Ivy curled her lip.

"There's a great deal in the way things are asked," she said, and Hugh knew she was offended.

"Who wouldn't run away from a lot of girls ready to s...o...b..r over him with thanks and prayers?" said Mat with a broad grin.

"As if we would make him a courtesy and say, 'Thank you, sir, for saving my life!'" retorted Ivy.

Hugh busied himself picking up the tins and the upset buckets. He sympathized with Mark's dislike of a scene.

"Any of you fellows would have done the same if you had the chance,"

the latter had said.

"Did she expect us to bring a fellow by the coat collar to be thanked?

Girls are queer, they always enjoy fussing and the limelight,"

concluded Hugh. He kept resolutely away from them.

"What's the matter with Hugh?" whispered Laura after a time.

"Why?"

"He seems kind o' grumpy."

Ivy picked out a monster berry and put it into her mouth.

"The wind's changing I guess! Boys are like weather-vanes, you never can tell what way they're going next!"

Laura smiled at the idea of comparing staid, dependable Hugh with anything so uncertain as a weather-vane.

Ivy kept on filling her tin cup and pretended not to pay any attention to her brother. She knew her uncalled-for, sarcastic remark had offended him. Had it been anyone else, she would have made ample apology, but it was only poor old Hugh--it was not necessary to trouble herself about him. He would "come round" after while, as he always did. No matter how far in the wrong Ivy might be, it was always Hugh who made the first advances toward a reconciliation. Perhaps if he had waited longer, Ivy might have behaved differently, but Hugh never waited.

Sure enough, he soon gave signs of the "coming round" process, but instead of "coming round" to Ivy with a handful of flowers he had found, he gave them to Alene.

After that it was to Alene he came when he had an especially large berry to show; he insisted upon her eating it; he compared the state of his tin cup and hers, and they made a wager as to whose cup would be filled the first.

His celerity amazed Alene.

"How can you fill yours so quickly?"

"By sticking to a good bush when I find one!"

"You girls lose time by flitting from bush to bush like b.u.t.terflies,"

added Mat.

"We are more like busy bees, Mat. We gather only the best as we fly!

There's Laura, no boy can beat her picking berries," said Ivy.

"I believe there's a good deal in what Hugh says," remarked Laura, "not only in berry picking, but in work and study. We accomplish more by sticking to one thing at a time. They say 'Beware of the man of one book.'"

"I would indeed be beware of him. He'd be an insufferable bore!"

retorted Ivy, as she moved away to another bush.

"Now we will transmigrate ourselves into robins and do the 'babes in the wood' act!"

Ivy gazed at the speaker compa.s.sionately.

"Has the poor boy gone daffy?"

Mat pointed to the two buckets, by that time filled with berries.

"We will cover them over with leaves!"

"Do you know what Claude does when he's angry or out of humor?"

inquired Ivy.

"Throws himself on the floor and kicks, I guess!"

"No, he runs to a corner and hides his face!"

"Well?"

"If I were you, I'd follow his example!"

"But I'm not angry or out of humor with you, Ivy. On the contrary, I feel as mild as a lamb, and I'm so razzle-dazzle-dizzled pleased with getting these buckets filled in spite of you girls, that I could--could--"

"Please don't, whatever it is you could do, be wise and don't do it!"

"What's the time?" asked Laura.

"Eleven A.M.!"

"Are you sure of the A.M.?"

"I'm surer of it than of the eleven! I made a guess at that!"

"We'd better start home. It will take some time to make the jam and get Mrs. k.u.mp's basket ready," said Laura.

Mat made a horn of his hands and gave a yell.

"What's that for?"

"To call our party in."

"We don't want everybody in the field; we're all here but Alene and Hugh."

"Where are they? Haven't seen 'em for some time! Ah, here they come!"

"Hugh took me over to see a thrush's nest," explained Alene. Her face glowed with animation beneath Nettie's pink lined bonnet; her lips and fingers were stained with berries and Laura asked herself if this could be the white-cheeked, forlorn, little Peggy-Alone she had seen standing beside Prince on the terrace just a couple of months before.

They trooped gaily into the carriage, Mat again took the reins and away they went on the return trip.