THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A STRAWBERRY-GIRL.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
CHAPTER VII.
I have already mentioned that the little holding of forty acres, which my progenitor took up when he came to Philadelphia, had in process of time been subdivided into many smaller ones. These had been successively improved as the new owners entered upon them, some very indifferently, some quite respectably,—many of them being devoted to gardening for the city markets. The occupants were not much of neighbors to us, though friendly enough in their way; among them, however, was a family by the name of Tetchy who claimed to have some acquaintance with us. This name, Tetchy, always struck me as a singular one; and I have often thought it must have been a corruption of Touchy, as a constitutional tendency to the infirmity thereby signified was continually apparent in their conduct toward all who came in contact with them. The whole family, comprising the parents, two daughters, and a son, were a jealous, envious set, rarely saying a kind word to any one, and never, as my mother often remarked, doing a kind thing even to us, who were more sociable with them than any other of the neighbors. Of course they had abundance of ridiculous pride, though having nothing to be proud of; and one of the daughters, Miss Belinda, was remarkable for holding up her head as if she had been the finest lady in the land, besides having a curt, snappish way of speaking, that made me habitually afraid of her.
These people had a piece of ground of the same size as ours, which the father worked as a garden. He was very skilful at gardening, and kept everything in such complete order that I would many times have gone in to admire his fruits and flowers, had it not been for the crisp reception that one was sure to get from Miss Belinda Tetchy and her mother. They never invited us inside the gate, and seemed jealous of our learning any particulars of what they were doing. The father had some grains of good-nature in his disposition, and would have been glad to have me come in occasionally: I am sure of this, as he often came into our garden and gave me very useful advice and instruction about what I was cultivating. But his wife's temper was a bar to all hospitality, and our intercourse with the family was accordingly as limited as possible, except with the son, Arthur, who made himself quite intimate at our house, and was disposed to set up for a beau to my sister, though I never could discover that she had any particular liking for him. Even he, however, was habitually taciturn about what was done in their garden, as if he had been well drilled in the art of concealment.
We never could tell with certainty how this family contrived to live as well as they did. The father had no other employment than that afforded by his garden, at least that we ever knew. There was a sort of mystery about what he did with his most valuable fruit. We saw him taking it away in a wheelbarrow, but it was always carefully covered, and none but his family knew whether he took it to market, or disposed of it to the fruit stores in the city. The family never boasted of how much they raised; and though we were often curious to know more than we did, myself especially, yet the fear of being snubbed by Miss Belinda prevented us from making any inquiries. The daughters did nothing, unless it were to dress well, a great deal better than any of us, and to be often in the street. It is true that Arthur was an apprentice, and was no expense to the family; but beyond what he received from his employer we could not learn that they had any income but what was produced from the garden.
Still, all the neighborhood knew that old Tetchy had an immense bed of strawberries; they could see that through the cracks in the fence. Then he had fixed up a large number of seats in different parts of the garden, and there, during the season, was a constant throng of visitors, who came to eat strawberries and cream. He had carried on this business for a great many years. I had never noticed these things very particularly, until my mother and I began debating how it was that the Tetchy family contrived to live and dress so well without apparently doing anything except looking after a garden no larger than our own. But when my curiosity had been awakened, I started out on a course of inquiry that resulted in throwing more light on the subject than the Tetchys supposed. I watched the crowd of visitors who entered the garden-gate every evening in June to eat strawberries, and found it so large that toward the last of the season I began to count them. The number was so great that it amazed us, and my mother was sure I must have been mistaken. I regretted not having begun the enumeration when the season first opened, as that would have given us some idea of what we had vainly tried to ascertain from the family,—the number of pints of strawberries they raised in a season. My sister had entered heartily into the spirit of inquiry which now moved me, and became extremely accessible to Arthur Tetchy, even consenting to walk out with him several evenings, in the hope of being invited into the garden, or of getting some information out of him, in aid of the common cause. But the fellow had been so well tutored on the subject that he proved a regular know-nothing,—he had no idea what quantity they raised,—in short, he refused to tell. But in addition to what was consumed in the garden, we saw, during the day, numerous callers with baskets, and we knew that their errand was to buy strawberries. Then old Tetchy was seen carrying away other baskets into the city, so that during the season the demand was evidently unintermitted.
We had often heard these strawberries spoken of as being of superior size and quality. Indeed, we one day read a notice of them in our penny paper, representing them as being nearly as large as eggs, and describing the garden. It also spoke in very extraordinary terms of the richness of the cream. But I never could understand how this could be, as we knew that old Tetchy kept only one cow, and it was impossible for one cow to make cream enough—real cream—for even a quarter of the people who came to eat his strawberries. I thought so strange of this piece that I ventured to show it to Miss Belinda, and inquired very innocently how they could get so much cream, and if it were not wrong in the newspapers to publish such mistakes. But, what was very unusual with her, she was wonderfully pleased with the matter, and said they had two cows,—one that they kept in the stable, and another in the kitchen.
"How?" I inquired, in amazement,—"keep a cow in the kitchen? Why, is it not very inconvenient?"
"Not at all," she replied. "The greatest convenience possible. But the kitchen cow has an iron tail!"