138 Success with Small Fruits. 



" That will do," I cried. " You are better off than most of us, for the 

 world will always need and pay for your accomplishments." 



The story of her life was a simple one. She did not remember when 

 she lost her arm, but only knew that it had been burned off. When 

 scarcely more than an infant, she had been left alone in the little cabin by 

 the slave mother, who probably was toiling in the tobacco field. There 

 was a fire on the hearth the rest can be imagined only too vividly. She 

 is fighting out the battle of life, however, more successfully with her one 

 hand than are multitudes of men with two. She is stout and cheery, and 

 can " take keer of herself and children," she said. 



Scattered here and there over the fields might be seen two heads that 

 would keep in rather close juxtaposition up and down the long rows. 



"Dey 's pairin' off," was the explanation. 



" You keep de tickets," said a buxom young woman to her mate, as 

 he was about to take her tray, as well as his own, to the buyers. 



" You are in partnership," I remarked. 



"Yes, we is," she replied, with a conscious laugh. 



" You are related, I suppose ? " 



"Well, not 'zackly dat is we 's partners." 



" How about this partnership business does it not last sometimes 

 after the strawberry season is over ? " 



" Oh, Lor', yes ! " Heaps on 'em gits fallen in love ; den dey gits 

 a-marryin', arter de pickin' time is done gone by." 



" Now I see what your partnership means." 



"Yah, yah, yah ! You sees a heap more dan I 's told you !" But her 

 partner grinned most approvingly. We were afterward informed that 

 there was no end to the love-making among the strawberry rows. 



There are from fifty to one hundred and fifty pickers in a squad, 

 and these are in charge of subordinate overseers, who are continually 

 moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds. 

 Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, 

 Mr. Young gives the blacks the preference, and on strictly business 

 principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more 

 work out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub- 

 overseers, large numbers can be transferred from one part of the farm 

 to another without confusion. 



Fortunes are never made in gathering strawberries, and yet there 

 seems no dearth of pickers. The multitude of men, women and children 

 that streams out into the country every morning is surprisingly large. 

 Five or six thousand bushels a day are often gathered in the vicinity 

 of Norfolk, and the pickers rarely average over a bushel each. " Right 



