IN October Cousin Jimmy began to boil the pigs’ potatoes—unromantic name for a most romantic occupation—or so it appeared to Emily, whose love of the beautiful and picturesque¹ was satisfied as it had never yet been on those long, cool, starry² twilights of the waning³ year at New Moon.
There was a clump⁴ of spruce-trees in a corner of the old orchard⁵, and under them an immense iron pot was hung over a circle of large stones—a pot so big that an
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 ox could have been comfortably stewed⁶ in it. Emily thought it must have come down from the days of fairy tales and been some giant’s porridge pot; but Cousin Jimmy told her that it was only a hundred years old and old Hugh Murray had had it sent out from England.
“We’ve used it ever since to boil the potatoes for the New Moon pigs,” he said. “Blair Water folks think it old-fashioned; they’ve all got boiler⁷-houses now, with built-in boilers⁸; but as long as Elizabeth’s boss at New Moon we’ll use this.”
Emily was sure no built-in boiler could have the charm of the big pot. She helped Cousin Jimmy fill it full of potatoes after she came from school; then, when supper was over, Cousin Jimmy lighted the fire under it and puttered about it all the evening. Sometimes he poked⁹ the fire—Emily loved that part of the performance—sending glorious streams of rosy¹⁰ sparks upward into the darkness; sometimes he stirred the potatoes with a long pole, looking, with his queer, forked grey beard and belted “jumper,” just like some old

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