little like woodbine, but rough to touch. The fruits resembled
small spruce cones of pale yellow-green tissue paper. The vines
were trained on wires strung along ten-foot poles; they formed
aisles that were heavy with drowsy fragrance.

The picking baskets stood almost as high as Rose-Ellen's
shoulder, and she and Dick were proud of filling one apiece, the
first day they worked. These baskets held sixty pounds
each--more when the weather was not so dry--and sixty pounds
meant ninety cents. School had not started yet, so the children
worked all day. Sometimes Rose-Ellen could not keep from crying,
she was so tired. And when she cried, Grandma's mouth worked
over her store teeth in the way that meant she felt bad.

"But we've got to get in under it, all of us," she scolded, to
keep from crying herself. "We've got to earn what we can. I
never see the beat of it. If we scrabble as hard as we can, we
just only keep from sliding backwards."

Here in the hopyards the Beechams did not get their pay in money.
They were given tickets marked with the amount due them. These
they could use for money at the company store.

"And the prices there are sky-high!" Grandma wrathfully told
Grandpa, waving a pound of coffee before his eyes. "Thirty-five
cents, and not the best grade, mind you! Pink salmon higher than
red ought to be. Bread fifteen cents a loaf! Milk sky-high and
Carrie plumb dry!"

The living quarters were bad, too: shacks, with free straw on the