orthern
shrewdness, the sluggish instincts of the Southerner unfitting him for
an occupation requiring incessant activity and promptness,--while its
apparent littleness, the peddling of strawberries, were unworthy a race
whose inheritance is cotton or tobacco.

For a few weeks these cultivators have entire possession of the Northern
market. In time, however, our suns become hotter, ripening the fruits of
our own fields. Then comes the rivalry among ourselves,--who shall be
earliest with the best fruit;--for herein lies an important element of
general success.

My berries ripened rapidly, and I knew they must be ready for picking by
hearing that our neighbors were about beginning. It was a momentous day
when we began. My mother and myself undertook it: for that afternoon I
stayed away from the factory, as it was impossible for me to be absent
from so interesting a scene. I had no idea what quantity we were to
expect, though I had ransacked my agricultural library in hopes of
discovering some approximate solution of this question. Crops were found
to vary as unaccountably as modes of culture. One grower would obtain
more fruit from a few rods of ground than another from a whole acre.
These prevailing contrarieties were well calculated to make me doubtful
of what my luck was to be. Hence, when we had gone over the whole
half-acre, and found that we had gathered ninety quarts, I was entirely
satisfied, and more so from noticing, on a survey of the bed, that there
was no perceptible diminution of the quantity remaining on the vines.

The fruit was of very superior size, for perhaps few cultivators could
have bestowed more labor in keeping the ground in order; and this labor
of our own hands was nearly all that the experiment had cost. As I was
anxious to follow the directions given by my market friend, we had a
great time that evening in assorting the berries, putting them in three
lots,--the very largest in one, then the next best, and the smallest in
a third. They were placed in nice new baskets as assorted, so as to be
handled as little as possible. These were safely stowed in a
wheelbarrow, and before daybreak the next morning Fred wheeled them to
market. I was with him, of course. It was my first errand,--the first
fruits of my long anxiety,--my first appearance as a strawberry-girl.

The streets at that early hour were deserted and silent, for the busy
multitudes were not yet stirring. No pedestrians were about but