CHAPTER VI
Peaceville, July 23.
With great difficulty got Chloe off to Gregory to make a visit to her daughter and see her grandchildren.
I have to push and force Chloe to take the smallest holiday or relaxation. She cannot drive, so of course I had to send Dab to be her charioteer.
I told her to broil a nice, 'cubator chicken and put it in the safe, and I have a very nice loaf of bread which I made yesterday, and with delicious fresh butter and tomatoes I will be independent of cooks for two whole days.
In this blessed hamlet of Peaceville, Bible methods prevail to a great extent, and people do as they would be done by. One finds out what vegetable one's neighbor is short of, and if you happen to have that special thing in abundance, you fill a basket, put a dainty doily over it, and despatch your inevitable small boy to your neighbor with a pleasant message. Of course she is too delicate to return her abundant vegetable by the same messenger, but later in the day or the next morning arrives her small boy with a dainty covered tray, and you receive a supply of the vegetable you lack with an elegant note.
I got Chloe off to make a visit to her daughter.
I planted a great many tomatoes, but for want of work during my month's absence they are very backward, while my dear friend and neighbor, in the best sense of the word, Miss Penelope, has an abundance of large, smooth red tomatoes, and daily I receive a little tray of them. I have only very prosaic vegetables as yet, beans and Irish potatoes, but they are fine and plentiful, so Dab makes expeditions with the tray, but without the note which is Peaceville etiquette—a little note asking particularly the state of your health and mentioning the height of the mercury, and saying that though doubtless it is sending coals to Newcastle you venture to offer some of your poor products.