noon
The cool mud squshed up between their toes and plastered their legs pleasantly . The grown folks had been given wooden hands for picking -- scoops with finger-like cleats ! At first they were awkward at stripping the branches , but soon the berries began to drop briskly into the scoops . The children , who could get at the lower branches more easily , picked by hand ; and before noon all the Beecham fingers were sore from the prickly stems and leaves . In the afternoon they had less trouble , for an Italian family near by showed them how to wrap their fingers with adhesive tape . But picking was n't play . The Beechams trudged back to their shack that night , sunburned and dirty and too stiff to straighten their backs , longing for nothing but to drop down on their beds .