The Rainy- Day Strawberry Patch 



By Elizabeth Clarke Hardy 



RETCHEN'S father 

 owned a cattle ranch of 

 many hundred acres in 

 one of the fertile valleys 

 that nestle warmly down 

 among the foothills of the 

 Olympic Mountains in 

 western Washington. It was a beautiful 

 place to live. The ranch home was com- 

 modious and comfortable, the climate was 

 perfect and God's beautiful out-of-doors 

 was a source of unfailing delight. On 

 one side the undulating foothills stretched 

 away in broken, green billows to the dis- 

 tant mountains which pierced the blue 

 sky with their snow-crowned tops, while 

 on the other luxuriant fields of timothy 

 and alfalfa waved in the soft summei 

 breeze like a beautiful green sea, while 

 still farther, on the cattle ranges, fed the 

 sleek steers and heifers which later on 

 were to be driven to Tacoma and sold for 

 a good big bunch of money. 



Gretchen never had experienced a lone- 

 some day in her life. She attended school 

 with her brother Dick, riding their ponies 

 into Skokomish in the morning and return- 

 ing home in the evening, and then hadn't 

 she her blessed mother, who staid all day 

 at the ranch with only the company of 

 faithful old Ning Poo, who was a sort of 

 general factotum at the Fielding ranch, 

 and who would have sacrificed anything 

 but his sacred cue for any member of the 

 Fielding family? 



Gretchen never had felt so very well 

 acquainted with her father. He was away 

 from home very much of the time attend- 

 ing to the stock on the distant ranges. 

 He provided generously in the way of the 

 necessities of life for his family; further 

 than this his sole object seemed to be to 

 lay up money for a rainy day. Gretchen 

 had heard of this rainy day so often that 

 she sometimes told Dick that she wished 

 it would come so that they could have a 

 few things that she knew they never 

 would have unless it just poured, and 

 Dick, too, sometimes wished for a little 

 shower, but only on account of the dear, 

 natient mother. 



Once in a while Mrs. Fielding would 

 tell her children stories of her beautiful 

 girlhood home in the far East that seemed 

 to them like fairy tales. She told of beau- 

 tiful rooms with soft velvet carpets and 

 filmy lace curtains and easy chairs and 

 dainty china and table linen. But it was 

 when she told of her studies in the School 

 of Music, and of the beautiful piano that 

 was the comfort and delight of her girl- 

 hood days, that her eyes would sometimes 

 grow misty and such a far-away look 

 come into their depths that Dick would 

 go out and bang his sturdy little fist 

 against the barn door and Gretchen would 

 brush away angry tears and think resent- 

 fully of the rainy-day fund and how much 

 happiness a small bit of it would bring 



into her mother's life. And her own life 

 too, for that matter, for had not her moth- 

 er told her that if only they had a piano 

 she would teach her to play.^ And music 

 was the one passion of Gretchen's life as 

 well as that of her mother. 



Once she had asked her father to buy 

 a piano, but his stern, almost angry re- 

 fusal had brought such a look of pain 

 into her mother's face that she had never 

 spoken of it again. But very often she 

 and Dick would talk of the time when 



WHETHER or not 

 the world owes 

 you a living, it is cer- 

 tain that you owe the 

 world a life; and the 

 best one of which you 

 are capable. Being 

 here, you are here for 

 something, and what 

 else can that something 

 be than to live bravely, 

 nobly and manfully as 

 you may? To make 

 the path a little plainer 

 for other feet; to add a 

 little to the light that 

 is battling with the 

 gloom; to make the 

 world a little better, 

 cheerier and happier 

 for your presence in 

 it-~that is the debt 

 you owe." 



they would have money of their own and 

 then — but that seemed a long time away 

 to twelve-vear-old Gretchen and ten-year- 

 old Dick.' 



One vacation Gretchen went to visit a 

 school friend whose father had a small 

 fruit farm near Puyallup. She staid a 

 week and when she came home she was 

 full of suppressed excitement. She flew 

 out to the barn where Dick was feeding 

 the ponies and fairly dragged him out 

 into the old, unused barnyard which had 



Page 9 



been vacant since her father had moved 

 his cattle over to the further range. 



"Now, see here, Dick Fielding, I want 

 to tell you what we are going to do. 

 We're going to raising strawberries. I 

 told Mr. Hill about this old barnyard and 

 he said it was just the place for a straw- 

 berry bed. He said he would give me 

 enough plants to set out the bed and that 

 we could drive over to Puyallup with the 

 ponies and buckboard and get them just 

 as soon as we got our bed ready. It's got 

 to be plowed and harrowed and made 

 nice and mellow, and we've got to get 

 the plants set out just as soon as possible. 

 There's money in strawberries, lots of it, 

 and its lots of work to raise them; but I 

 guess we're willing to work, Dick Field- 

 ing, if we can earn some money of our 



very own, aren t we 



?" 



"Sure, we are, Gretchen. But won't 

 you have to ask father about using the 

 barnyard for a strawberry bed.? Maybe 

 he'll want it for something else." 



"No, he won't; and I don't care if he 

 does. Ning Poo has never thought to 

 use this ground for his garden, and I'm 

 glad of it. We won't ask anybody to 

 help us. We can plow it up with the 

 ponies and Ning Poo's plow, and we'll 

 jet it ready and set out the plants before 

 father gets home, and I'll risk his making 

 a fuss when I tell him what Mr. Hill 

 made off a quarter of an acre of berries 

 this year." 



Dick soon become quite as enthused 

 as his sister, and refusing Ning Poo's 

 offer of help, the children soon had the 

 old barnyard in fine condition for the 

 plants. When they drove home from 

 Puyallup Mr. Hill was with them and 

 stayed to show them how to set the 

 plants and praised their nice, mellow 

 strawberry bed. 



"Of course you will not get any berries 

 this year, but next year, if you take good 

 care of the patch, you ought to make a 

 pretty penny off from it. When they 

 begin to ripen, you drive over to my farm 

 and I will let you have some boxes and 

 maybe I can help you to market your 

 crop," he said, as he took his leave. 



When Mr. Fielding came home he 

 was in very good spirits. He laughed at 

 his children's enthusiasm over their new 

 project, and in a moment of generosity 

 he agreed to buy all the berries they could 

 raise on their patch and pay them twenty 

 cents a quart. 



"Will you.? Will you do that father.?" 

 cried Gretchen, earnestly. 



"Why, sure I will, and you can have 

 Mother and Ning Poo as witnesses to the 

 agreement. I don't think I'll be much 

 poorer for buying and eating all you'll 

 raise. I'll try and be around home in 

 strawberry time, and Mother is a master 

 h.^nd at making strawberry shortcake.' 



"And 1 would like once more to make 



