Mr. Bounder's wits were not quick enough to follow these sharp Yankee turns. Like the ships his countrymen build, he could not come about so quick. It is curious how the qualities of people's minds get into their shipbuilding and other handicraft. It was not till Mrs. Blumenfeld had repeated her question that he was able to answer it.
'I suppose, mum, a half a bushel wouldn't be no more'n enough to go through with.'
'Wall, I've got some,' the gardener's widow went on; 'the right sort; white, and as soft as cream, and as sweet as onions kin be. I'll send you up a bag of 'em.'
'But then I must be allowed to pay for 'em,' said Christopher.
'I tell you, I won't sell her nothin'—neither onions nor nothin' else.'
'Then, mum,—it's very handsome of you, mum; that I must say, and won't deny—but in that case I am afraid Miss Esther would prefer that I should get the onions somewheres else.'
'Jes' you hold your tongue about it, an' I'll send up the sass; and ef your Queen Esther says anything, you tell her it's all paid for. What else do you want that's my way?'
While she spoke, Mrs. Blumenfeld was carefully detaching a root of celery from the rich loose soil which enveloped it, and shaking the white stalks free from their encumbrance, Mr. Bounder the while looking on approvingly, both at the celery, which was beautifully long and white and delicate, and at the condition of things generally on the ground, all of which his eye took in; although he was too much of a magnate in his own line to express the approval he felt.
'There!' said Mrs. Blumenfeld, eyeing her celery stalks; 'kin you beat that where you come from?'
'It's very fair,' said Christopher—'very fair. But England can beat the world, mum, in gardening and that. I suppose you can't expect it of a new country like this.'