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Updated: June 12, 2025
It was famous then for its fat, rich cheeses and its green damson plums. Now, and no doubt for years to come, it will be chiefly notable as having been the town where, it is said, Belgian civilians first fired on the German troops from roofs and windows, and where the Germans first inaugurated their ruthless system of reprisal on houses and people alike. Literally this town no longer existed.
Just outside the palings of the courtyard at Lucketts' Place, in front of the dairy, was a line of damson and plum trees standing in a narrow patch bordered by a miniature box-hedge. The thrushes were always searching about in this box, which was hardly high enough to hide them, for the snails which they found there.
The drawing-room opened by an old-fashioned half-window, half-door which proved a constant source of grief to me, for whenever I had on a new frock I always tore it on the bolt as I flew through it into a large garden which sloped down one side of the hill, and was filled with the most delightful old trees, fir and laurel, may, mulberry, hazel, apple, pear, and damson, not to mention currant and gooseberry bushes innumerable, and large strawberry beds spreading down the sunny slopes.
We have dug ditches and banks within some of the fences, planting them with thorn, acacia, Vermont damson, Osage orange, and other hedge material. We have now some very good and sightly hedges. Luckily, we never tried whins, or furze, as here called. This is a vile thing. It makes a splendid hedge, but it spreads across the clearing and ruins the grass; and it is the worst of weeds to eradicate.
Plums of European origin do best in the coldest districts, but their cultivation is not confined entirely to these, as some varieties thrive well in warmer and drier parts of the country. So far, there has been a ready sale for all the plums we can produce for fresh consumption, excepting some of the smaller plums of the damson type, which have been converted into jam.
Sylvia had yet a little damson sauce at the bottom of a jar, although she had not preserved last year, for lack of sugar; but hot biscuits and pie, the pound-cake and tea would have to be provided. She felt again of the little money-store in her pocket; that was all that stood between her and the poor-house; every penny was a barrier and had its carefully calculated value.
Fujinami yawns once more, after which he condescends. He sucks down the thin, green tea with a whistling noise. Then he places in his mouth the damson balanced on the point of the toothpick. He turns it over and over with his tongue as though he was chewing a cud. Finally he decides to eat it, and to remove the stone. Then he rises from his couch. He is a very small wizened man.
Cook had certainly done her best for them: there were ham sandwiches and pieces of cold pie, and jam turnovers, and slices of cake, and some apples and oranges, and plenty of hot coffee in the thermos flasks. "It's ever so much nicer to have one's meals out-of-doors, even in January!" declared Bevis, munching a damson tartlet, and dropping stones into the brook below.
"Lewis Rand's no saint, child, but he's no fool either. You'll be telling me next that he mistreats his wife." "Ah, he does not do that!" exclaimed Unity. "She's deep in love. He can't be so very bad, can he, Cousin Jane?" "He's not a monster, child: he's just a man. And now, Unity, I am making damson preserves to-day." "I'll go," said Unity, rising. "But they believe these things at Fontenoy."
My heart is fair broken to think o' the cook and Eelen Young makin' a hash of the apple jeely and the damson jam. They are sure to forget the maist needfu' thing of a' and that's neither more nor less than an extra under-sheet o' good writing-paper, cut to size and weel soakit in whusky. And as for the mistakes they will make in the labelling and dating, it's a sin and a shame to think on't.
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