Keeping the Sabbath, no swearing, very right and
proper, but generosity is first, although it is not in the
Decalogue. There was not much in my nurse's cottage with which to
prove her liberality, but a quart of damsons for my mother was
enough. Going home from Oakley one summer's night I saw some
magnificent apples in a window; I had a penny in my pocket, and I
asked how many I could have for that sum. "Twenty." How we got
them home I do not know. The price I dare say has gone up since
that evening. Talking about damsons and apples, I call to mind a
friend in Potter Street, whose name I am sorry to say I have
forgotten. He was a miller, tall, thin, slightly stooping, wore a
pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, and might have been about sixty
years old when I was ten or twelve. He lived in an ancient house,
the first floor of which overhung the street; the rooms were low-
pitched and dark. How Bedford folk managed to sleep in them,
windows all shut, is incomprehensible. At the back of the house was
a royal garden stretching down to the lane which led to the mill.
My memory especially dwells on the currants, strawberries, and
gooseberries. When we went to "uncle's", as we called him, we were
turned out unattended into the middle of the fruit beds if the fruit
was ripe, and we could gather and eat what we liked.
Pages:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37