FIELD WORDS AND WAYS. 189 
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 com- 
monly asked if they can cram a chicken, if they under- 
stand 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 marra- 
tion, 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 todo 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, 
‘IT 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 nois ‘nah’ witha 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 any- 
thing, just as if they were afraid to use their hands. 
More particularly, if there is any little extra thing to be 
