"None o' your fleerin'," he replied. "What I'm tellin' you is t' truth, or if it isn't' truth it's a parable, and I reckon a parable's Bible truth. It were gettin' on towards back-end, and I'd bin diggin' potatoes while I were in a fair sweat wi' t' heat. So I reckoned I'd just sit down for a bit on t' bench I'd made an' rest misen. Efter a while I gat agate once more, an' I'd ommost finished my row of potates when my fork gat howd o' summat big. At first I thowt it were happen a gert stone that I'd left i' t' grund, but it were nowt o' sort. 'Twere a potate, sure enough, but I'd niver set eyes on owt like it afore, nor thee either. 'Twere bigger nor my heead; nay, 'twere bigger nor a fooit-ball."
"Somebody wanted to have a bit of fun with you, Abe," I interrupted, "and had buried a vegetable-marrow in your potato-patch."
"Nay, it were a potate reight enough, an' I were fair capped when I'd getten howd on it wi' my two hands. 'I'll show this to Sam Holroyd,' I said to misen. He were chuff, were Sam, 'cause he'd getten six pund o' potates off o' one root; I reckoned I'd getten six pund off o' one potate. Well, I were glowerin' at t' potate when a lad com up that I'd niver seen afore. He were a young lad by his size, but he'd an owdish look i' his face, an' he says to me: 'What's yon?'
"Thou may well axe that,' I answered. 'It's a potate.'
"'What arta boun to do wi' it?' he axed.
"'Nay,' I said, 'I reckon I'll take it to t' Flower Show an' get first prize.'
"'Thou mun do nowt o' t' sort,' said t' lad; 'thou mun bury it.'
"'Bury it! What for sud I bury it, I'd like to know?'
"'Thou mon bury it i' t' grund an' see what it grows intul.'
"Well, I reckoned there might be some sense in what t' lad said, for if I could raise a seck o' seed potates like yon I'd sooin' mak my fortune. But then I bethowt me o' t' time o' t' yeer, and I said: