Two or
three casks-full were prepared in this way each season and served us
for the entire year.
It was a revelation, he said, and lamented that he and his people had
not this secret before. He, too, had a peach orchard, and when the
fruit ripened his family, assisted by all their neighbours, feasted
from morning till night on peaches, and hardly left room in their
stomachs for roast meat when it was dinner-time. The consequence was
that in a very few weeks--he could almost say days--the fruit was all
gone, and they had to say, "No more peaches for another twelve
months!" All that would now be changed. He would command his wife and
daughters to pickle peaches--a cask-full, or two or three if one would
not be enough. He would provide vinegar--many gallons of it, and
cloves by the handful. And when they had got their pickled peaches he
would have cold mutton for supper every day all the year round, and
enjoy his life as he had never done before!
This amused us very much, as we knew that poor Don Ventura,
notwithstanding his loud commanding voice, had little or no authority
in his house; that it was ruled by his wife, assisted by a council of
four marriageable daughters, whose present objects in life were little
dances and other amusements, and lovers with courage enough to marry
them or carry them off.
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