"Doll," he said, "do you call e'es suetty things ploom dumplins? I see no plooms in 'em. It dew put me in mind o' a story feather used to tell, o' a stingy missus, who made a pudden for the men in harvest, an' put one ploom in ter middle on't; an' while men wor quareling aboot who shu'd ha' the ploom, a wasp flew away wi' it."
A chorus of haw haws, showed how delighted his fellow-clowns were with farmer Joe's story.
Dorothy felt annoyed, though she laughed with the rest.
"I should have made the dumplings with more fruit in them, master, only Letty cautioned me not to be extravagant with the plums."
"I thought as much," returned Mrs. Barford, rather spitefully. "Letty is fond of saving in a small way. Stopping the cask at the spigot, and letting out at the bunghole, as my father used to say. Take it as a general rule, Dorothy, when men work hard to feed them well."
"The old missus for ever," shouted Nat Green, one of the farm servants. "She wor a prime hand at a pudden anyhow."
"Ah, ha," said Joe, who happened to be in a very jocular mood, "that reminds me o' a terrible thrashing I once got from mother. I was a youngster about the size of Jack there; we wor in the thick o' the harvest, it wor carting day, an' all hands on the farm mortal busy, mother wanted plooms for the pudden an' ther wor none to send to shop but I, so she calls me to her, an' gees me a shilling.
"'Joe,' she says, 'run down to the village and buy two pund o' plooms o' Mr. Carter; be quick, for I be in a mighty hurry, and I'll gi' you a ha'penny when you come back.' I wor right glad o' the chance. 'Twor aboot a mile, an' I run'd the whole way, an' bought the plooms.
"Says Mr. Carter, says he, 'doan't eat them by the way.'
"I shu'd never have thought o' that, foreby he had held his tongue. As I coomed whome a hole broke in the paper, an' plooms coomed tomblin out, one arter another; an' I kept yeating an' yeating till thar wor half gone. Dang it, I wor sceared. What shu'd a' do? Mother wor awful in them days aboot stealing, so I sat doon on bank by road side, an' thought it well over, an' by gosh, I hit on a plan I thought wud get me oot o' scrape."
"Well, feather," called out Master Dick, opening wide his round blue eyes, "what did a' do? Did granny find it oot?"