by Lois Lenski
All the schools in the neighborhood had closed right after Christmas. So many families were growing berries, it had been decided to give the children their vacation in the three winter months—the strawberry season—so they could pick berries. Throughout the strawberry area, the schools were soon to become known as “Strawberry Schools.”
At first, it was fun to pick berries. The children enjoyed being out in the sun all day and running barefoot and having a good time while they worked. They picked into quart baskets which they called “cups.” They knelt on their knees or sat in the sand or stood up and bent over. The sand which looked so white was really black underneath. It clung to the berries, it soiled bare legs and feet, hands and faces, dresses and overalls.
“You-all belong to have baths in the tin tub,” said Ma.
“Or a swim in the lake,” said Dan.
“Bunny!” called Dixie. “Get out o’ that ant bed! Look at him, Ma, he’s settin’ down there rubbin’ his feet. He’s plumb covered with ants.”
Dan pulled Bunny away, and the small boy began to jump over the rows. Then he settled down to build roads in his never-ending sand pile.
Each child had a row to pick. When Birdie finished hers, she heard Dovey calling: “Whoever wants to can help me out when they get done. Birdie, come help me out!”
Birdie loaded the long wooden carrier with twelve piled-up cups and took them to the shed under the clump of banana trees. There, Ma did the sorting. First she washed the berries in a tub of water. Then she spread them out on a table which had a covering of burlap for a top, to drain them. She picked out the culls and packed the perfect berries in clean baskets, ready for selling.
Birdie returned to the field to hear Dovey’s plaintive cry: “Help me out! Help me out!” The penalty of being the fastest picker was helping the slower pickers pick their rows. She helped Dovey.
“Going to sleep, Dan?” called Dixie. “This here ain’t no bed.”
Dan was stretched out full-length in the sand. He made a mark with his toe, reached as far as he could and made another mark with his fingers. “There!” he cried, “I picked a quart in my own length, less than six feet. Good pickin’ that!”
By mid-morning, the picking wasn’t much fun. The rows seemed endlessly long. Legs and arms and backs began to ache. The sun shone uncomfortably hot. All the children were tired and ready to stop.
There were only two more rows to pick when Shoestring Slater appeared. Over his shoulder he carried a long stick, which had a bag tied on the end. He was followed by a pack of barking and yelping dogs. The children forgot how tired they were.
“What you totin’, Shoestring?” called Dan.
“Guess!” answered the boy.
“Gamecock!” guessed Dan.
“Pussy-cat!” guessed Dovey.
“Baby coon!” guessed Dixie.
Birdie remembered the snake on her old Sunday hat. “Bet you got a little ole snake in there!” she said.
“You mighty right!” laughed Shoestring.
“A blacksnake?”
“No, a live rattler!” said the boy.
“No!” cried the children all together. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Tell us how you caught him,” begged Dan.
“I went ramblin’ in the scrub,” said Shoestring in his usual bragging tone, “and I come to a little branch, where there was a lot of bushes growin’, and my hound dog bayed a rattlesnake. I smelled him first, and in a minute I seed him. I cut me this long bamboo pole and I tied a good strong string ‘bout three feet long on the end, with a loop dangling. Ole snake was afeard o’ me now and started to run under a thicket. I jest swung my pole, looped the loop right over his head—not tight enough to choke him—pulled it up and dropped him in my sack. And thar he is!”
“O-o-o-oh!” cried Dovey. “Ain’t you afeard he’ll bite you?”
“What you fixin’ to do with him?” asked Birdie, shivering.
“Put him in a cage. Make him a pet. Gentle him. Feed him.”
“What you feed him?”
“Live rabbits!”
“Oh, no!” cried Birdie. “You wouldn’t!”
“That’s what they eat when they run loose,” said Shoestring.
“They don’t eat only so often, about once every three or four months, so they don’t take much feedin’. Coons now got to be fed every day. They’re a nuisance.”
“What become of the one you had?” asked Birdie.
“Hit stoled a bunch of Ma’s eggs and cracked ’em,” said Shoestring with a grin, “and made her rarin’. She ’lowed she wouldn’t have it round the house no more, so I takened it off in the woods and let it go.”
