mumbled,
fishing a tight-folded sheet of paper from his pocket.

"I'll write it for you," Rose-Ellen offered. She sat down and
began the letter, with Jimmie telling her what he wanted to say.

"But the real honest thing to do will be to tell her you didn't
write it yourself," Grandma said pityingly.

"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the
subject. "She said to bring Dick and Rose-Ellen."

Dick and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that
night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had
to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had
hardened their muscles did they go to the Center.

When they did go--Jimmie limping along with his clipped head
tucked sulkily between his shoulders as if he were not really
proud to take them-they found the place alive with fun. Besides
the three girls and the woman, there was a young man from a
near-by university. He was organizing ping-pong games and indoor
baseball for the boys and girls and even volleyball for some
grown men who had come. Everyone was busy and everyone happy.

"It's slick here, some ways," Dick said that night.

"For a few weeks," Daddy agreed.

"If it wasn't for the misery in my back, it wouldn't be bad,"
Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her
own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining
set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a
real house to live in."

"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said
Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed.

"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn
reading?" Daddy coaxed.

"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged.

Yet, as October passed, something happened to change Jimmie's
mind.

As October passed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking.
They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill
a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries
were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The
bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from
freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the
shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they
didn't find it hard work now.

"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as
she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled
and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd