long,
curving handles they were, too) and, tying on their biggest sun hats,
they started out through the garden path.

They crossed the field, climbed the fence into the woods and turned
down the wagon road as Grandmother had directed them. And sure enough,
there were the berry bushes just as she had said. Bushes that were
fairly loaded with shining blackberries that glistened in the afternoon
sunshine.

[Illustration: "There were the berry bushes--fairly loaded with shining
blackberries."]

The girls set to work most enthusiastically and by the time Grandfather
came to see how they liked their job (for, of course, he had heard all
about it at dinner time) they had their baskets nearly full. He walked
home with them and helped them measure out their berries with
Grandmother's quart measure. Alice had a quart and a half and Mary
Jane a full, even quart and Grandmother paid immediately--fifteen cents
for Alice and ten cents, a bright new dime, for Mary Jane.

"My, but I do be rich!" exclaimed Mary Jane delightedly. "I can get my
dear mother the nicest thing!"

"Of course you can, Pussy," said Grandfather, "and Alice will have her
camera in no time. I get the best of all, though," he added with a
mysterious nod of his head.

"How do you?" asked both girls at once.

"I get to eat the jam!" replied Grandfather in a comical attempt at a
whisper.

"They do too, bless their hearts!" exclaimed Grandmother. They shall
eat all they want. I'll make it first thing in the morning."

"And first thing in the morning I mean to get more berries," said
Alice. "Let me see--fifteen into seventy-five:--in four more days I'll
have enough money to get my camera!" And she danced around gayly, she
was so delighted.

"Not quite," laughed Grandfather; "don't be in too big a hurry,
Blunderbuss; you have to give the berries a chance to ripen. Better
plan to go every other day. You'll get more at a time that way."

"And I'm going, too," put in Mary Jane, "so I can get more money for
Mother's present."

"I was thinking about that present while you girls were gone," said
Grandmother. "You'd better get that present in the city where the
stores are good. Why don't you save it for her Christmas gift? That
would be nice."

"But I wanted to give her something when she comes to take me home!"
objected Mary Jane, who had set her heart on making her mother a gift,
"something that I did."

"That's all right," Grandmother assu