“ARE you hurt, Veve?”

Connie scrambled down from her own ladder to help her little friend up from the ground.

Veve brushed dirt from her Brownie uniform and picked up the beanie which had fallen from her head. Ruefully she gazed at the spilled cherries. Scarcely a handful remained in the tin bucket.

“Oh, I’m all right,” she muttered, rubbing an elbow. “But see what happened! Now Mr. Hooper won’t want the Brownies to pick in his orchard.”

Even as she spoke, the orchard owner hurried up, Cap barking at his heels.

From a distance, he had seen Veve tumble from the ladder. He was afraid she might have been injured.

“Didn’t I warn you to be careful?” he asked a trifle crossly. “If you had broken an arm—”

“You don’t have to be liable for my fall,” Veve assured him. “I’m not hurt a bit.”

Hurriedly she began to pick up the scattered cherries.

“We tried so hard,” Connie said. She felt quite crushed by the disaster. “I—I guess we aren’t very good pickers.”

Pa Hooper patted her shoulder. “You’ve done well for the first time,” he said, peering into her pail. “It was just an accident. They will happen sometimes, despite precautions.”

“Then you think we’re good enough to get the job for the Brownies?” Veve demanded. Pa Hooper’s words had revived her hope.

Before the orchard owner could reply, Cap gave a little yip to attract attention. Then he sat up and begged, waving his two front paws.

Veve and Connie had to laugh. Cap looked very cute, and seemed to be coaxing his master into saying that the girls might have the cherry picking job.

“So you think I should, eh, Cap?” chuckled Pa Hooper. “That does it, old boy. We’ll hire the Brownies! The entire troop!”

“Whoopee!” shouted Veve. She capered around so madly she nearly upset Connie’s pail of cherries.

“Careful now,” warned Pa Hooper, rather sternly. “Cherry picking is serious business. If you work here you’ll have to obey orders and not act the fool. Furthermore, you’ll have to use the short ladders. I can’t risk having you fall from the top of a tree.”

“We’ll do exactly as you say,” Veve promised. Because she couldn’t curb her high spirits, she broke into a snatch of a Brownie song:

“I hope the Brownies do stay and prove to be good pickers,” Mr. Hooper said, sighing. “I’ve had plenty of trouble with the crop this season.”

“What sort of trouble, Mr. Hooper?” inquired Connie.

“Well, as I said, the larger orchard owners have hired nearly all of the professional pickers. I’m supposed to have a crew coming in tomorrow, but they may fail me. And my fruit is ripening fast.”

Mr. Hooper gazed thoughtfully up into a cherry tree as he spoke. The fruit nearly all was bright red and so plump it looked as if it might burst.

The orchard owner took Connie’s pail of cherries to the shed for weighing.

“You’ve picked four pounds,” he said. “That’s six cents. After you’ve practiced awhile, you’ll find you can strip the trees three times as fast.”

Pa Hooper told the girls that a professional picker usually made from six to ten dollars a day. The Brownies, of course, never could hope to earn that much.

Instead of paying Connie for the cherries she had picked, Mr. Hooper wrote her name on a card and the amount that was due.

“This is your account,” he said. “If you’re a good picker and stick to it, the sum should grow and grow like Jack’s beanstalk.”

Then and there, both Connie and Veve made up their minds to be the fastest pickers in the Rosedale Brownie troop. They scarcely could wait to return home to relate their good news!

“Be at the orchard early in the morning if you want to get a good start,” Mr. Hooper urged. “At least by seven o’clock.”

Now, as a rule, Connie and Veve scarcely had their breakfasts by that hour. You may be sure, though, that they didn’t tell the orchard owner. Instead, they merely nodded and promised to be on hand.

The girls felt quite happy as they trudged to the bus stop. Their arms ached from such fast picking, and Veve had several cherry juice stains on her pinchecked dress. But they were pleased to have obtained a promise of work.

“We should make a lot of money for the troop,” Veve declared as they waited for their bus.

“What if Miss Gordon shouldn’t let us pick?” Connie asked anxiously. “After all, she only told us to find out about the job. Not to take it.”

“And it will be hard getting the Brownies to the orchard by seven o’clock,” Veve added.

“Mr. Hooper really needs our help though. If he doesn’t get pickers soon, his crop will be lost. When the Brownies hear about that, I’m sure they’ll want to pitch in.”

