The Bobbsey Twins in the Country

by Laura Lee Hope

  CHAPTER XIII

  PICKING PEAS

  "Mother," said Harry, using that loved name to show that what he wasabout to say was something important, "Peter Burns is sick. He has notbeen able to work since the cannon exploded and gave him the shock, andall his peas are spoiling because there's no one to pick them. Mrs.Burns hired some boys yesterday, but they broke down so many vines shehad to stop them; and, mother, would you mind if Bert and I picked someto-day? The sun is not hot."

  "Why, my dear," replied Aunt Sarah, "it would be very nice of you tohelp Peter; he has always been a kind neighbor. I don't think it woulddo you any harm to pick peas on a cool day like this. Bert can ask hismother, and if she is satisfied you can put on your play overalls andgo right along."

  Both boys were given the desired permission, and when Tom and Jackheard where the Bobbseys were going they said at once they would goalong.

  "Are you sure your mother won't mind?" Mrs. Burns asked the boys,knowing Harry's folks did not need the money paid to pick the peas. "Ofcourse I'm very glad to have you if your mothers are satisfied."

  Soon each boy had a big basket under his arm, and was off for thebeautiful field of soft green peas, that stretched along the pond bankat the side of Mrs. Burns' home. Now, peas are quite an expensivevegetable when they come in first, and farmers who have big fields ofthem depend upon the return from the crop as an important part of thesummer's income. But the peas must be picked just as soon as they areripe, or else they will spoil. This was why Harry got his friends toturn in to help poor Peter Burns.

  "I'll go down this row and you take that." suggested Bert to Harry."Then we can talk to each other without hollering."

  "All right," Harry replied, snapping the peas off the vines anddropping them into his basket like a real farmer.

  "Let's have a race," called Tom. "See who gets his basket full first."

  "But no skipping for big ones," put in Jack. "You have to pick everyripe one."

  The boys all started in at the top of the hill, each working two rowsat a time. They were so interested in the race that scarcely a word wasspoken. The peas were plentiful and ripe too, so that the baskets werefilling up quickly. Mrs. Burns herself was picking, in fact she hadbeen in the field since the very first peep of dawn, and she would besure to stay out until the darkness would drive her in.

  "You are fine pickers," she told the boys, seeing how quickly theyworked. "I pay ten cents a basket, you know."

  "I guess we can earn a dollar a day at this rate," laughed Tom, whosebasket was almost full.

  "I'm done," called Jack from his row.

  "No, you're not," said Harry, "you have to cover the rim."

  "Oh!" exclaimed Jack, who had just slipped between the rows. "Oh! theregoes my basket."

  And sure enough the big basket had been upset in Jack's fall, and mostof the peas were scattered on the ground.

  "Ha! ha!" laughed Bert. "I'm first. My basket is full."

  "I'm next!" called Tom, picking his basket up in his arms.

  "Well, I'll be last I guess," laughed Tom, trying hard to pick up thescattered peas.

  "There's mine!" called Harry, and now all the boys carried theirbaskets to the big bag at the end of the field and dumped them in.

  "It won't take long to fill the bag," said Harry, "and it will be sogood for Peter to have them ready, for to-morrow is market day."

  So the boys worked on right along until lunch time, each having pickedfour big baskets full. August Stout came along and helped some too, buthe could not stay long, as he had to cut some clothes poles for hismother.

  "Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Burns, looking at the three full bags theboys had picked. "Isn't that splendid! But I can't pay until Petercomes from market."

  "We just did it for fun," answered Harry. "We don't want any pay."

  "Indeed you must have forty cents apiece, ten cents a basket," sheinsisted. "See what a good load you have picked!"

  "No, really, Mrs. Burns; mother wouldn't like us to take the money,"Harry declared. "We are glad to have helped you, and it was only fun."

  Poor Mrs. Burns was so grateful she had to wipe her eyes with hergingham apron.

  "Well," she said finally, "There are some people in this world who talkabout charity, but a good boy is a gift from heaven," and she said thisjust like a prayer of blessing on the boys who had helped her.

  "The crop would have been spoiled to-morrow," remarked Tom, as he andhis companions started up the road. "I'm awfully glad you thought ofhelping her, Harry."

  It seemed all that day everything went right for the boys; they did nothave even a single mishap in their games or wanderings. Perhaps it wasbecause they felt so happy over having done a good turn for a poorneighbor.

  "Say, fellows," Tom said later, while they sat on the pond bank tryingto see something interesting in the cool, clear water, "what do you sayif we make up a circus!"

  "Fine," the others answered, "but what will be the show?"

  "Animals of course," continued Tom; "we've got plenty around here,haven't we?"

  "Well, some," Harry admitted. "There's Sable, for instance."

  At this the boys all laughed at Tom, remembering the runaway.

  "Well, I could be a cowboy, and ride him just the same," spoke up Tom."I rode him around the track yesterday, and he went all right. He wasonly scared with that sulphur match when he ran away."

  "A circus would be fine," Bert put in. "We could have Frisky as theSacred Calf."

  "And Snoopy as the Wild Cat," said Harry.

  "And two trained goats," August added.

  "And a real human bear, 'Teddy'?" suggested Jack.

  "Then a cage of pigeons," went on Harry.

  "Let's get them all in training," said Tom, jumping up suddenly,anxious to begin the sport.

  "I tell you!" Harry planned. "We can each train our own animals andthen we can bring them together in a well-organized circus."

  "When will we have it?" August asked impatiently.

  "About next week," Harry thought, and this was decided upon.

