and herself strip the white pith so that only one ribbon of green was
left to support it.

The sheep, excepting a few old ewes, were always sold or killed
before the winter, and by Blane's advice, Stead kept only three. The
butcher Oates took some of the others, and helped Stead to dispose of
four more in the market. Two were killed at different intervals for
home use, but only a very small part was eaten fresh, as a wonderful
Sunday treat, the rest was either disposed of among the neighbours,
who took it in exchange for food of other kinds; or else was salted
and dried for the winter's fare, laid up in bran in two great crocks
which Stead had been forced to purchase, and which with planks from
the half-burnt house laid over them served by turns as tables or
seats. The fat was melted up in Patience's great kettle, and the
rushes dipped in it over and over again till they had such a coating
of grease as would enable them to be burnt in the old horn lantern
which had fortunately been in the stable and escaped the fire.

Kind neighbours helped Stead to cut and stack his hay, and his little
field of barley. All the grass he could cut on the banks he also
saved for the animals' winter food, and a few turnips, but these were
rare and uncommon articles only used by the most advanced farmers,
and his father had only lately begun to grow them, nor had potatoes
become known except in the gardens of the curious.

The vexation was that all the manor was called to give their three
days' labour to Lady Elmwood's crops just as all their own were cut,
and as, of course, Master Brown had chosen the finest weather, every
one went in fear and trembling for their own, and Oates and others
grumbled so bitterly at having to work without wage, that Blane asked