Free Jam and Roses by Mary Gibson Page B

picking, Ned, the measurer, came round. He was a man not much liked. His job was to scoop the hops out of the bins with a bushel basket, and then to weigh them. He could weigh them light or he could weigh them heavy. But Ned was notorious for tamping the hops down tight, so every last bit of air was expelled and the farmer got many more hops in a bushel for his tuppence. The pickers were always at his mercy.
    Milly scooped up a handful of hops from the bin, they were good hops, fat and aromatic. ‘I reckon we’ve done over twenty bushel,’ she said to her mother.
    But Mrs Colman shook her head, nodding in Ned’s direction as he approached their bin.
    ‘Not once he’s finished pushing ’em down. I wish those girls would get back here, we need them to go round and pick ’em up.’ Gleaning stray hops from the floor was child’s work, but in their absence Milly did it, then waited in anticipation as Ned measured out their hops into the poke. Only seventeen bushels! They would have to speed up, or get the girls to help a bit more.
    They settled down for an afternoon’s work. The singing had stopped and people were picking in quiet earnestness, conscious of making up their day’s pay, when suddenly a shrill scream pierced the serenity of the hop garden. Milly stiffened and shot her mother a fearful look. They dropped the bines and dashed in the direction of the scream.
    ‘Where did it come from?’ asked Rosie, puffing along beside them.
    ‘From over there, in the trees!’ Milly answered, beginning to outstrip the other women who’d followed them. Soon she was at the margin of the wood. A little way in, standing frozen under the green shade, was Amy. She was staring down at her hands, which were covered in a red sticky substance. At first Milly took it for the dark stain of blackberries, but as she caught hold of her sister by the arms, she saw the stain was not black but red. It was blood.
    ‘What’s happened, have you cut yourself?’
    The young girl opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She shook her head, seemingly mesmerized by the gory coating on her palms. Milly’s mother kneeled down, frantically examining the child for a wound.
    ‘Are you all right, love? Where’ve you hurt yourself?’
    Amy’s white face suddenly puckered. Then pointing back into the wood, she gasped, ‘It’s Elsie!’
    Milly shot off, down the shadowed path that led into the heart of the small wood, tripping over roots and fallen branches. She sped on until she came to a small clearing and there, beneath a tree, was Elsie. Deathly pale, unconscious and very still, she lay on her side with one leg bent beneath her. As Milly drew closer, she saw blood pooled around her sister’s skinny leg. It had been caught in the sharp jaws of a trap. For an instant Milly froze, then she screamed. ‘Mum! She’s over here!’
    Her mother entered the clearing, with Rosie and a gaggle of white-faced children tumbling after. Milly was suddenly galvanized. She picked up a small branch and commandeered Ronnie, Rosie’s grandson.
    ‘All right, Ron, I’ll open up the trap as far as I can, and when I tell you, wedge this stick in the jaws so it stays open, got me?’
    Ronnie nodded and dropped to his knees beside Elsie, holding the branch at the ready. Milly grasped the jaws of the trap and heaved. Straining till her head felt it might burst with the pressure, she pulled with all her strength, but the jaws held fast.
    ‘It’s useless!’ Then spotting Rosie’s other grandson, a beefy boy nicknamed Barrel, she called out to him. ‘Come and hold that side for me!’
    Barrel held one half of the trap in his solid grasp while Milly strained on the other half, till it gradually opened a few inches. It would have to be now, before her strength ran out.
    ‘Now, Ron! Shove in the stick!’
    Ronnie rammed the stick between the two jaws, quickly removing his hands from danger, as Milly let the jaws ease off on to the stick and swiftly pulled Elsie’s