  During the interval the boys were so busy training that they had littletime for other sports, but the girls found out-door life quite asinteresting as their brothers did, and now made many discoveries in andabout the pretty woodlands.

  "Oh, we saw the prettiest little rabbits today," Nan told her mother,after a trip in the woods. "Flossie and Freddie were sitting on an oldstump when two rabbits ran right across the road in front of them.Freddie ran after them as far as he could go in the brushwood, but ofcourse no one can go as fast as a rabbit."

  "And the squirrels," Flossie told them. "I think the squirrels are theprettiest things that live in the woods. They have tails just likemamma's feather boa and they walk sitting up so cute."

  "Oh, I think the rabbits are the nicest," lisped Freddie, "'cause theyare Bunnies, and Bunnies bring Easter eggs."

  "And we have made the loveliest fern garden up back of the swing," saidFlossie. "We got a whole basket of ferns in the woods and transplantedthem."

  "In the center we have some lovely Jack-in the-pulpits," Nan added."Some are light green striped, and the largest are purple with goldstripes. The Jacks stand up straight, just like real live boyspreaching in a pulpit."

  "Don't you think, mamma," asked Flossie, "that daisies and violets makea lovely garden? I have a round place in the middle of our wild flowerbed just full of light blue violets and white daisies."

  "All flowers are beautiful," their mamma told them, "but I do thinkwith Flossie that daisies and violets are very sweet."

  "And, mamma, we got a big piece of the loveliest green moss! It is justlike real velvet," said Flossie. "We found a place all covered with itdown by the pond, under the dark cedar trees. Nan said it wouldn't growin our garden, but I brought some home to try. I put it in a cool darkplace, and I'm going to put lots of water on it every day."

  "Moss must be very cool and damp to grow," Mrs. Bobbsey replied. "Iremember how disappointed I used to be
when I was a little girl andtried to make it grow around my geraniums. It would always dry up andturn brown in a few days."

  "Oh," called Freddie from his garden under the cherry tree, "comequick! Look at the funny bugs!"

  Nan and Flossie hurried to where their little brother had dug a hole inthe earth.

  "They're mice!" exclaimed Nan. "Oh, aren't they cute! Let's catch them.Call Bert or Harry."

  While Flossie ran to tell Bert, Nan watched the tiny mice so that theywould not get away.

  "It's a nest of field mice," Harry told them.

  "We'll put them in a cage and have them in our circus."

  "But they're my mice," cried Freddie, "and I won't let anybody havethem!"

  "We're only going to help you take care of them in a little box. Oh,there's the mother--catch her, Harry," called Bert.

  The mother mouse was not so easy to catch, however, and the boys hadquite a chase after her. At last she ran into a tin box the boys hadsunk in the ground when playing golf. Here Harry caught the frightenedlittle creature.

  "I've got a queer kind of a trap," Harry said. "It's just like a cage.We can put them in this until we build a larger one. We can make oneout of a box with a wire door."

  The mice were the smallest, cutest things, not larger than Freddie'sthumb. They hardly looked like mice at all, but like some queer littlebugs. They were put in the cage trap, mother and all, and then Bert gotthem a bit of cheese from the kitchen.

  "What! Feed mice!" exclaimed Dinah "Sakes alive, chile! you go bringingdem mice in de house to eat all our cake and pie. You just better drowndem in de brook before dey bring a whole lot more mices around here."

  "We'll keep them away from the house," Bert told Dinah. "We're going tohave a circus, you know, and these will be our trained mice."

  Freddie, of course, was delighted with the little things, and wanted todig for more.

  "I tell you!" said Bert. "We might catch butterflies and have themunder a big glass on the table with all the small animals."

  "That would be good," Harry agreed. "We could catch some big brown onesand some little fancy ones. Then after dark we could get some big mothsdown by the postoffice electric light."

  The girls, too, went catching butterflies. Nan was able to secure fouror five yellow ones in the flower garden near the porch, and Flossiegot two of the small brown variety in the nasturtium bed. Harry andBert searched in the close syringa bushes where the nests are usuallyfound.

  "Oh! look at this one!" called Freddie, coming up with a great greenbutterfly. "Is it bird?" he asked. "See how big it is!"

  It really was very large, and had such beautiful wings it might easilybe mistaken for some strange bird.

  "We will try to keep them alive," said Harry, "and perhaps we can getma's big glass globe to put them in. She has one she used to put waxflowers under."

  "And, oh say!" exclaimed Bert, "couldn't we have an aquarium withsnakes and turtles and toads in?"

  "Fine!" declared Harry. "We've got a big glass tank I used to have goldfish in. We'll get the other fellows to help catch some snakes, fish,and turtles and toads, and--and anything else that will stand water!"

  Then what a time they had hunting for reptiles! It seemed each boy hada different variety on his premises. August Stout brought three turtlesand Jack Hopkins caught two snakes under a big stone in his back yard.Tom Mason supplied four lovely gold fish, while Ned Prentice broughtthree bright green frogs.

  "I can catch hop-toads," declared Freddie, and sure enough the littlefellow brought two big ones and a baby toad in his hat down to theboys, who had their collection in a glass tank in the barn.

  "We can't put the snakes in with the others or they'll eat them up,"said Jack. "I'll get a big glass jar for the snakes."

  "And say!" said Harry. "Will we charge admission to the show?"

  "Sure--five cents each," said Tom, "and give the money to the fresh-aircamp over on the mountain."

  This was considered a good plan, and now it was only a few days moreuntil Wednesday--the day of the circus!