And more than all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so miserably was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his mother was making, and for which she was saving every penny.  He could not lay it out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store.  He sat there all the week, and every time there was a whir of little brown wings and the darting flash of a red breast among the cherry branches he rang in frantic haste the old cow-bell.  All the solace he obtained was an occasional robin-pecked cherry which he found in the grass, and then Mr. Berry questioned him severely when he saw stains around his mouth and on his fingers.

He was on hand early in the morning on the day of the cherry picnic, trudging half awake, with the taste of breakfast in his mouth, through the acres of white dewy grass.  He sat on his rock until the grass was dry, and patiently jingled his cow-bell.  It was to young Ezra Ray, although all unwittingly, as if he himself were assisting in the operations of nature.  He watched so assiduously that it was as if he dried the dewy grass and ripened the cherries.

When the cherry party began to arrive he still sat on his rock and jingled his bell; he did not know when to stop.  But his eyes were upon the assembling people rather than upon the robins.  He watched the brave young men whose ignominy of boyhood was past, bearing ladders and tossing up shining tin pails as they came.  He watched the girls swinging their little straw baskets daintily; his stupidly wondering eyes followed especially Rebecca Thayer.  Rebecca, in her black muslin, with her sweet throat fairly dazzling above the half-low bodice, and wound about twice with a slender gold chain, with her black silk apron embroidered with red roses, and beautiful face glowing with rich color between the black folds of her hair, held the instinctive attention of the boy.  He stared at her as she stood talking to another girl with her back quite turned upon all the young men, until his own sister touched him upon the shoulder with a sharp nudge of a bony little hand.

Amelia Ray’s face, blonde like her brother’s, but sharp with the sharpness of the thin and dark, was thrust into his.  “You must go right home now,” declared her high voice.  “Mother said so.”

“I’m going to stay and help pick ’em,” said Ezra, in a voice which was not affirmative.

“No, you ain’t.”

“I can climb trees.”

“You’ve got to go right straight home.  Mother wants you to wind balls for the rag carpet.”

And then Ezra Ray, with disconsolate gaping face over his shoulder, retreated with awkward lopes across the field, the cow-bell accompanying his steps with doleful notes.