But as yet only
the shadows of shadows clouded her thoughts when she thought about herself.
It was the loneliness brought real care--the loneliness and the waiting.
She spent time, too, in Uncle Chirgwin's old walled garden. This place and
its products went for little in the traffic of the farm, though every year
its owner was wont to count upon certain few baskets of choice fruit as an
addition to his income, and every year his hopes were blighted. For the
walls whereon his peaches and nectarines grew had stood through
generations, their red brick work was much fretted by time, and the
interstices between the bricks made snug homes for a variety of insects.
Joan once listened to her uncle upon this subject, and henceforth chose to
make his scanty fruit her special care.
"'Tis like this," he explained, "an' specially wi' the necter'ns. The
moment they graws a shade, an' long afore they stone, them dratted lil auld
sow-pigs [Footnote: _Sow-pigs_--Woodlice.] falls 'pon 'em cruel. Then
they waits theer time till the ripenin', an', blame me, but the varmints do
allus knaw just a day 'fore I does, when things be ready, an' they eats the
peaches an' necter'ns by night, gouging 'em shameful, same as if you'd done
it wi' your nails. 'Tis a terrible coorious wall for sow-pigs, likewise for
snails; an' I be allus a gwaine to have en repaired an' pinted, but yet
somehow 'tedn' done.
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