“What’s the matter?” Miss Arabella demanded, noticing his embarrassed manner.

“I—­I can’t take it,” he stammered.

“And why not?  I’d like to know.”

“’Cos I have to earn the money myself, and if you give me the suit it won’t be fair.”

“Oh, rubbish!  What’s the difference?” was the disgusted reply.  “The other scouts will have their suits given to them, and why shouldn’t you?  I don’t want them to get ahead of you.”

“But they’ve got to earn their own money, Miss Arabella, and they’ll have to tell how they earned it, too.  Captain Josh won’t let them wear their suits unless they do.”

“H’m, is that so?  Well, I call it a queer arrangement.  How do you expect to earn yours?” and the woman looked keenly at the boy.

“I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking over it a lot.  If I only knew some way, I would work so hard.  Haven’t you anything for me to do, Miss Arabella?  I would run errands, carry in wood and water, or do anything else.”

“No, there’s nothing like that you could do around here.  Tom is supposed to look after such things, and I don’t want to take his jobs from him.  He does little enough as it is, dear knows.  He spends so much of his time at the store that he won’t look after the garden.  The strawberries are getting ripe, and I expect they’ll rot before he’ll touch them.  I never saw such a man.  I wish to goodness he had to work for his living instead, of depending upon what his father left him.”

“Let me pick the berries, Miss Arabella,” and Rod stepped quickly forward.  “I’ll do it for a cent a box, or less if you want me to.  I know a boy who did that and he earned three dollars.”

Miss Arabella did not at once reply, and Rod was afraid that she did not agree to his proposal.  She remained silent for a while, plucking at her dress in a thoughtful manner.

“Rod,” she at last began, and her voice was softer than he had ever heard it, “I am going to give you that patch of berries.  It will be your very own, and you can do what you like with it.”

“Oh, Miss Arabella!  Surely——­”

“There, that will do, now,” she snapped.  “None of your thanks for me.  You’d better go and get ready to go to work.  I saw a good many ripe berries out there this morning, and you can’t afford to waste any time.”

Rod didn’t walk across the field.  There was no slow sauntering home when he was once out of the house.  He burst into the rectory like a whirlwind, just as the Royals were sitting down to dinner.  Breathless and excited, he blurted out his story, and when he was through Mrs. Royal told him to get ready for dinner.

Rod could eat but little, as his mind was so taken up with the good fortune which had come his way.  He was anxious to be off to the store to get some berry-boxes.

“Where are you going to send your berries, Rodney?” Parson Dan inquired when they were through with their dinner.