When Joy opened the gate to the chicken coop, the six chickens ran to her, squawking.
They were big, fat hens now.
Katie emptied a tin pan of corn onto the ground.
Joy went into the coop and returned with a handful of eggs.
"I worked hard picking up walnuts yesterday," she said to the chickens.
"But you were lazy.
You laid only three eggs! Tomorrow I expect six!"
The chickens ignored her and pecked at the corn.
"Twenty-five dollars and fifty cents isn't bad, Joy.
Didn't Grandpa say that was enough to buy a good set of fiddle strings?" Katie asked.
One of the chickens pecked at her shoe.
"Yes, but tomorrow the price of walnuts drops."
Joy bent down to pet a chicken.
Then she jumped up, and the hens scattered.
"So today I better get busy!"
The empty garden cart was waiting in the front yard.
Katie and Joy worked all through the morning.
They filled and emptied bucket after bucket.
But when they finished the second tree, the cart was still not full.
"Now what?" said Katie.
"Now we ask Magoo to help us," said Joy.
They both looked at Magoo, who was asleep under the tree.
Then they heard a voice calling to them.
"Katie! Joy! Hi!" It was Olivia, pedaling down Blackberry Road.
"Hello!" shouted the twins.
Olivia rode up the driveway and dropped her bike in the grass.
"I was hoping you would be outside picking up walnuts," she said.
"There are no black walnut trees in the city.
I've never even tasted a black walnut!"
"Well, when we finish this harvest, we'll ask Grandpa to make some black-walnut ice cream," said Joy.
"You'll love it."
"Black-walnut ice cream?" Olivia said in surprise.
"There's such a thing?"
Before the twins could answer, Olivia looked around on the ground.
"Where are the walnuts?"
"We picked up all the ones by the house," said Katie.
"We were just wondering where to go next."
"We can go up by the pond," said Joy.
"We'll have to ask Dad to move the cart."
Just then a walnut fell from a branch onto Joy's head.
"Ouch!" she cried.
"Did you see that?"
The girls looked up into the tree.
"There are still lots of nuts up there," said Olivia.
"Probably enough to fill the cart," said Joy.
"I wish they would fall down," said Katie.
Then she grinned.
"I've got a great idea!"
She ran to the tree trunk and swung her leg up.
Magoo opened his eyes and looked at Katie.
"See you later, Magoo," said Katie and started to climb the tree.
"There she goes," said Olivia.
"Katie, that is a bad idea," called Joy.
"Just watch!" said Katie.
She pulled herself up and stepped onto a low branch.
"Be careful," said Olivia.
"You're going to fall," said Joy.
Katie pulled herself up higher and stepped onto the next branch.
"Don't go any further," warned Joy.
Katie grabbed a branch above her head.
Then she started bouncing.
"Stop that!" yelled Joy.
Walnuts rained down from the tree.
Magoo barked. Olivia and Joy screamed.
The two girls ran from the falling nuts.
"Look out below!" yelled Katie.
"Stop that, Katie!" Joy yelled back. "Come down right now!"
Katie bounced more and more.
The nuts kept falling.
Suddenly her foot slipped.
"Katie!" screamed Olivia.
Katie crashed through the branches and landed with a thud.
Joy rushed to her sister and dropped to her knees.
"Are you okay?"
"Ow," said Katie. "My ankle hurts."
"Don't move," said Joy.
She ran toward the house.
"MOM! DAD! GRANDPA! Katie fell out of a walnut tree!"