GROWTH OF A NEW ENGLAND. 69 



was a tiller of the soil and we were just two 

 men with the hoe exchanging confidences. 



In case I should have left the impression 

 upon the reader that the Evesham wives very 

 rarely help their husbands on the land, let me 

 here state that this man was being assisted by 

 his young wife, who made a very charming 

 picture at work under a sun-bonnet. It is, 

 however, a very different thing to come out and 

 help the husband on some particular job, taking 

 the day out like a picnic, to being worried 

 by a succession of minor disturbances and 

 interruptions on a small holding. The man 

 and his wife were picking beans, and close by 

 on a four-acre holding two women were also 

 picking beans, whilst the male relative was 

 away marketing produce. 



The married couple were dropping their 

 beans into a " pot," that is, a basket that 

 holds 40 lb. One penny per pot will have 

 to be paid for the cartage to the station three 

 miles away, and then the auctioneer's fee, 

 after railway carriage is ])aid, amounts to 

 about another penny per pot. In spite of all 

 this, as I have said, the man declared that he 

 made a "good living." Another man with 

 four and a half acres, with fruit-trees quite 



