They came upon the old house one day when they were out blackberrying in vacation time. It was the kind of house that people used to build long ago. It had a long, sloping roof behind and the roof ran down almost to the ground. The house was very weather-beaten and out of repair. It looked battered and forlorn. Of course, it had long been deserted. Weeds grew rank in its front yard. It was far away from any neighbors. Solita and Sue had wandered far from the village. They hardly knew just how they had reached the place where so many berries grew, but they knew it was far from where they were boarding that summer.

Nobody seemed to have lived in the house for ever so long. Creepers covered the fence and what was once a roadway, leading toward the rear, was all overgrown. There were blackberry bushes thick everywhere.

At first Solita and Sue didn’t think much about the house, though it was rather a surprise to have come upon it suddenly. They had explored the different roads in the country near White Farm but never a deserted house had they found yet. At first both Solita and Sue did not observe it because they were all-absorbed in berry-picking. It was wonderful how fast the pails filled up with big, juicy, ripe fruit!

Solita had her pail full and was picking more berries to fill her white canvas hat. She didn’t stop to think that the berries would ruin it—she just wanted to get as many berries as possible! The hat was all she had to use. Sue was racing with her and her basket was nearly full. There must have been at least three quarts. It was much more roomy than the tin pail or Solita’s hat.

The rest of the children who had started from White Farm with Sue and Solita were lagging along the roadside in the rear. Just how far away they were, the two leaders did not bother to consider. There was Albert, the baby, and he was bound to go slowly with Matilda. Probably some of the children were just fooling in the brook or sitting by the wayside. It was not everybody who was as energetic as Sue and Solita that hot day!

So Solita and Sue, proud to outdo all the others, picked fast and furiously and did not stop. Step by step they had progressed to this wonderful, wonderful berry patch beside the old house. All of a sudden, Solita shouted, “I’ve won!” She made her way with difficulty through the tangle, holding her hat, piled high. The tin pail hung upon her arm and dropped berries at every step.

“Let’s see?” Sue questioned. “I don’t believe it; you come here an’ we’ll compare.”

So the two floundered around in the high growth of weeds and made for the first clear space that there seemed to be. They met at the stone doorstep of the old house and put their load of berries down there upon its broad, flat tableland.

My! But they were a sight! Solita’s pink gingham dress was torn in several places and her arms were a sight to behold—all red scratches. Her fingers were stained and grimy and her cap, too, was a sight. As for Sue, her green chambray was purple with berry juice, although she seemed to have escaped the rents from thorny creepers. But the two were happy and they didn’t care much how they looked. They simply dumped all the berries on the doorstep and compared the two piles. These seemed even, so the two thought they would rest for a while and then start back to tell the lagging children behind and urge them to hurry up.

But Solita decided that it was no use to go away back on the road to call the others. They might be a mile or more back, she said. “No, don’t let’s do that! Let’s try to pick all there are and then go home and surprise everybody.”

“But, Solita,” Sue suggested, “we haven’t anything to put all the berries in. How could we do that?”

“I could gather up my skirt,” Solita volunteered. “We could pick into that. It’s already all ruined so I don’t mind using it—it’s an old last year’s frock.”

“Mercy me, Solita! What would your mother say to that!” Sue exclaimed, aghast. “The very idea! No, we’ll have to find something else.”

“Do you suppose there’d be anything to hold them if we were to look around here?” questioned Solita. “Maybe we might find something—an old pail or cooking pan that has been thrown away.”

“There might be something inside the house,” Sue mused. “That’s very likely, but I don’t know if we could get in or not. We can try. I’m going to push the door. Do you suppose we can get in?” They had prowled around the house to what must have been the back door. But that back door wouldn’t give at all. It was tight.

The windows seemed shut fast, too. Sue said it made her feel like a burglar to try them, but since the house had been without a tenant for so long, of course it was not burglaring, she said.

After they had investigated many nooks and found nothing in the near-by shed, either, Solita suggested that they try the front door. “People always leave things behind when they move,” she declared. “I’m sure, if we could get in, we’d find a box or a pan or a basket. Even an old sack might answer—anything that is like a bag could be used.”

But when the two came to the front doorstone where the two big piles of berries lay, Solita sat down on one side and did not try the door.

“You open the door, Sue,” she said.

“No, you try it!”

“You’re afraid something will jump out at you!”

