A Dish On The
Table, A Cat On The Hearth, A Plough In The Field, 'there A' Sets,' There
It Is.
'No bounds' is another.
It may rain all day long, 'there's no
bounds;' that is, no knowing. 'I may go to fair, no bounds,' it is
uncertain, I have not made up my mind. A folk so vague in their ideas are
very fond of this 'no bounds;' it is like the 'Quien sabe?' of the
Mexicans, who knows? and accompanies every remark. An avaricious person
is very 'having;' wants to have everything. What are usually called
dog-irons on the hearth are called brand-irons, having to support the
brand or burning log. Where every one keeps fowls the servant girls are
commonly asked if they can cram a chicken, if they understand how to
fatten it by filling its crop artificially. 'Sure,' pronounced with great
emphasis on the 'su,' like the 'shure' of the Irish, comes out at every
sentence. 'I shan't do it all, sure;' and if any one is giving a
narration, the polite listener has to throw in a deep 'sure' of assent at
every pause. 'Cluttered up' means in a litter, surrounded with too many
things to do at once. Of a little girl they said she was pretty, but she
had 'bolted' eyes; a portrait was a good one, but 'his eyes bolt so,
meaning thereby full, staring eyes, that seem to start out of the head. A
drunken man, says the poor wife, is not worth a hatful of crab apples.
The boys go hoop-driving, never bowling. If in any difficulty they say,
'I hope to match it out to the end of the week,' to make the provisions
last, or fit the work in. Most difficult of all to express is the way
they say yes and no. It is neither yes nor no, nor yea nor nay, but a
cross between it somehow. To say yes they shut their lips and then open
them as if gasping for breath and emit a sort of 'yath' without the 'th,'
more like 'yeah,' and better still if to get the closing of the lips you
say 'em' first - 'em-yeah.' The no is 'nah' with a sort of jerk on the h;
'na-h,' This yeah and nah is most irritating to fresh ears; you do not
seem to know if your servant has taken any notice of what you said, or is
making a mouth at you in derision.
The farmers are always complaining that the men crawl through their work
and put no energy into anything, just as if they were afraid to use their
hands. More particularly, if there is any little extra thing to be done,
they could not possibly do it. A wheat rick was threshed one day, and
when it was finished in the afternoon there were the sacks in a great
heap about twenty or thirty yards from the barn. So soon as the rick was
finished, the men asked for their money as usual, when the farmer said he
wanted them to carry the sacks into the barn before they left. Oh no,
they couldn't do that. 'Well, then,' said he, 'I can't pay you till you
have done it.' No, they couldn't do it, couldn't be expected to carry
sacks of wheat across the rickyard and into the barn like that, it was
too much for any man to do; why couldn't he send for the cart? The farmer
replied that the cart was two miles away, engaged in other labour; the
night was coming on, and if it rained in the night the wheat would be
damaged. No, they couldn't do it. The farmer would not pay them, and so
the dispute continued for a long time. At length the farmer said, 'Well,
if you won't do it, perhaps you will at least help me as far as this:
will you lift up a sack and place it on another high enough for me to get
it on my back, and I will myself carry them to the barn?' So small a
favour they could not refuse, and having raised up a sack for him in this
manner, he took it on his back and made off with it to the barn. He was
anything but a strong man - far less able to carry a sack of wheat than
the labourers - but determined not to be beaten. He carried one sack, then
another and another, till he had got eight safely housed, when on coming
back for the ninth he met a labourer with a sack on his back, shamed into
giving assistance. After him a second man took a sack, and one by one
they all followed, till in about half an hour all the wheat was in the
barn. This is the spirit in which they work if the least little
difficulty occurs, or they are asked to do anything that varies from what
they did yesterday or the day before, they cannot possibly accomplish it.
Since, however, the farmers have been unable to sell their produce and
winter wages have gone down, and work is scarce, the position of the
labourer is a very dull one, and it is feared the present winter will be
a hard time for many homes. Numbers talk of emigrating, and some have
taken the first step, and will sell their furniture and leave a land
where neither farmer nor labourer has any hope. One middle-aged cottage
woman, married, kept harping upon the holiday they should have during the
voyage to America. That seemed to her the great beauty of emigration, the
great temptation. For ten days, while the voyage lasted, she would have
nothing to do, but could rest! She had never had such a holiday in all
her life. How hard must be the life which makes such a trifling
circumstance as a week's rest appear so heavenly!
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