Lark Rise - Flora Thompson (read more books .TXT) 📗

during the process of being rolled in their

shawls for an outing on the arm of an older sister. It was the kind of

day Laura detested, for there was no corner indoors for her and her

book, and outside she was in danger of being dragged into games that

either pulled her to pieces or bored her.

 

Inside Freddy Ashley’s home all was peace and quiet and spotless purity.

The walls were freshly whitewashed, the table and board floor were

scrubbed to a pale straw colour, the beautifully polished grate glowed

crimson, for the oven was being heated, and placed half-way over the

table was a snowy cloth with pasteboard and rolling-pin upon it. Freddy

was helping his mother make biscuits, cutting the pastry she had rolled

into shapes with a little tin cutter. Their two faces, both so plain and

yet so pleasant, were close together above the pasteboard, and their two

voices as they bade Laura come in and sit by the fire sounded like

angels’ voices after the tumult outside.

 

It was a brief glimpse into a different world from the one she was

accustomed to, but the picture remained with her as something quiet and

pure and lovely. She thought that the home at Nazareth must have been

something like Freddy’s.

 

The women never worked in the vegetable gardens or on the allotments,

even when they had their children off hand and had plenty of spare time,

for there was a strict division of labour and that was ‘men’s work’.

Victorian ideas, too, had penetrated to some extent, and any work

outside the home was considered unwomanly. But even that code permitted

a woman to cultivate a flower garden, and most of the houses had at

least a narrow border beside the pathway. As no money could be spared

for seeds or plants, they had to depend upon roots and cuttings given by

their neighbours, and there was little variety; but they grew all the

sweet old-fashioned cottage garden flowers, pinks and sweet williams and

love-in-a-mist, wallflowers and forget-me-nots in spring and hollyhocks

and Michaelmas daisies in autumn. Then there were lavender and

sweetbriar bushes, and southernwood, sometimes called ‘lad’s love’, but

known there as ‘old man’.

 

Almost every garden had its rose bush; but there were no coloured roses

amongst them. Only Old Sally had those; the other people had to be

content with that meek, old-fashioned white rose with a pink flush at

the heart known as the ‘maiden’s blush’. Laura used to wonder who had

imported the first bush, for evidently slips of it had been handed round

from house to house.

 

As well as their flower garden, the women cultivated a herb corner,

stocked with thyme and parsley and sage for cooking, rosemary to flavour

the homemade lard, lavender to scent the best clothes, and peppermint,

pennyroyal, horehound, camomile, tansy, balm, and rue for physic. They

made a good deal of camomile tea, which they drank freely to ward off

colds, to soothe the nerves, and as a general tonic. A large jug of this

was always prepared and stood ready for heating up after confinements.

The horehound was used with honey in a preparation to be taken for sore

throats and colds on the chest. Peppermint tea was made rather as a

luxury than a medicine; it was brought out on special occasions and

drunk from wine-glasses; and the women had a private use for the

pennyroyal, though, judging from appearances, it was not very effective.

 

As well as the garden herbs, still in general use, some of the older

women used wild ones, which they gathered in their seasons and dried.

But the knowledge and use of these was dying out; most people depended

upon their garden stock. Yarrow, or milleflower, was an exception;

everybody still gathered that in large quantities to make ‘yarb beer’.

Gallons of this were brewed and taken to work in their tea cans by the

men and stood aside in the pantry for the mother and children to drink

whenever thirsty. The finest yarrow grew beside the turnpike, and in dry

weather the whole plant became so saturated with white dust that the

beer, when brewed, had a milky tinge. If the children remarked on this

they were told, ‘Us’ve all got to eat a peck o’ dust before we dies, an’

it’ll slip down easy in this good yarb beer.’

 

The children at the end house used to wonder how they would ever obtain

their peck of dust, for their mother was fastidiously particular. Such

things as lettuce and watercress she washed in three waters, instead of

giving them the dip and shake considered sufficient by most other

people. Watercress had almost to be washed away, because of the story of

the man who had swallowed a tadpole which had grown to a full-sized frog

in his stomach. There was an abundance of watercress to be had for the

picking, and a good deal of it was eaten in the spring, before it got

tough and people got tired of it. Perhaps they owed much of their good

health to such food.

 

All kinds of homemade wines were brewed by all but the poorest. Sloes

and blackberries and elderberries could be picked from the hedgerows,

dandelions and coltsfoot and cowslips from the fields, and the garden

provided rhubarb, currants and gooseberries and parsnips. Jam was made

from garden and hedgerow fruit. This had to be made over an open fire

and needed great care in the making; but the result was generally

good—too good, the women said, for the jam disappeared too soon. Some

notable housewives made jelly. Crabapple jelly was a speciality at the

end house. Crabapple trees abounded in the hedgerows and the children

knew just where to go for red crabs, red-and-yellow streaked crabs, or

crabs which hung like ropes of green onions on the branches.

