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Nancy went home. She ran nearly all the way.

“You go right into the sitting-room, and sit down with the palm-leaf fan, and cool off before you do anything else,” said her mother, when she proposed the plan; “you’ll have a sun-stroke.”

So Nancy had to sit in the dark, cool sitting-room and fan herself for full twenty minutes before she was allowed to put on her old dress and Shaker and start on her berrying excursion. Flora wanted to go, too, but her aunt thought it was too hot; she was apt to have headaches. She sat on the back door-step shelling pease when Nancy started.

Nancy, bustling off with her two-quart tin pail, glanced back at Flora’s little yellow shaven head bending patiently over the pan of pease in the doorway. She felt guilty. Was she not going off with the secret intention of earning money enough to buy that sweet-grass basket before Flora could? Flora would not have her money until Saturday; this was Monday. If she could only earn the forty-two cents in the mean time.

Nancy worked hard that week. Her hands and arms got scratched; she had even a scratch across her nose. The blackberry vines seemed almost like tangible foes; but she pushed and tussled with them until she had picked the six quarts.

On Monday Aunt Lucretia had the minister and his wife to tea, and made blackberry shortcake; on Friday she made blackberry jelly. All Nancy’s part of the contract was promptly fulfilled, but Aunt Lucretia’s was not. She had not a cent of change in her purse when Nancy brought in the last instalment of berries.

“You’ll have to wait two or three days until I can get this bill changed,” said she. “You’ve been real smart about picking ’em. You’ve picked ’em clean, too. Here’s a piece of sweet-cake for you.”

Nancy went home in the hot sun. Her red, scratched face looked gloomy and discouraged in the depths of the Shaker bonnet. She nibbled at the sweet-cake as she went along, but she did not care for it. Here it was Friday forenoon, and she had to wait two or three days for her forty-two cents. Flora’s money would come, and she would buy the sweet-grass basket. Nancy felt quite desperate. That afternoon she teased her mother to let her go over to Aunt Lucretia’s again.

“No; you don’t go a step,” said her mother. “She’s making jell’, and you’ve been over there once to-day. You can sit down with your knitting-work this afternoon, and be contented.”

Nancy sat down with her knitting-work, but she was not contented. It seemed to her that she must have those forty-two cents. After tea she begged again for permission to go to Aunt Lucretia’s. “It’s real nice and cool out now, mother,” she pleaded.

“I don’t care how cool it is,” said her mother, “you can’t go. I don’t see what has got into you.”

But the next morning Nancy was really sent over to Aunt Lucretia’s on an errand. She did the errand, then she stood waiting.

“Did your mother want anything else?” asked Aunt Lucretia.

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, I guess you had better run home then. It’s baking day, and maybe you can help your mother some. You’d ought to help her all you can, you’re getting to be a big girl. I used to do a whole week’s baking before I was your age.”

“Aunt Lucretia!”

“What say?”

“Have you–got that–bill–changed yet?”

“No, I haven’t. You mustn’t tease. I’m going down to the store in a day or two, and then you can have it.”

So Nancy went home again without her forty-two cents. She wept a little on the way. Here it was Saturday, and Flora expecting her money on the noon mail. But it did not come on the noon mail. It did not come until six o’clock at night, and Flora did not think of buying the basket that day.

After tea that night, about half-past seven o’clock, Nancy did something that she had never done before in her life. She went over to her Aunt Lucretia’s without permission. Her mother had gone to one of the neighbor’s. Flora was in the sitting-room reading a story-book. Nancy stole out of the front door, and hurried down the road.