Pippa Spool
Knows what everything is worth, and says so.
Tales from Thimblestead
Farm a patch the size of a saucer, under one enormous glass roof.
Thimblestead
The big folk built the glasshouse, kept it a hundred years, then one winter stopped coming. The garden went on growing with nobody left to prune it.
The people who live there now stand about as tall as your thumb. Nobody remembers whether they arrived with the seed crates or were always behind the skirting, and nobody minds.
Everything they own belonged to somebody else first — a thimble for a rain butt, a matchbox for a cottage, a cotton reel for a fence post.
Six corners are the whole of it: the Thimble Plot, the Bristle Thicket, Ribbon Meadow, the Grit Bed, the Dewpond and Pedlar’s Table.
A day passes under the glass whether anyone is watching or not — and one patch, at the edge of the plot, has stood empty a while. It is yours, if you will have it.
The Folk Under the Glass
Six of them stayed. Each keeps their own work, their own errands, and their own opinion of you.
Neri Reed
Reads the still water and every catch worth having.
Bram Thimble
Sifts the grit for pins, needles and glass beads.
Lio Moss
Minds the thicket and teaches patient work.
Tansy Lace
Keeps the old hearth and the first lessons.
Orla Husk
Reads the light, and gives odd gifts to those who listen.
The Harvest
Each was bred small and drawn a frame at a time. Sow in the morning, water before noon, and the bed will have something before dark.
Needlegrain Wheat
A fan of fine stems carrying short gold ladders of grain.
Dewbell Radish
A carved crown of leaves over a coral root with a cream tip.
Beadbell Pepper
A small bush hung with green, gold and coral bells.
Threadbloom Cotton
Angular branches that open into three or four cream bolls.
Lantern Tomato
A compact vine hung with small coral lanterns.
Silkspool Corn
Silvery leaves, a honey cob and a pale thread of silk at the tip.
And many more.
Tools of the Patch
Six dependable tools for soil, water, stems, grit, fishing, and building.
Hoe
Till an empty patch of soil.
Watering Can
Water planted garden beds.
Axe
Chop trees and collect timber.
Pickaxe
Break stone and uncover ore.
Fishing Rod
Cast from the shore of a lake.
Builder’s Hammer
Move or remove placed decor.
The Market
Yours is not the only holding under the glass. What you grow, mill and bake can go to the other tables — and what they pay for it is yours.
Set out a lot
Put up whatever you have spare — out of the beds, out of the mill, out of the kitchen.
Another holding takes it
They pay the price you asked, in gold. No haggling, and no waiting on a keeper to open.
The purse is your own
Gold from the market goes to your account, and what you do with it after that is settled quietly there.
The patch grows just as well for anyone who never visits the stall.
The Empty Bed
It is still there, at the edge of the plot: the gate open, the row pegged out in red thread, a spade left standing in the earth. Tansy Lace has kept seed for it since the spring.
Press Play
runs in your browser
Till the soil
sow your first crop
Grow the holding
season by season
Here the book stops. What happens in that bed you write yourself.