“Your Ma won’t let you keep no little ole rattler round the house neither,” said Dixie.
“Naw!” said Shoestring. “I’ll put the cage down back where the huckleberries grow. She won’t never know it’s there.” Then he went on boasting: “I can gentle a raccoon or a possum or even a razorback. Bet I can gentle this little ole snake till he gets to know me. Then he won’t never strike!”
“Take him off in the scrub and turn him loose,” said Dixie, disgusted. “Hit ain’t no fun messin’ up with rattlers, once you get bit!”
“You swell up and turn green and die!” warned Dan. “Better take a shotgun to him!”
“Do he git to know me, he won’t never bite me,” said Shoestring.
“Go turn him loose,” repeated Dixie.
“And come and help us pick strawberries,” added Birdie. “We need all the help we can get.”
“Naw!” Shoestring looked at the strawberry plants and spat with disgust. “I ain’t messin’ with no strawberries!” He strolled away, whistling.
There was good picking all week and Pa took the berries to town and sold them. He was proud of his first crop. Then, one day, the thermometer began to drop. By noon it was 35° and still going down.
“We can’t let the plants freeze,” said Pa. “We’ll cover ’em up with pine straw.”
Birdie was sick at heart. They had worked so hard over the berries. It seemed cruel to lose them just as they were ripening.
With Pa and Buzz and Dan, she went into the piney woods and helped gather up pine straw—dried needles from the long-leaf pine. They filled baskets with it and dumped them into the wagon. They hauled pine straw by the wagon load all evening.
While waiting in the woods for the wagon to return, Birdie noticed a pen built on high legs standing near a clump of huckleberry bushes. It was behind, but within walking distance of the Slater house. She wondered why they kept their chickens so far away. She went over to look. Her hands were cold. She had come out without putting on a coat. She began to shiver.
She walked round the bushes and looked in the pen. “Oh!” she cried.
Inside the pen, she saw a coiled-up rattlesnake. The diamond markings on its back were very plain. “Shoestring’s rattler!” she exclaimed.
But it was not the snake which caused her astonishment. In the far corner of the pen she saw a little live brown rabbit. It was huddled in a ball, afraid for its life. Its nose quivered anxiously.
“A live rabbit!” she cried aloud, with bitter scorn in her voice. “That’s what he feeds it—live rabbits!”
She remembered the snake on her hat. She remembered the deadly hatred with which she had hated Shoestring Slater then. Now, as she looked at the poor scared rabbit, she hated him even more. She hated him enough to kill him, to fight him, to … Was her hatred strong enough to get the rabbit out of the pen?
She knew she must act at once, before her hatred cooled, before she had time to lose courage.
The snake was coiled up, dormant because of the cold weather, in one corner of the pen. Could it be trusted to stay that way? The rabbit was in the other corner, as far away as possible. The door, fastened with a wooden turn-button, was between.
She knew what the bite of a rattlesnake meant. She knew how quickly they struck, and how great the danger, when no help was near. B
ut she never thought of waiting till her father and Buzz returned. She never thought of herself at all.
She opened the door quickly. She thrust her head and arm inside. Keeping her eye on the snake, she grasped the rabbit firmly by its forelegs and pulled it out. The snake did not move. She closed the door and fastened the button. She took a deep breath, then she smiled and patted the rabbit on its head.
“Pore thing!” she said. “You purely been in hell. I’m givin’ you your freedom!”
She dropped the rabbit to the ground. She saw that it was unharmed. She watched it go bounding off through the bushes. She wondered how many weeks it had been caged with the snake. The snake was not hungry. They ate only once in three or four months, Shoestring had said.
She shivered, then she cried. She put her hands to her face, and felt they were no longer cold. She was hot all over.
She felt better. She didn’t hate Shoestring Slater any more.
After a little, she went back. Pa had returned with the wagon and she gathered more pine straw. She did not mention what she had done. When dark came down, Pa sent her and Dan back to the house to go to bed. He and Buzz worked far into the night covering the plants. The thermometer went down to 27°.
