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“If you go berrying this mornin’, you’ve got to take Jonathan with you,” Mrs. Thayer had said. “Dorcas is weaving, an’ Lyddy an’ I have got to dye. You’ll have to take him out in the pasture with you, an’ tend him.”

The berry pasture whither they were bound was about a half-mile from home. The two boys scurried on ahead, the four yellow sun-bonnets marched bravely on, and Jonathan’s wagon rattled behind.

“The berries are real thick,” said Harriet; “but they say the bushes are loaded with ’em over in Cap’n Moseby’s lot, an’ they’re as big as walnuts.”

“He can’t use quarter of ’em himself,” returned Mary Ann. “I call it real stingy not to let folks go in there pickin’!” She nodded her sun-bonnet indignantly.

When they reached the berry pasture, they fell to work eagerly. Jonathan’s wagon was drawn up on one side, under the shade of a pine-tree, and Mirandy was bidden to have an eye to him. Nobody had much faith in the seriousness of Mirandy’s picking, and they thought that she might as well tend Jonathan and leave them free.

But Mirandy stationed herself at a bush near Jonathan, and began with a will. They all had birch baskets fastened at their waists to pick into, and they had brought buckets to fill. Mirandy had hers as well as the rest.

The yellow sun-bonnets and the palm-leaf hats waved about among the bushes, and the berries fell fast into the birch-bark baskets. Mirandy stayed close to Jonathan, as she had been bidden, and she struggled bravely with her berry bush, but it was too tall for her; the bushes in this pasture were very tall. Mirandy tugged the branches down, and panted for breath. She was eager to fill her basket as soon as anybody. She heard Harriet and Mary Ann talking near her, although she could not see them.

“Cap’n Moseby’s pasture is right over there. You get over the stone-wall, and go across one field, and you come to it,” remarked Harriet.

“I s’pose the berries are as thick as spatters,” said Mary Ann, with a sigh.

“Dan’l says the bushes are dragging down with ’em.”

“Well,” said Mary Ann, “nobody would dare to go there, for he keeps that great black dog, and I’ve heard he watches with a gun.”

“So’ve I. No; I shouldn’t dare to go. I s’pose it would be stealing, anyway.”

“I don’t s’pose ‘twould,” rejoined Harriet, hotly. “I guess if anything is free, berry pastures are. Who planted berry bushes, I’d like to know?”

“I s’pose the Lord did,” said Mary Ann. “Mebbe it ain’t stealin’, but anyhow I shouldn’t dare to go there.”

“I shouldn’t,” agreed Harriet; “an’ I know Dan’l and Abijah wouldn’t.”

Mirandy listened; she thought both Harriet and Mary Ann very wise. She trusted to their conclusion that it would not be stealing to pick Cap’n Moseby’s berries, but she privately thought she would “dare to.”

Mirandy did not know what fear was; dogs did not alarm her in the least; and as for Cap’n Moseby and his gun, she knew he would not shoot her; once he had given her some peppermints.

She pulled her bush down painfully, and thought the berries were not very large, and how fast those in Cap’n Moseby’s pasture would fill up. Harriet’s and Mary Ann’s voices grew fainter. Mirandy let the bush fly back, and pushed softly through a tangle of blackberry vines to the stone-wall; a narrow stretch of rocky land lay between it and the other which bounded Cap’n Moseby’s land. Mirandy stood on tiptoe, and peered over; then she looked at Jonathan asleep in his little wagon, his yellow lashes on his pink cheeks, his fat fists doubled up.

Mirandy was loyal, although she was so young, and she had been bidden not to leave Jonathan. She looked at him, then at the stone-wall; it was manifestly impossible for her to lift him over that. She took hold of the little wagon, and pushed it carefully along. She remembered that she had seen some bars a little farther back.