She hobbled into the kitchen, and opened the door of a wall press in the corner. There, row above row stood a solid phalanx of jam pots; it seemed as if a whole town might be supplied out of Mrs. Prettyman’s cupboard.
“’T is well thought of, me jam,” the old 52 woman said, grinning with pleasure. “I be very careful in the preparing of ’en; gets a penny the pound more for me jam than others, along of its being so fine.”
Robinette was charmed to see that here Mrs. Prettyman had a reliable source of income, however slender.
“How much do you reckon to get from it every year?” she asked.
“Going five pounds, dear: four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence, last autumn; and please the Lord there’s a better crop this season, so ’t will be the clear five pounds. Oh! I do be loving me plum tree like a friend, I do.”
They turned back into the sunshine again, that Robinette should admire this wonderful tree-friend once more. She stood under its shadow with great delight, as the Bible says, gazing up through the intricate network of boughs and blossom to the cloudless blue above her.
“It’s heavenly, Nurse, just heavenly!” 53 she sighed as she came and sat down beside the old woman again.
“Then there’s me duck too, Missie! Lard, now I don’t know how I’d be without I had me duck. Duckie I calls ’er and Duckie she is; company she is, too, to me mornin’s, with her ‘Quack, Quack,’ under the winder.”
So the old woman prattled on, giving Robinette all the history of her life, with its tiny joys and many struggles, till it seemed to the listener that she had always known Mrs. Prettyman, the plum tree, and her duck––known them and loved them, all three.