Several days later they raked the pine straw off, leaving it between the rows, for later use, if necessary. They waited for more blossoms to bear fruit. After the cold spell, the sun came out bright and warm to put color and ripeness and flavor into the berries. Pa’s strawberry family began to pick regularly twice a week.
One day Shoestring came. He hung over the fence and stared at the beautiful red berries.
“Come help us pick!” cried Dan.
“Naw!” said the boy.
“Big ole lazy you!” teased Birdie.
“How’s your pet snake?” asked Dan. “Learn him any tricks?”
“Naw!” said Shoestring. He spat in the sand.
“Got snake-bit yet?” asked Dixie.
“Naw!”
“Your snake hungry?” asked Birdie.
“Naw!”
“Fed him ary live rabbits lately?”
“I purely don’t believe it!” said Birdie. “Fixin’ to git him another?” asked Dan. “Naw!”
“Why not?”
“Naw! He et one up, slick as a whistle, didn’t leave a hair. He warn’t hungry at first. Rabbit was in his pen a whole week before he swallered it.”
“Snake’s dead!” said Shoestring. “Froze hisself to death.”
“Is he done dead?” asked Dan. “Likely he’s jest sleepin’.”
“Naw! Dead. Froze stiff,” said Shoestring.
Birdie was glad the snake was dead. It had had no place to hibernate, in an open pen like that. She decided she might as well tell Shoestring what she had done.
“Your snake never et that rabbit!” she announced.
“What?” They all looked at her. Shoestring opened his mouth and stared. “How you know?”
“I done opened the door and let it out!”
“You done that?” gasped Shoestring. “You jest better let my snake alone!” He paused, then he added, “Ain’t you got no sense at all? You could a been bit to death. Wal—snake’s dead anyhow!” He walked off, shoulders hunched and his hands deep in his overall pockets.
Strawberry picking continued good, and they all thought that the worst trials were over. It was a complete surprise, and it seemed the last straw, therefore, to come out one morning, as Birdie did, and find the field covered with robins—fat, saucy, red-breasted robins. A huge flock, migrating to their northern homes for the summer months, had stopped for a dainty meal on the way.
“Shoo! Shoo!” cried Birdie, waving her apron in the air. “Shoo away! Go visit the Yankees!”
The children threw stones and brandished sticks. Dan tried to trap the robins. Buzz put up poles and tied streamers of cloth on them to wave in the wind. Ma shook her broom. Pa shot his shotgun into the air. The robins flew up, it is true, but they flew right down again. They did not leave the field until they had stripped it of every ripe berry.
The next day the birds did not come. They did not come because there were no ripe berries for them to eat. And there were none for the children to pick.
CHAPTER X
Alligator
WE MUST HURRY,” SAID PA, one Thursday. “We picked so many strawberries this mornin’, we’re mighty late. Reckon we’ll miss that train iffen we don’t mind out.”
Birdie put on her new Sunday hat and ran to the wagon.
“No more shipping in wooden crates,” said Pa. “Our pony refrigerators will be ready this week. Now we can raise berries in quantity and get them to our customers up north the third day after they are picked—and on ice!”
The strawberry growers had had meetings to discuss better schemes for shipping their berries. They had ordered iceboxes made for each shipper. Thursday of each week was the biggest shipping day.
The horse, Osceola, started at a walk, unwilling to trot. No amount of whipping would speed him up.
“Gittin’ lazy like ole Semina!” said Pa. “Needs a spring tonic of some kind. But Lordy, we mustn’t miss that train!” He turned to Birdie on the seat beside him. “Do we miss it, gal, you’ll have to sell the berries out on the street corner.”
Birdie laughed. “Sixty-four quarts! Who would buy them all?”
“Or likely peddle ’em from house to house,” added Pa, with a chuckle.
“Like old Janey Pokes!” laughed Birdie. “I hope we won’t come to that, now we got us a Pony Refrigerator ’at cost twelve dollars!”
