Susan Warner - Diana

"Well, you lead and we'll follow," said Mr. Knowlton. "You lead, Miss

Starling, and we will keep close to you."

Diana plunged into the blackberry bushes, and striking off from the route she guessed the other pickers had taken, sought a part of the wilderness lower down on the hill. There was no lack of blackberries very soon. Every bush hung black with them; great, fat, juicy beauties, just ready to fall with ripeness. Blackberry stains spotted the whole party after they had gone a few yards, merely by the unavoidable crushing up against the bushes. Diana went to work upon this rich harvest, and occupied herself entirely with it; but berry-picking never was so dreary to her. The very sound of the berries falling into her tin pail smote her with a sense of pain; she thought of the day's work before her with revulsion. However, it was before her, and her fingers flew among the bushes, from berry to berry, gathering them with a deft skilfulness her companions could not emulate. Diana knew how they were getting on, without using her eyes to find out; for all their experience was proclaimed aloud. How the ground was rough and the bushes thorny, how the berries blacked their lips and the prickles lacerated their fingers, and the stains of blackberry juice were spoiling gloves and dresses and all they had on.

"I never imagined," said Mrs. Reverdy with a gay laugh, "that picking blackberries was such a serious business. O dear! and it's only just eleven o'clock now. And I am so hungry!"

"Eat blackberries," said Gertrude, who was doing it diligently.

"But I want to carry some home."

"You can buy 'em. We came for fun," was the cool answer.

"Fun?" said Mrs. Reverdy with another echoing, softly echoing, laugh; "it's the fun of being torn and stained and scratched, and having one's hat pulled off one's hair, and the hair off one's head."

Diana heard it all, they were not far from her; and she heard, too, Mr. Knowlton's little remarks, half gallant, half mocking, but very familiar, she thought. No doubt, to his sister; but how to Miss Masters too? Yet they were; and also, she noticed, he kept in close attendance upon the latter young lady; picking into her basket, getting her out of her numerous entanglements with the blackberry branches, flattering and laughing at her; Gertrude was having what she would call a good time; why not? "And why should I?" thought Diana to herself as she filled her pail. "It is not in my line. What a goose I was, to fancy that this young man could take pleasure in being with me. He did; but then he was just amusing himself; it was not I; it was the country and the fishing, and so on. What a goose I have been!"

As fast as the blackberries dropped into the pail, so fell these reflections into Diana's heart; and when the one was full, so was the other. And as she set down her pail and began upon a fresh empty one, so she did with her thoughts; they began all over again too.

"Miss Starling, it is twelve o'clock," cried Mrs. Reverdy; "where are all the rest of the people? Do you work all day without dinner? I expected to see a great picnic out under the trees here."

"This is not the picnic place," said Diana. "We will go to it."

She went back first to the waggons; put her berries in safe keeping, and got out some of the lunch supplies. Mr. Knowlton loaded himself with a basket out of his waggon; and the procession formed again in Indian file, everybody carrying something, and the two ladies grumbling and laughing in concert. Diana headed the line, feeling very much alone, and wishing sadly it were all over and she at home. How was she to play her part in the preparations at hand, where she had always been so welcome and so efficient? All spring and life seemed to be taken out of her, for everything but the dull mechanical picking of berries. However, strength comes with necessity, she found.

There was quite a collection of people on Bear Hill to-day, as could be seen when they were all gathered together. The lunching place was high on the mountain, where there was a good outlook over the surrounding country; and here in the edge of the woods the blackberry pickers were scattered about, lying and sitting on the ground in groups and pairs, chatting and watching the preparations going on before their eyes. Pretty and wild the preparations were. Under a big tree just at the border of the clearing a fire was kindled; a stout spike driven into the trunk of the tree held a tea-kettle just over the blaze. Wreaths of blue and grey smoke curling up above the tea-kettle made their way through the tree branches into the upper air, taking hues and colours and irradiations from the sunlight in their way. The forest behind, the wilderness of blackberry bushes in front; the wide view over the hills and vales, without one spot of cultivation anywhere, or a trace of man's habitation; the scene was wild enough. The soft curling smoke, grey and embrowned, gave a curious touch of homeliness to it. From two fires it went, curling up as comfortably as if it had been there always. The second fire was lit for the purpose of boiling green corn, which two or three people were busy getting ready, stripping the green husks off. Other hands were unloading baskets and distributing bread and butter and cups, and unpacking ham and chickens. Meanwhile, till the fires should have done their work, most of the party were comfortably awaiting the moment of enjoyment, and taking some other moments, as it seemed, by the way. Mrs. Carpenter in one place was surrounded by her large family of children; all come to pick blackberries, all heated with work and fun, and eager for the dinner. Miss Barry, quite tired out, was fanning herself with her sun-bonnet, and having a nice bit of chat with Miss Babbage, the schoolmaster's sister. Mrs. Mansfield and farmer Carpenter were happily discussing systems of agriculture. Mrs. Boddington was making a circle merry with her sharp speeches. Younger folks here and there were carrying on their own particular lines of skirmishing operations; but there were not many of these; the company had come for business quite as much as for play. Indeed, Miss Gunn's array of baskets and tin pails suggested that she was doing business on her brother's account as much as on her own; and that preserves and blackberry wine would be for sale by and by on the shelves of the store at the "Corner."

The little party that came up with Diana melted away as it met the rest. Mrs. Reverdy glided into the group gathered about Mrs. Boddington, and slid as easily into the desultory gossip that was going on. Diana had instantly joined herself to the little band of workers at the camp fire. Only one or two had cared to take the trouble and responsibility of the feast; it was just what Diana craved. As if cooking had been the great business of life, she went into it; making coffee, watching the corn, boiling the potatoes; looking at nothing else and trying to see nobody, and as far as possible contriving that nobody should see her. She hid behind the column of smoke, or sheltered herself at the further side of the great trunk of a tree; from the fire, she said to herself. But her face took on a preternatural gravity at those times, whenever she knew it was safe. She thought she did not look at anybody; yet she knew that Miss Masters had joined none of the groups under the trees, and seemed instead to prefer a solitary post in front of them all, where her pretty figure and dainty appointments were displayed in full view. Was she looking at the landscape? Diana did not in the least believe it. But she tried to work without thinking; that vainest of all cheateries, where the conclusions of thought, independent of the processes, force themselves upon the mind and lay their full weight upon it. Only one does not stop anywhere to think about them, and the weight is distributed. It is like driving fast over thin ice; stay a minute in any one place, and you would break through. But that consciousness makes unpleasant driving.