“When I can not get green peas,” said the Scotchman. “They make that mostly in winter. You know we get split dried peas at the grocer’s. You have to soak them over night, and boil your soup two hours at least, to have it nice. The dried peas are freed from the husks and split in a mill. When they are young and green, it takes very little time to cook them, not more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and you season them for the table with butter and salt and pepper, and a pinch of white sugar, and I don’t want a better vegetable. There is a kind which has a soft pod without the leathery lining. It is boiled pod and all, as we cook kidney beans.” Gill opened a pod, and showed the children why these that they were picking could not be eaten. He was never in too great haste to stop his work for a minute, if there was any thing to explain. “You’ll find the other sort in the old country,” he said.
“I’ve picked six kettles full already,” said little Sally, as she emptied her pail into the two-bushel basket.
“That’s enough,” said Gill. “It is good heaped-up measure, you see. We must get the beans now; they and the peas won’t quarrel, for they belong to the same family; though I’m sorry to say that brothers and sisters and members of the same household are not always as kind and gentle to each other, as they ought to be.”
“Gill,” said Ben, “do you recollect when I fell over the fence last summer and bruised my upper lip, and you ran for the pea-vines, and bound some fresh green leaves upon the bruise, and the swelling all went down, so that there was no soreness nor scar?”
“Yes, pea-leaves are good for that.”
Mr. and Mrs. Reed saw the children as they looked from their chamber window. “I like to have Ben and Sally up in the early morning,” said the mother. “There’s nothing better for health than to shake off sleep, and get out with the sun and the birds.”
“What a plight Sally’s clothing will be in, though,” said the father. “The vines are so wet with the dew.”
“Never mind that,” said Mrs. Reed.
“The child knows enough to dress for the occasion; and I’ll warrant, she will be all right, when she comes in at prayer time,—she’s such a neat little thing.”
Lucy was milking Brindle and Flash. She was the smartest creature in the world, and always helped Gill on market-days. She tied Jack in a little chair in the old cart, so that he could just peep over the edge, and see the cows. It amused the baby to watch the white streams and to hear the pleasant music as the milk flowed into the tin pail. Lucy would have a tin pail for the milking. “‘Tis nicer to keep clean than wood is,” she said. “I scald it, and put it out in the sun, and it is fresh and sweet; but wood will soak, and get a stale odor after a while.”