The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach Part 3

"Rose!" called the woman's shrill voice, from under the big blue sunbonnet. "Come up here and count these tally sticks. Some of those kids are snibbying."

With a sigh Rose picked up her tray, and made her way through the narrow paths. Cora saw that the woman had noticed her talking to Bess and Belle, and while wis.h.i.+ng for a chance to talk to Nellie alone, she beckoned to her companions to go along up to the shed.

"Maybe I'll see you soon again," almost whispered Nellie, in the way which so plainly betrays the hope of youth.

"I am sure you will," replied Cora, smiling rea.s.suringly.

"What strange girls," remarked Belle.

"Aren't they?" added Bess, turning back to get another look at little Nellie in her big-brimmed hat.

"They are surely going to do something desperate," declared Cora, "and I think now that we have found them, as the boys would say, 'it is up to us' to keep track of them."

CHAPTER III

THE STRIKE

"Oh, mercy!" exclaimed Bess, as they neared the shed, "did you ever see such a hateful old woman!"

"Hus.h.!.+" whispered Belle. "Do you want us to go back to Chelton without our berries?"

"If she ever looks at them they will sour--they couldn't keep," went on Bess, recklessly, but in lowered tones.

"We would like two crates of berries," Cora was saying to the woman, who stood, hands on her hips, framed in the narrow doorway of the sorting shed.

"Yes," answered the woman. "Step inside and pick 'em out. They are all fresh picked to-day. Rose, don't you know enough to make room for the young lady?" and the woman glared at the girl who had hurried in from the patch.

"Oh, I have plenty of room," Cora said with a smile to Rose. "What are those little sticks for?"

"Them's the tally-sticks," answered the woman. "They get one for every quart they pick, and then they cash 'em in. Here!" and she snapped a bunch from the trembling hands of the girl who was counting and tying up in bunches the wooden counters, "let me show 'em to the young lady."

"Oh, I can see them," declared Cora, without trying to hide her distaste for the woman's rudeness to Rose. "How many tally-sticks did you get to-day?" she asked the girl.

"Oh, she don't get any," spoke the woman. Rose never raised her eyes.

"Them two girls have me robbed with their eatin' and drinkin' and airs. I have to take care of them--they're me own sister's children,"

and she raised the hem of her dirty ap.r.o.n to her eyes.

"But they help you," insisted Cora. "They pick berries all day, do they not?"

"Help me?" came with a sneer. "I would like to see how! There's shoes to be bought, clothes and all sich. Then, b.u.t.ter is high, and them girls must have b.u.t.ter on their bread."

"When we don't get anything else," spoke up Rose, boldly.

"What!" called the aunt, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng angrily. "That's the way I'm thanked! Go up to the house, and wash them dishes, and don't you leave the house till--I've talked with you," she commanded. "It's a hard job to bring up somebody else's children," and she tried to sigh, "but I am bound to do my best by 'em."

Bess and Belle seemed actually frightened. They did not venture under the roof of the shack, but stood at the door with eyes staring. Rose pa.s.sed out, and, as she did so, she winked at Belle. Belle gave a friendly little tug at the brown ap.r.o.n as it pa.s.sed, and then Bess went inside, at Cora's request, to select her crate.

Four very small boys slouched up the path to the shed. Their crates were full and they seemed ready to drop down from exhaustion. One, with fiery red hair, pushed his way ahead of the others and presented his tray to the woman. She surveyed it critically, then said:

"Andy, did you swipe a bunch of tallies this morning?"

"I did not!" replied the little fellow indignantly.

"How many you got?" she demanded.

He dug his dirty, brown hands down deep into his trousers pockets.

Then he brought up three bunches of the tally-sticks.

"Humph! I thought so," said the woman. "Do you mean to tell me a monkey like you can pick ten an hour?"

"He's the best picker on the patch," spoke up another lad, "and I was with him when he brought each tray in!"

The girls stood back, deeply interested. The woman took the tray from Andy and turned away without offering the ten little sticks which represented the gathering of ten quarts of berries.

"Where's my tallies?" he demanded.

"You--jest--w-a-i-t," drawled the woman.

The other boys stepped back. Evidently they were going to "stick by Andy."

"I'll give you your crates, and let you go, young ladies," said the woman to Cora. "These little rowdies ain't no fit company for customers in automobiles."

"Oh, indeed we are enjoying looking around," declared Cora. "Do give the boys their checks, and let them go back to the patch. They are wasting time."

Thus cornered, the woman was obliged to go on settling with the pickers.

"Well," she said, "I'll give you credit, Andy, until I get a chance to look it up. Here, Narrow (to a very tall boy), gi'me yourn."

"Nope!" replied the tall boy. "We waits fer Andy."

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the woman. "If you kids ain't got a cheek! I've a good mind to chase every one of yer."

Andy stepped back to where she had deposited the box.

"Here!" she called, entirely forgetting the presence of the motor girls. "Git out of here!" and at that she struck the little fellow a blow on the head that caused him to reel, and then fall backward into an open crate of fresh berries!

"Now you've done it!" yelled the woman. "You have mashed every one of them! There!" and she dragged him to his little, bruised feet. "Do you think I can sell stuff like that! Mus.h.!.+ Every red berry of 'em!"

"Oh, make her stop!" pleaded Bess to Cora. "She may strike him again."

"What will you do with that crate of berries?" asked Cora, pus.h.i.+ng her way between the angry woman and the frightened boy.

"Make him pay fer 'em, of course," shouted the tyrant. "And serves him right, too, for his imperdence!"

Big heavy tears plowed their way through the dirty little spots on the boy's cheeks. To pay for the crate would take all his week's earnings.