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Bell was very successful in her purchase of plums. In her way she was a notable housewife, and she returned home about eight o'clock that evening with a large basket of greengages, which were all to be boiled down for preserving the following day. As soon as she entered the house the maid came to meet her. "You take these carefully down and put them in the larder, Hannah," said her mistress.
For three sous I recorded the purchase of more wild strawberries, peaches, and greengages than I knew what to do with, each grower doing business on his own account, no middleman to share his profits; choicest fruit and vegetables to be had almost for the asking.
She sent the patients' accounts in well-phrased letters that had no suggestion of a bill. When they had a neighbour to dinner on Sundays, she managed to have some tasty dish piled up pyramids of greengages on vine leaves, served up preserves turned out into plates and even spoke of buying finger-glasses for dessert. From all this much consideration was extended to Bovary.
My own transactions were confined to the purchase of some golden-gage plums, and I advise the reader rather to buy greengages; the other plums practised the deception in their looks which their venders abhorred.
Put the kernels without their skins to the fruit; add three pounds of greengages, and two pounds and a half of lump sugar. The sugar should be broken in large pieces, and just dipped in water, and added to the fruit over a slow fire. Simmer it till reduced to a clear jam, but observe that it does not boil, and skim it well. If the sugar be clarified, it will make the jam the better.
He bade Caleb follow him slowly, and a few minutes later a great bunch of roses and a paper bag of white-heart cherries and another of greengages were packed into the perambulator; some sponge-cakes and a crisp little brown loaf were also purchased for Kit's tea, and then they went rejoicing on their way.
I got up on the counter and told Uncle Emsley that the signs pointed to the devastation of the fruit crop of the world. In a minute I had a bag of crackers and a long-handled spoon, with an open can each of apricots and pineapples and cherries and greengages beside of me with Uncle Emsley busy chopping away with the hatchet at the yellow clings.
Plums do ripen in England, of course; the greengages that come there after they have ceased to come from France are as good as our own when the curculio does not get them; but the efflorescence of the peaches and almonds is purely gratuitous; they never fruit in the London air unless against some exceptionally sun-warmed wall, and even then I fancy the chances are against them.
It is early summer: the luscious oranges are not yet over, and in tempting piles they lie upon the stalls made of old packing-cases, many with still legible familiar English and French inscriptions. Apricots are selling at a halfpenny or less the pound, and plums and damsons, not to speak of greengages, keep good pace with them in price and sales.
"I suppose we are still a bit too far north for pineapples," said George. "I feel I could just enjoy a fresh pineapple. This commonplace fruit palls upon one after a while." "Too much bush fruit and not enough tree, is the fault I find," said Harris. "Myself, I should have liked a few more greengages." "Here is a man coming up the hill," I observed, "who looks like a native.
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