The Lads Did Not Care
About It; Their Fathers Did Not Care About It; And Their Mothers Did Not
Want Them To Do It.
At one cottage there were three lads at home doing
nothing; but the mother thought they were too delicate for such work.
In
the end a boy was found, but not for some time. Nobody was eager for any
extra shilling to be earned in that way. The next thing was somebody to
fetch a yoke or two of spring water daily. This man did not care for it,
and the other did not care for it; and even one who had a small piece of
ground, and kept a donkey and water-butt on wheels for the very purpose,
shook his head. He always fetched water for folk in the summer when it
was dry, never fetched none at that time of year - he could not do it.
After a time a small shopkeeper managed the yoke of water from the spring
for her - - his - boy could carry it; the labourer's could not. He was
comparatively well-to-do, yet he was not above an extra shilling.
This is one of the most curious traits in the character of cottage
folk - they do not care for small sums; they do not care to pick up
sixpences. They seem to be - afraid of obliging people - - as if to do so,
even to their own advantage, would be against their personal honour and
dignity. In London the least trifle is snapped up immediately, and there
is a great crush and press for permission to earn a penny, and that not
in very dignified ways. In the country it is quite different. Large
fortunes have been made out of matches; now your true country cottager
would despise such a miserable fraction of a penny as is represented by a
match. I heard a little girl singing -
Little drops of water, little grains of sand.
It is these that make oceans and mountains; it is pennies that make
millionaires. But this the countryman cannot see. Not him alone either;
the dislike to little profits is a national characteristic, well marked
in the farmer, and indeed in all classes. I, too, must be humble, and
acknowledge that I have frequently detected the same folly in myself, so
let it not be supposed for an instant that I set up as a censor; I do but
delineate. Work for the cottager must be work to please him; and to
please him it must be the regular sort to which he is accustomed, which
he did beside his father as a boy, which - his - father did, and - his -
father before him; the same old plough or grub-axe, the same milking, the
same identical mowing, if possible in the same field. He does not care
for any new-fangled jobs: he does not recognise them, they have no - locus
standi - - they are not established. Yet he is most anxious for work, and
works well, and is indeed the best labourer in the world.
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