If it is a fine afternoon, and we are gardening, she lets
us borrow the basket, and then we play at being weeding women in each
other's gardens.
She tells Bessy about the Old Squire. She says--"He do be a real old
skinflint, the Old Zquire a be!" But she thinks it--"zim as if 'twas
having ne'er a wife nor child for to keep the natur' in 'un, so his
heart do zim to shrivel, like they walnuts Butler tells us of as a
zets down for desart. The Old Zquire he mostly eats ne'er a one now's
teeth be so bad. But a counts them every night when's desart's done.
And a keeps 'em till the karnels be mowldy, and a keeps 'em till they
be dry, and a keeps 'em till they be dust; and when the karnels is
dust, a cracks aal the lot of 'em when desart's done, zo's no one
mayn't have no good of they walnuts, since they be no good to be."
Arthur can imitate the Weeding Woman exactly, and he can imitate the
Scotch Gardener too. Chris (that is Christopher, our youngest brother)
is very fond of "The Zquire and the Walnuts." He gets nuts, or
anything, like shells or bits of flower-pots, that will break, and
something to hit with, and when Arthur comes to "_The karnels is
dust_," Chris smashes everything before him, shouting, "_A cracks aal
the lot of em_," and then he throws the bits all over the place, with
"_They be no good to he_.
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