“Sure, they will,” Veve agreed confidently. “If they don’t, we’ll make ’em!”

The arrival of a city-bound bus brought the talk to an end. During the ride into Rosedale, Veve had little to say. After awhile, Connie noticed her companion’s unusual silence.

“What’s the matter with you anyhow, Veve?” she demanded. “Tired?”

“Not very.”

“Then what is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Veve said in a tone which meant just the opposite.

“Aren’t you glad we got the job?”

“Of course! Only—”

“Only what, Veve?”

“Well, I was wondering if Mr. Hooper will treat the Brownies right.”

“Treat them right?” Connie couldn’t understand what Veve meant. “Why, he agreed to pay a cent and a half a pound. That must be a fair price, even if some of the larger orchards pay two cents.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean money, Connie. I was wondering if Mr. Hooper will beat the Brownies if they make mistakes.”

“Beat them! Whoever heard of such a thing! He wouldn’t dare!”

“Well, he might.”

Connie stared at her little friend, who now was etching a face on the dusty bus window.

“What ails you, Veve?” she asked. “Didn’t you like Mr. Hooper?”

“’Course, I did.”

“Then what put such a thought into your head? He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Maybe not,” Veve admitted, “but some of the orchard owners beat their pickers.”

Connie had become a bit annoyed. She was quite certain Veve had no reason for making such remarks.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“Because I saw it.”

“You saw it?” Connie echoed in disbelief. “Well, I didn’t. And I’ve been with you every minute this afternoon.”

Veve smoothed wrinkles from her skirt. “I saw it from the tree,” she revealed. “That was what made me fall. I was so startled.”

“You must have been looking over into Carl Wingate’s orchard. What did you see, Veve?”

“Mr. Wingate struck Juan with a stick, Connie. I saw it plainly. He hit him hard too.”

The information worried Connie, even though she knew the Brownies never would pick cherries in the Wingate orchard.

“Mr. Wingate is a cruel man,” she declared. “I’m surprised that the Mexicans pick for him even if he does pay two cents a pound instead of only a cent and a half.”

“You see now why I fell out of the tree,” Veve defended herself. “I wasn’t awkward. You’d have tumbled too if you’d seen what I did!”

Connie told her little friend that she thought it would be wise not to alarm the Brownies by repeating the story. If they heard about Juan being whipped, they might refuse to pick for Pa Hooper.

“And he isn’t in the least like Carl Wingate,” she declared.

The bus now had reached a familiar street. Veve and Connie alighted to walk to their homes. However, because they were in such haste to tell Miss Gordon the good news, they stopped at a drugstore to telephone her.

Pa Hooper’s offer surprised the Brownie leader very much. At first, she hesitated and declared she hardly knew what to say about the girls taking on the picking job.

“Mr. Hooper really needs our help,” Veve urged. “And think how much money we will make for the troop.”

Finally, the Brownie leader gave her consent. She said she would telephone each girl personally. If parents were willing, the troop would meet at Miss Gordon’s home the next morning at six-thirty sharp. From there they would drive in the Brownie leader’s car to the cherry orchard.

“Be sure to wear old clothing,” she warned Veve and Connie. “Cherry picking could be very hard on Brownie uniforms.”

The two girls were jubilant as they hung up the receiver. If Miss Gordon called the other Brownies, the cherry picking job was assured!

“We’ll have a lot of fun at Mr. Hooper’s orchard,” Connie declared gaily. “I like him so much.”

“He’s a queer one though.”

“Queer?” Connie considered Veve’s remark most strange.

“He must be a hermit or a miser or something, living all alone at the orchard.”

“How do you know he does, Veve?”

“He sleeps in the packing shed.” Veve was proud that she had made the observation. “I saw his cot in one corner of the room. He had an electric plate too where he cooks his food.”

“Well, I suppose he has to stay there, because he has no house.”

“That’s another strange thing, Connie. His home must have burned down a long time ago. Why didn’t he rebuild it?”

“Maybe he didn’t have the money. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to.”

Veve had been reading mystery books and considered Connie’s explanation entirely too matter-of-fact.

“That isn’t it at all,” she insisted. “Mr. Hooper must have a special reason for not rebuilding his house. While we’re picking cherries at his orchard, I intend to learn all about it!”