“No I’m not!” retorted Sue. “What’s there to be afraid of, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Solita. “But it’s kind of spooky, I think. Let’s go home.” But with that Solita rose and pretended to try the door. She didn’t push it at all.

“Oh, I can get it open! You’re not pushing,” Sue exclaimed. “We’ll do it together. You turn and I’ll push—what’s the use of backing down? Let’s go in.” So the two together pushed and pulled and the door suddenly yielded. Its latch must have been very old and rusty indeed!

The opening of the door came as a real surprise, and it swung back against the wall inside the house with a loud bang that echoed through all the lonely darkness of the hallway. There was only a little light that came from the slats of broken blinds here and there in the open room that was just off the hall.

Sue took the lead. Solita followed, ready to run back at any minute. It was certainly an adventure, this entering in upon the solitude of that deserted house, long closed. “I don’t think it’s at all nice to go into people’s houses while they’re away,” she urged. “I’m going back. I think we ought not to have come in here at all—it’s ever so dark. I can’t see anything—Where’re you, Sue?”

“I’m not a scare-cat,” replied Sue. “You were the one who wanted to find the basket for the berries. Come ahead! It isn’t dark—this is lots of fun!”

“I’m going to use my dress, anyhow,” protested Solita. “I don’t want any basket.” But for the sake of company chiefly, perhaps, she followed Sue, who was investigating the empty house. Here and there she poked under dusty furniture and into old, vacant closets. There seemed to be no basket—not even an old box or tin pan, rusty from disuse. “Come ahead, Solita,” she kept saying. “Nobody’s going to eat you up. If anybody comes for such a purpose, they can begin and eat up the blackberries that are on the doorstep.” So she kept on hunting. Really, after a while, when they were used to the noise that their feet made and to the echo of their voices in the dim, closed rooms, it was rather interesting. All they found was a rusty hammer downstairs, so Sue decided to go above and look some more.

Everything there was rickety and the stairs squeaked and frightened Solita but she laughed—indeed, she was beginning to get over her timidity and enjoy the quest.

The chambers opened into the hall upstairs so that it looked like one big room except at one end of the rear room where the roof sloped. There was a real little bit of a room that must have belonged to some child. There were two little broken toy dishes in it on the floor. They were all thick with dust, so Sue did not pick them up. Solita was safely in the rear near the stairs. She declared from time to time that there was no basket and that they’d better go home but Sue kept on. It isn’t every day that one can have a real adventure. She enjoyed the creepy feeling that came with exploring dim corners.

“When my great-great-grandfather was a little boy,” she mused, “he must have lived in a house like this. Father told me a story about how he used to slide down the roof and land on the grass below just for fun. Fancy doing a thing like that!”

Solita didn’t appear much interested. But Sue went on, “It was during the American Revolution that he and my great-great-grandmother lived. He fought in it—I mean his father, I guess,” rambled Sue. She hardly knew what she was saying but she was chiefly trying to keep Solita from deserting the quest. “We might find a treasure in one of these closets,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“Nobody goes off and leaves a treasure in an old house,” Solita snapped.

“But it might have been hidden here by somebody and left till we came—”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes, it might!”

“Where—not up here!”

“Oh, maybe down cellar,” replied Sue, who had about finished her explorations upstairs. She had been peeping out of the window of the wee little room at the back of the house and had opened its window wide to let in the sunlight and fresh air. It was only a little window.

“You’re not going to get me to go down cellar with you,” declared Solita. “I’m going home. There wouldn’t be any baskets or treasure there at all and there might be rats and mice or other things—and I won’t go!”

“Then the treasure would be all my own, if I found it,” returned Sue. “Suppose it was a thousand dollars tied up in a bag!”

“If you go a step down cellar, I’m going home,” said Solita stoutly. “I’m going this minute anyhow—good-bye!” She started toward the stairs.

Sue felt rather obstinate. She decided that she would go down cellar even if Solita left her. She tried to close the little window that looked down the long slope of the roof but it was hard to get it closed again. She looked down the long slope and was half determined to slide down it and see how it felt. If her great-great-grandfather had done it, she could, too! Why not! It would be fun to creep out of the window and not follow Solita—just slide down over the shingles to the ground and run around to the front door and hide till Solita came and then jump out and call, boo! But at this minute, she heard Solita scream and the scream was so terrified that Sue jumped toward the stairs. Solita was running toward her. “You can’t go down the stairs—Oh, don’t go that way!” she screamed. “A bear is sitting in the doorway. He growled when he heard me come down the stairs. He is on the doorstone—a big, big bear! What shall we do! We can’t get out! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Why did we ever come into this house!”

