What an effect it has on the
market-man and the butcher! It is a kind of declaration of
independence. The market-man shows me his peas and beets and
tomatoes, and supposes he shall send me out some with the meat. "No,
I thank you," I say carelessly; "I am raising my own this year."
Whereas I have been wont to remark, "Your vegetables look a little
wilted this weather," I now say, "What a fine lot of vegetables
you've got!" When a man is not going to buy, he can afford to be
generous. To raise his own vegetables makes a person feel, somehow,
more liberal. I think the butcher is touched by the influence, and
cuts off a better roast for me, The butcher is my friend when he sees
that I am not wholly dependent on him.
It is at home, however, that the effect is most marked, though
sometimes in a way that I had not expected. I have never read of any
Roman supper that seemed to me equal to a dinner of my own
vegetables; when everything on the table is the product of my own
labor, except the clams, which I have not been able to raise yet, and
the chickens, which have withdrawn from the garden just when they
were most attractive. It is strange what a taste you suddenly have
for things you never liked before.
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