They nodded affirmatively.

“Are you all willing to take simple, straightforward directions, and do your best?  I’m not asking what is unreasonable, for I shall not be more strict with you than with my own children.”

“No use o’ beatin’ around the bush, Mr. Durham,” said Bagley, good-naturedly; “we’ve come here to ‘arn our livin’, and to do as you say.”

“I can get along with you, Bagley, but your children will find it hard to follow my rules, because they are children, and are not used to restraint.  Yet they must do it, or there’ll be trouble at once.  They must work quietly and steadily while they do work, and when I am through with them, they must go straight home.  They mustn’t lounge about the place.  If they will obey, Mrs. Durham and I will be good friends to them, and by fall we will fix them up so that they can go to school.”

The little arabs looked askance at me and made me think of two wild animals that had been caught, and were intelligent enough to understand that they must be tamed.  They were submissive, but made no false pretences of enjoying the prospect.

“I shall keep a gad handy,” said their father, with a significant nod at them.

“Well, youngsters,” I concluded, laughing, “perhaps you’ll need it occasionally.  I hope not, however.  I shall keep no gad, but I shall have an eye on you when you least expect it; and if you go through the picking-season well, I shall have a nice present for you both.  Now, you are to receive so much a basket, if the baskets are properly filled, and therefore it will depend on yourselves how much you earn.  You shall be paid every day.  So now for a good start toward becoming a man and a woman.”

I led them to one side of the raspberry patch and put them under Merton’s charge saying, “You must pick exactly as he directs.”

Winnie and Bobsey were to pick in another part of the field, Mousie aiding until the sun grew too warm for the delicate child.  Bagley was to divide his time between hoeing in the garden and spreading the grass after the scythe of old Mr. Jacox.  From my ladder against a cherry-tree, I was able to keep a general outlook over my motley forces, and we all made good progress till dinner, which, like the help we employed, we now had at twelve o’clock.  Bagley and his children sat down to their lunch under the shade of an apple-tree at some distance, yet in plain view through our open door.  Their repast must have been meagre, judging from the time in which it was despatched, and my wife said, “Can’t I send them something?”

“Certainly; what have you to send?”

“Well, I’ve made a cherry pudding; I don’t suppose there is much more than enough for us, though.”

“Children,” I cried, “let’s take a vote.  Shall we share our cherry pudding with the Bagleys?”

“Yes,” came the unanimous reply, although Bobsey’s voice was rather faint.

Merton carried the delicacy to the group under the tree, and it was gratefully and speedily devoured.