Chippewa Ridge

In no time at all, or so it seemed to Jenifer, the leisurely days of June melted into the heat of July.  Masses of wild roses began blooming along the borders of the Bellant's driveway and yard as the Fourth of July came and went.  Independence Day meant family picnics and fireworks and parades all around the nation.  In Chippewa Ridge it also meant the berry-picking season was in full swing.

Living out in the country some distance from any sizable town, there were few opportunities for Nicole and Jenifer to earn money at jobs, so when the berries ripened at the farms in their area they put in several weeks of hard work to get money for school clothes.  Terese Bellant and Maggie Smith also picked up some extra cash at the time, as well as getting berries for their own use at home.  It was hard, hot work, but the season didn’t last long.  By the end of July it was nearly over.

“I’m going to have to work like crazy today,” Nicole sighed as she and Jenifer and their mother walked down their driveway to wait for the Smith’s on the last day of the berry-picking season.  “The Ryykalas are gone for the rest of the summer, so I won’t get anymore babysitting in for them, and I still need two pair of jeans.  They’re so expensive.”

“Buy some at St. Vinnie’s,” Jenifer suggested practically.  St. Vinnie’s was the nickname for the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in Ashland where she bought most of her own jeans and tops.  By buying basics at the second-hand store, she was able to use her hard-earned berry-picking money for trendy new items and accessories.  Most of Jenifer's classmates would have been surprised at how little the apparently fashionable girl actually spent on clothes.

Nicole shook her head.  “I already have some picked out at Penney’s.”  She sighed again, though she was no longer thinking of her wardrobe.  The real problem was that it had been several weeks since she had seen Brian.  The last two times she was at Richardson’s IGA he had been stocking in the back room.  And summer was going so fast!  Before she knew it, he would be moving up to Chassel, and when he started college he would probably forget all about the tongue-tied girl-next-door.  She sighed for a third time and her mother glanced over worriedly.

“You girls really should wear something on your head,” Terese cautioned.  “Il fait chaud!”  Her own hair was covered with a lilac bandana that matched her old cotton blouse.  No one wore good clothes into the fields.

“The sun never bothers me,” Jenifer assured her blithely.  “Not with this mop of hair.”  She rolled her eyes comically for her thick mane had a mind of its own and wavy tendrils were already escaping the hasty ponytail she’d pulled it back into.

“I’ll rest in the shade if I start getting a headache,” Nicole promised, remembering how sick she had become while picking strawberries a few weeks earlier.

“Well, be careful.”  Terese shifted the large covered pan she was carrying for the berries she intended to pick and bring home.  “It would be easy to suffer heatstroke on a day like this.”

Rusty moved alongside them languidly, tongue lolling, tail drooping.  It was going to be a scorcher, all right.  The early morning air was already heavy with heat, and not the slightest breeze stirred the maple and birch.  Even the aspen leaves, on stems that rotated at the slightest movement of the air, hung still and limp.

At the end of the drive the girls dropped onto the grass to wait and Terese leaned against the smooth trunk of a large white birch.  Jenifer was relieved the berry season was about over.  Strawberry picking was the worst, for bending over rows of ground-hugging plants was back-breaking, and squatting or kneeling was murder on the knees.  She much preferred the raspberry picking they’d be doing today, even if it did take forever to fill up a pint.

“I’m thirsty already,” Jenifer realized aloud.  “Do I have time to run back and get a drink?”

But Terese had straightened, listening, and shook her head.  “I think I hear them.”

“Maybe it’s our new neighbors,” Jenifer said hopefully.  She had managed to catch a couple of glimpses of the Crevier’s green truck when it went by, but had never had a satisfactory look at the people inside.  It didn’t help to ride past the old Jasper’s place on their bikes either, as the cabin set so far back down a winding drive that the leafed-out woods completely hid it from view in the summer.

“It’s the Smiths,” Nicole declared.  “No other car on earth sounds like theirs.”

Both girls jumped up as the Smith’s rusted old tan station wagon snorted around the bend and clanked to a halt in their driveway.  Maggie Smith swung open the front door and shifted some of the pans on the front seat to the floor so Terese had a place to sit.

“Hop in wherever you can find room,” she called in greeting.

Kerry moved over for Nicole and Jenifer squeezed in by Megan in the back, feeling that the car was already bursting its seams with red-headed Smiths and their pans and toys and odds and ends.

“And I said put those guns away!” Maggie yelled back to the twins, who had tried to get a few watery shots off at each other with their squirt guns during the confusion of picking up the Bellants