 

It seemed to Laura a miracle when a basket of these, with nothing but

sugar and water added, turned into jelly as clear and bright as a ruby.

She did not take into account the long stewing, tedious straining, and

careful measuring, boiling up and clarifying that went to the filling of

the row of glass jars which cast a glow of red light on the whitewash at

the back of the pantry shelf.

 

A quickly made delicacy was cowslip tea. This was made by picking the

golden pips from a handful of cowslips, pouring boiling water over them,

and letting the tea stand a few minutes to infuse. It could then be

drunk either with or without sugar as preferred.

 

Cowslip balls were made for the children. These were fashioned by taking

a great fragrant handful of the flowers, tying the stalks tightly with

string, and pulling down the blooms to cover the stems. The bunch was

then almost round, and made the loveliest ball imaginable.

 

Some of the older people who kept bees made mead, known there as

‘metheglin’. It was a drink almost superstitiously esteemed, and the

offer of a glass was regarded as a great compliment. Those who made it

liked to make a little mystery of the process; but it was really very

simple. Three pounds of honey were allowed to every gallon of spring

water. This had to be running spring water, and was obtained from a

place in the brook where the water bubbled up; never from the well. The

honey and water were boiled together, and skimmed and strained and

worked with a little yeast; then kept in a barrel for six months, when

the metheglin was ready for bottling.

 

Old Sally said that some folks messed up their metheglin with lemons,

bay leaves, and suchlike; but all she could say was that folks who’d add

anything to honey didn’t deserve to have bees to work for them.

 

Old metheglin was supposed to be the most intoxicating drink on earth,

and it was certainly potent, as a small girl once found when, staying up

to welcome home a soldier uncle from Egypt, she was invited to take a

sip from his glass and took a pull.

 

All the evening it had been ‘Yes, please, Uncle Reuben’, and ‘Very well,

thank you, Uncle Reuben’ with her; but as she went upstairs to bed she

astonished every one by calling pertly: ‘Uncle Reuby is a booby!’ It was

the mead speaking, not her. There was a dash in her direction; but,

fortunately for her, it was stayed by Sergeant Reuben draining his

glass, smacking his lips, and declaring: ‘Well, I’ve tasted some liquors

in my time; but this beats all!’ and under cover of the fresh uncorking

and pouring out, she tumbled sleepily into bed with her white, starched

finery still on her.

 

The hamlet people never invited each other to a meal; but when it was

necessary to offer tea to an important caller, or to friends from a

distance, the women had their resources. If, as often happened, there

was no butter in the house, a child would be sent to the shop at the inn

for a quarter of the best fresh, even if it had to ‘go down on the book’

until pay-day. Thin bread and butter, cut and arranged as in their old

days in service, with a pot of homemade jam, which had been hidden away

for such an occasion, and a dish of lettuce, fresh from the garden and

garnished with little rosy radishes, made an attractive little meal,

fit, as they said, to put before anybody.

 

In winter, salt butter would be sent for and toast would be made and

eaten with celery. Toast was a favourite dish for family consumption.

‘I’ve made ‘em a stack o’ toast as high as up to their knees’, a mother

would say on a winter Sunday afternoon before her hungry brood came in

from church. Another dish upon which they prided themselves was thin

slices of cold, boiled streaky bacon on toast, a dish so delicious that

it deserves to be more widely popular.

 

The few visitors from the outer world who came that way enjoyed such

simple food, with a cup of tea; and a glass of homemade wine at their

departure; and the women enjoyed entertaining them, and especially

enjoyed the feeling that they, themselves, were equal to the occasion.

‘You don’t want to be poor and look poor, too,’ they would say; and

‘We’ve got our pride. Yes, we’ve got our pride.’

VII

Callers

 

Callers made a pleasant diversion in the hamlet women’s day, and there

were more of these than might have been expected. The first to arrive on

Monday morning was old Jerry Parish with his cartload of fish and fruit.

As he served some of the big houses on his round, Jerry carried quite a

large stock; but the only goods he took round to the doors at Lark Rise

were a box of bloaters and a basket of small, sour oranges. The bloaters

were sold at a penny each and the oranges at three a penny. Even at

these prices they were luxuries; but, as it was still only Monday and a

few coppers might remain in a few purses, the women felt at liberty to

crowd round his cart to examine and criticize his wares, even if they

bought nothing.

 

Two or three of them would be tempted to buy a bloater for their midday

meal, but it had to be a soft-roed one, for, in nearly every house there

were children under school age at home; so the bloater had to be shared,

and the soft roes spread upon bread for the smallest ones.

 

‘Lor’ blime me!’ Jerry used to say. ‘Never knowed such a lot in me life

for soft roes. Good job I ain’t a soft-roed ‘un or I