172 THE NEW COTTAGE 



convenience close at hand, they will be adding 

 greatly to the chances of success. There are so 

 many details connected with building that women 

 are far more competent to advise upon than many 

 an architect, who knows but little about the work 

 of a kitchen or nursery. 



As I leave the students to continue their garden- 

 making, when their merry tea-party is at an end, 

 I fall in with two old friends whom I often meet 

 and always find most entertaining. They are the 

 roadmenders. Both are deaf, but there is a 

 difference in their means of acquiring information ; 

 for the one who can hear when remarks are shouted 

 at him in a high-pitched voice can neither read 

 nor write, whilst the other, who can only be made 

 to understand by means of signs and gesticulation, 

 is able to read a newspaper. 



In spite of their physical troubles these two are 

 able to follow the topics of the day and the one 

 who is " a scholar " can successfully impart to his 

 friend any news that appears in the local paper. 

 I am often astonished at the amount of thought 

 they are able to give, not merely to the differing 

 gradients of the by-road, the stumpy hedge that 

 will not grow near the dangerous turning and the 

 flints that have been put down at a bad time 

 when they will not " bind " and improve the road, 

 but also to politics and all the wider aspects of 

 country life. 



My friend Jesse, who is the one who can hear 

 my remarks, has a memory that is very highly 

 developed. Whatever occurrence of the past he 

 tells me about is invariably accurately dated, not 



