"I bin a-laughin' to myself all the mornin'.... _Three penn-'oth o' peas!_ I never heared talk o' such a thing! I told the gal to go back and tell 'n to save his money till they was cheaper." _June 13, 1899._--But three years later Bettesworth seems to have changed his policy. On June 13 once more he had peas to boast of, and already for some days his wife was itching to be at them. "Look, there's a nice pea, and there," she would say, handling the dangling pods. But Bettesworth would answer, "Yes, they be; and you let 'em bide." "For the sake of a shillin' now," he explained to me, "I en't a-goin' to have that haulm spoilt, and lose two or three shillin's later on." His brother-in-law agreed that he was right. It was all reported to me in Bettesworth's own words. "'I thinks you be right, Fred,' he says. 'You better get along without that shillin' now, and have two or three later on.'" Old Mrs. Skinner, too, commended him. She told of a neighbour who had picked a few peas very early, and ruined his crop; for in the hot weather the juicy haulm was sure to wither soon if bruised by handling. The weather was glorious just then, yet ill for our sandy gardens. "As blue as a whetstone," said Bettesworth, in forecast of what the cabbage crop would be, should rain not soon come. "And en't the grass slippery and dry! _'Twas_ a hot day yest'day, no mistake! I was up in my garden when Mrs. Skinner come up lookin' at my peas. She reg'lar laughed at me. 'Well, Fred, you _be_ a purty picture!' There was the sweat all trinklin' down my arms, an' the dust caked on.... But she did admire they peas. Still, she reckoned I was right leavin' 'em. So I says to my old gal, 'You let 'em bide.' So she'll have to, too. 'Tis for me to give the word." III _October 7, 1899._--I have mentioned Bettesworth's neighbour Noah, the young man who used to sit up too late at night reading the paper. Notwithstanding this bad habit, he and Bettesworth had been on excellent terms of friendship. It was to Noah that Bettesworth had turned, for example, when I lent him those copies of the _Daily Chronicle_ in which the first particulars of Nansen's voyage in the _Fram_ were published. Unable to read himself ("I can't see well enough," he said, "or else I be scholard enough"), he invited Noah and Noah's wife to come on the Sunday and read to him the explorer's narrative. "We started," said he, "about two o'clock, and there they was, turn and turn about, as hard as ever they could read up to half-past five." The evening was spent in raising the envy of other neighbours. "They wanted to borry the papers, but I says, 'No, they ben't mine to lend.'" The readers themselves seem to have conceived an intense admiration for Nansen, whose bed of stones especially excited Bettesworth's imagination. "_I_'ve had some hard lay-downs in my time," he exclaimed, "but _that!_ Gawd! what they poor fellers must ha' suffered!"