Strawberries and trout--how is that for a breakfast combination in June? Trout just from the water and strawberries fresh from the garden. We had planted a good patch of strawberries the August of our arrival and they had done wonderfully well for the first year. Often by the time we had come from fishing Elizabeth had been out and filled a bowl, and sometimes even made a short-cake, for we were old-fashioned enough to love short-cake--old-fashioned short-cake made with biscuit dough (not the sweet-cake kind) for breakfast. And breakfast with trout and short-cake--short-cake with cream, mind you!--in New England in June, when the windows open on the grass and the wood-thrushes are calling, is just about as near paradise as you can get in this old world. [Illustration] CHAPTER EIGHT I _Fate produced a man who had chickens to sell_ [Illustration] With June the Pride and the Hope came home from school. The brook, the barn, Old Beek, and Mis' Cow all had their uses then--also a tent in the yard, a swing, hammock and whatnot. When God made the country He made it especially for children. Burning suns, a weedy garden and potato blight may dismay the old, but such things do not fret the young mind. As long as the brook is cool and the fields are sweet and there is fresh milk and succotash on the table, happy childhood is indifferent to care. [Illustration] We were given to picnics. Often we packed some food things into a basket and went into the woods and spread them in a shady place. Lena, the Finn, sometimes accompanied these excursions and went quite mad with the delight of them, racing about and digging up flowers and shrubs to plant in the door-yard, fairly whooping it up in joyful Finnish and such English words as she had acquired. I believe the aspect of our woods reminded her of Finland. Lena was a good soul, that is certain, and measurably instructive. We learned from her how priceless is the gift of good nature, which was the chief thing that kept her with us; also, to eat a number of dishes quite new to us, and that an apple-tree--or perhaps it was an apple, baked or in dumpling--was, in her speech, an "ominy poo." She was not strong on desserts, but she could always fall back on the ominy poo--meaning in a general way the big sweet-apple tree that grew by the barn and was loaded to the breaking-point with delicious fruit. Any baked apple is good, but a big, cold, baked sweet-apple--"punkin sweets," Westbury called them--with cold cream, plenty of it, and a sprinkle of sugar, is about the most blithesome thing in the world. Hurrah for the ominy poo! whether it be the tree, or the fruit, baked or in dumplings. When the strawberry passed and was not, the ominy poo reigned gloriously. I don't know what Lena called certain other dishes that from time to time she tried to substitute--some other kind of poo, maybe--I know we gradually persuaded her away from them into a better way of life.