Although they owned a small farm, they could not survive on their own produce: the farmer had to take on his wife's work to set her free to make the cash produce – butter and knitting. Her son remembered what she said:
'I'll make a bargain with thee; I'll see to food for us and both the children all winter if thou, in addition to looking after the horse, the cattle, and pigs, wilt do the churning, wash-up, make the beds, and clean the house. I'll make the butter myself.'
'How wilt thou manage?' asked my father.
'I will knit,' said she. 'We have wool, if thou wilt card it, I'll spin.'
The bargain was struck, my father did the housework in addition to the work on the farm, and my mother knitted, and so it was she kept us alive until the next harvest.
"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory