Tom G. had considerable knowledge of the Bible, which he sometimes
employed in conversation; alluding to the work that was nearly always
waiting for him at Aldington, he told a friend of mine that there was
"earn (corn) in Egypt"; and when he had a written contract with me for
a special piece of work, and wished to suggest that as time went on we
might think of some improvement, and that there was no necessity to
adhere to the original specifications, he announced that "we bean't
Mades, nor we bean't Piersians" (we're not Medes, nor are we
Persians).
No necessary measurement was ever guessed at, his "rule" was always
handy in a special pocket, but in cases where a rough guess was
sufficient he would hazard it by what he called "scowl of brow"
(intently regarding it). The agricultural labourer is inclined, both
with weights and measures, to be inaccurate, "reckoning it's near
enough." I found soon after I came to Aldington that the weighing
machine which had been in use throughout the whole of my predecessor's
time, and had weighed up hundreds of pounds of wool at 2s. and 2s. 6d.
a pound, cheese at 8d., and thousands of sacks of wheat, barley, and
beans, was about a pound in each hundredweight _against the seller_,
so that he must have lost a considerable sum in giving overweight.
Tom G. was scornful about weather signs, and summed up his doubts in
such matters with sarcasm: "I reckon that the indications for rain are
very similar to the indications for fine weather!" But the best
epigram I ever heard from him was, "There's a right way and a wrong
way to do everything, and folks most in general chooses the wrong un!"
I should like to see those words of wisdom on the title-page of every
school book, and blazoned up in letters of gold on the wall of every
classroom in every school in the kingdom.
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