“A real bear?” questioned Sue, grabbing fast to Solita’s torn frock. “Tell me—you just imagined it—you couldn’t have seen one! There aren’t any bears here!”

But Solita struggled to free herself. “Oh, I saw him,” she insisted in a frightened wail. “He may be up here any moment. He’s so big he could push any door in and we’re caught! We’re caught!”

Sue, half believing and against all entreaty, peeped over the winding balustrade rail. Yes. There was a bear! Her heart went pat-pat-pat. A shiver ran down her back. She felt cold all over and ready to sink down in a limp heap upon the floor. But she put a warning finger to her lips and motioned Solita to stop crying. The first thing she thought of was to get Solita quietly into that little back room that had the open window that gave upon the long sloping roof—that was it! They could creep out quietly and then dash off over the back yard and into the woods. Then, perhaps, they could turn down and find the road and warn the other children!

Solita stood there shivering, but Sue dragged her toward the little room and closed the door. Solita was stupefied with the fear of that bear’s coming upstairs after them. At first she did not understand about the window, but Sue made her crawl through it first and told her to run toward the woods when she got down off the roof. “I’ll come right after you,” she urged. “Go right on and I’ll follow. He won’t see us!”

Poor Solita gathered her pink skirt about her and slid miserably and cautiously down. She was almost as afraid of falling suddenly as she was of the bear. Sue, however, made quick work of it, even as the great-great-grandfather must have done, though there were no bears after him. At the very end of the slope, she landed in a blackberry bush tangle, but she pulled herself free and helped Solita. Then the two of them darted toward the woods at the rear without a look back to see if the big bear were following or not. Solita was sure he was coming but Sue denied it. At last, badly out of breath, they reached the road, after plunging through thickets and being badly torn and scratched, after one or two excited tumbles over dead logs and much worry about the bear.

As they turned the corner of the road near the brook, they came upon the children with little Albert. “Run, run!” they screamed, “run, run quick! There’s a bear coming!”

Then, all in a crowd, they hurried on toward the road that led to White Farm. They had not gone very far when there appeared two men coming toward them. They were talking together in excited French. They stopped and asked if anybody had seen a big bear.“Oui, oui,” nodded Solita and she launched out into a long talk in French that nobody else understood. It seemed that that was really the bear Sue and Solita had run away from and he wasn’t a wild bear but a tame one that would dance with a pole while the men sang French songs. They had stopped to get a drink of water at a farm and the bear had got off someway, when their backs were turned. They were delighted to know where he was and Solita and Sue, reassured, offered to show the way. So again they started toward the funny, old-fashioned house in a crowd together.

They came upon the bear, still eating blackberries on the doorstone—he hadn’t budged! And when the Frenchmen called him, he came meekly. Then all the children stood around in the dooryard while the bear that Solita and Sue had escaped from danced and danced. He turned somersets, too! It was fun.

And then the men took off their caps and turned and went down the overgrown driveway and off up the road. The children were already busy with the blackberries. “I might go down cellar now, Solita,” laughed Sue, “but I don’t believe I want to. Maybe there’d be another bear there. I’ve had enough of one, even a tame one, haven’t you?”

Solita laughed. “Our blackberries are all eaten,” she said. “We’d have to begin to pick again to fill the basket and the pail. I move we all go home, for I think it’s nearly lunch time.”

But everybody wanted to go into the house and slide down the roof, while little Albert made believe he was the bear and said “Grrr-r” on the doorstone. It really was a blackberry adventure for a summer day!

Betty Crusoe

THE SEPTEMBER SURPRISE

September was almost school time again. There seemed to be a long, hard thing in the September pocket that was not the story pocket. Marjorie said it felt as if it were a stick of candy. She had wanted to open the surprise long before September 13th, the date set, had come. But at last it was September 13th and she tore open the seals that held that leaf of the Surprise Book’s pocket tight. There was—why, a pencil! Why hadn’t she ever guessed that! It was a pencil painted pink and it had a rubber at its end. It had a pretty card tied to it that said, “Use this when you go to school tomorrow.” The story Marjorie opened that evening after supper. It was called “Betty Crusoe.”