PEGS FOR SALE Among the signs of the season is
the fact that the gypsies who come to us in spring are moving back once again to places where they spend the harder winter months. At least two of the tribe call regularly upon us to sell clothes pegs, for these are something that for years now we have purchased only from travelling folk. Once the pegs were the sort made by splitting hazel sticks which were cut to length and fastened with strips of tin. This sort of clothes-peg making might have been taken as a simple rural craft. Raw materials are not hard to come by and splitting the hazel presents no difficulty. Families used to work at peg-making on their way through the country. Even the gypsies seem to have labour troubles, however, for the pegs we are offered by our callers this year are obviously factory products. Soon the pegs will probably not be wooden things at all, but plastic ones. The patter remains unchanged and the farewell too, 'Thank you, kind lady. God bless you, sir. I'll be round again in the spring,' and off they go, baskets ,on hips. We have only twice been asked for anything other than money for pegs. Once the old lady asked for bicarbonate of soda for her indigestion and we were able to supply it. On another occasion the caller asked for a pinch of salt. Quite unaccountably, we could find no salt in the house. The traveller went off muttering about the wickedness of people who grudged a caller a few grains of salt.
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