“Fortunately, there is very little danger of any body’s eating potato leaves, or flowers; for both taste and smell are disagreeable,” said Ben.
Mamma called the children. “It is too damp down there for Sally,” she said.
Papa had but a moment for them, but it was long enough to give them a few more facts about potato starch, and potato yeast and bread and cheese.
“Cheese! potato cheese!” exclaimed the children.
“Yes,” said papa. “The potatoes must be mashed to a paste, and curd and salt added, and some other ingredients, and the whole pressed together in a mold.”
Gill was off to market. The old cart was heaped-up—baskets of turnips and carrots, parsnips, beets, and potatoes on the bottom; and above these the great drum-heads and the yellow pumpkins.
Dobbin felt brisk and cheery as he trotted along in the fresh autumnal air, and the Scotchman was as blithe as a lad of seventeen, who looks only upon the bright side of life. Gill was thinking of the old country far away, where he used to play among the heather, and of the day when he first met bonny Lucy in the dingle. He cast no regretful looks across the waters to the old home and the former times; but he thanked heaven that he and Lucy and Jack were under this free blue American sky, and that they had health of body and vigor of mind, and that they were all traveling toward the beautiful city that lies beyond the great sea. He touched the ripe vegetables with a gentle, almost a caressing hand. “Well done!” said he. “Well done! The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and you have made good use of sun and air and rain, and here you are in the perfection of your beauty. I am proud to call you mine.”
His words seemed to impress him strangely. He thought of himself in connection with this produce that he was bearing away to market.
“Am I ripening for the great harvest?” said he. “Will the Master look upon me with approving eye, and say, ‘Well done! well done! ‘”
Gill’s heart was full of sweet trust. He was trying to do the very best that he could, and he knew that the blessed Saviour would do all the rest for him, and that God would count it as his own righteousness. This was what made him so blithe as he jogged along toward the market-place.