Recent rains had drained through the sand, leveled the ruts and packed the road. The wagon wheels rolled smoothly, and the horse’s hoofs made gentle thuds. Farther on, through the piney woods, Osceola trotted over beds of soft pine needles.
Beyond the woods, the road passed through a forest of cypress trees which had their roots in a boggy swamp of black, stagnant water. A corduroy road of rough logs had been built to cross it. The rains had raised the water level almost up to that of the road.
Pa touched Osceola’s back lightly with the whip and urged him on. The horse stopped, for the way was completely blocked. A monster alligator was waddling across the road just ahead.
“Looky yonder!” said Pa. “That feller’s just woke up from his winter’s nap. He knows ‘at spring is here. Lordy, I wisht I had my shotgun. Did I bring it with me, we’d have alligator steak for supper!”
“But you ain’t got it,” said Birdie. “What you fixin’ to do, Pa?”
“Can’t pass him, that’s a fact,” said Pa, frowning.
“Not without us rollin’ off into the black swamp and takin’ a bath!” added Birdie. “Ugh!”
“Jest gotta back up and wait till he makes up his mind where he’s goin’!” Pa gave a half-hearted laugh. “Every minute’s worth money, too, with that train comin’ in right on the dot. Never late neither.”
Pa backed Osceola to a safe distance. The alligator rose up on his feet, kept his head turned toward the intruders, and his huge mouth partly open. He lifted his tail to one-half his length, ready to flay an unwelcome visitor at a moment’s warning.
“Good thing the dogs didn’t come along,” said Pa. “That ole ’gator shore would like a big mouthful of dog!”
“Or hog!” added Birdie.
Osceola pranced nervously while they waited. Finally the alligator waddled off into the black depths of the cypress swamp.
Pa did not need to whip up the horse. As if anxious to get away from the beast in the swamp, Osceola made a swift dash for town. They arrived just as the train whistle sounded in the distance.
Birdie had never been in the depot before. It was a busy place when strawberries were coming in. People were waiting for the mail or getting paid for their produce or just visiting, while strawberry growers unloaded on the platform and packed their fruit. There was a great deal of bustle and confusion, and Station Master Jenkins had his hands full. With a pencil behind his ear, he ran ba
ck and forth like a distracted hen.
“Where’s that new icebox of mine?” called Mr. Boyer.
Jenkins pointed to a long row of them. Old Simon, a crippled colored man, had brought ice for everybody in his two-mule wagon, and was carrying it in.
Birdie helped Pa load the Pony Refrigerator. It had a double wall of cypress lumber and was painted white. On the side, large letters were printed: NO. 42 SHIPPED BY BIHU BOYER TO EVERGREEN STRAWBERRY CO., PHILADELPHIA. Birdie handed up the quarts and Pa packed them in. It held sixty-four. On top was an ice pan six inches deep, with a center pan for ventilation, through which the melting ice dripped.
“Pa!” said Birdie. “Do hit go away on the train?”
“Shore, sugar! All the way to Philadelphia! Next year we’ll send them Yankees some big fat berries in time for Christmas and make ’em pay us a dollar a quart!”
Birdie was still puzzled. “What will you ship your berries in next week after the refrigerator’s gone away on the train?”
“Honey,” said Pa, “this little ole Pony’s comin’ back by the very first train south. The railroad brings it back free o’ charge. Then I load her up and send her off again. Them Yankees git their berries fresh like the dew’s still on ’em!”
“Now I tell you what!” A loud-voiced man approached. “You strawberry growers are makin’ a big mistake by puttin’ your berries up in quarts. You could charge and git twice as much for ’em if you’d pack ’em in pints.”
Pa looked up inquiringly.
“You a stranger here?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the man, “from Louisiana. We pack in pints there.”
Somebody spoke up. “Folk’d buy only one pint, not two. As it is, they can’t never buy less than a quart.”
Mr. Boyer added: “Large berries like mine don’t pack so good in pints. Two big berries are not enough to go across the top of a pint cup, and three big ones are too much. Quarts are better. See that quart there? It’s got just thirteen berries over the top.”
“Some day you’ll change to pints,” said the stranger.
“And make a big mistake,” added Boyer.