, and Ivy seemed proud of a pocket, turned inside out, that was apparently all holes.

A snickering sound came from the depths of the bonnets and then their laughter rang out loud and long.

"We had rehea.r.s.ed a speech about tramping along the tracks all night, but I couldn't say a word to save my life when I saw your bewildered face!" explained Ivy when their mirth had subsided.

"You poor girl!" remarked Laura with a commiserating glance at Alene's neat blue gingham gown with its tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of fancy braid; "is that the 'very worstest' you could scare up?"

"Kizzie helped me to look through my trunk and wardrobe and we couldn't find a thing plainer. I looked it over but there's not a tear in it!

I might have sewed a patch on, but that would have been make-believe!"

Alene's tone was disconsolate.

"Well, never mind, come along! There's Hugh waiting near the gate and Mat's minding the rig! You needn't take your hat, I brought Nettie's bonnet; it will do fine. It's too big for her!"

They ran along the walk and scrambled into the surrey. The girls took the back seat, Hugh jumped in beside Mat, and with gay good-byes to Kizzie and Prince they were off on their way to the country.

The bells of the factories rang out, calling the men to work. Few pedestrians, however, were seen for the majority of the working people lived in the streets nearer the river, while the merchants and leisurely cla.s.s occupied residences in the upper streets, along which they drove. Occasionally an energetic maid was seen cleaning the front steps or porch, and just on the out-skirts of the town they pa.s.sed a group of boys going the same way, who eyed them curiously.

"Hey, Hughie," cried one, "where are you bound for?"

"Berryin'!"

"So are we!"

Mat gave the grocer's slow-going nag a touch that livened him and they were soon carried out of range of the lads.

"It's that Stony Road gang!" Hugh glanced round to explain.

"The ones who tried to steal our lunch that day? But I didn't see Mark Griffin with them--he's your fish-boy, Alene," said Ivy.

"I guess he'll join them later on; that's his home!"

Hugh pointed to a low stone house that stood some distance in from the road, beyond a well-trimmed hedge and broad stretch of lawn, with grape-arbors and barns showing in the rear.

"Why, his folks must be well off," said Laura in surprise.

"Old man Griffin owns the boat-yards over in Westville."

"Well, his son might find better company than that, surely!"

"Mark's been away at school most of his life and when he came home this vacation, the first thing we knew he was hobn.o.bbing with that gang.

They steal and play cards and torture animals!"

"Horrors!"

"I don't think he would torture anything, he doesn't look like that kind of a boy!" exclaimed Alene, warmly.

"Might as well be bad as in bad company," returned Hugh, with that "preacher air" of his which Alene always found exasperating.

"Mark and Jack Lever used to be thicker'n flies, but I've not seen 'em together this year," interposed Mat.

"Jack's fine as silk, couldn't stand the Stony Road pace, I guess!

Fact is, I haven't seen him for six weeks. He's never in his father's store; must be out of town."

"Gee up!" interposed Mat. "If I didn't keep up a perpetual song, I believe Old Hurricane'd stop still and never go on again; can easily see he used to be a race horse!"

"Yes, he always raced the last few yards home for his grub!"