She was Pennsylvania Dutch and
shared Poppy's sturdy appetite, though it all went to figure. Two quaint
maiden ladies next door took care of her and handed the milk over our
fence, while it was still foaming in the pail. Miss Tabitha and Miss
Letitia--how patient they were with me in my abysmal ignorance of the
really vital things of life, such as milking, preserving, and pickling!
They undertook it all for me, but in the end I had a small laugh at
their expense. I gave them my grandmother's recipes for brandied peaches
and pickled peaches, and though rigidly temperance, they consented to do
a dozen jars of each. Alas! they mingled the two--now as I write it down
I wonder if perhaps they did it on purpose, on the principle that drug
stores now put a dash of carbolic in our 95 per cent alcohol. In which
case, of course, the joke is on me.
To return to Poppy. At first I was delighted with the thought of
unlimited milk, bought a churn and generally prepared to enjoy being a
dairymaid. I soon found out my mistake. Poppy was "drying up" just as
the vegetation was. The Finn woman who milked her morning and night, and
who seemed to be in much closer sympathy with her than I ever hoped to
be, said that what she must have was green food.
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