COTTAGE IDEAS. 197 
for that work. She considered it quite a hardship that 
they were not paid for taking a present. Cottage people 
do look at things in such a curious crooked light! A 
mother grumbled because the vicar had not been to see 
her child, who was ill. Now, she was not a church-goer, 
and cared nothing for the Church or its doctrines—that 
was not it ; she grumbled so terribly because ‘it was his 
place to come.’ 
A lady went to live in a village for health’s sake, 
and having heard so much of the poverty of the farmer’s 
man, and how badly his family were off, thought that she 
should find plenty who would be glad to pick up extra 
shillings by doing little things for her. First she wanted 
astout boy to help to draw her Bath chair, while the 
footman pushed behind, it beinga hilly country. Instead 
of having to choose between half a dozen applicants, as 
she expected, the difficulty was to discover anybody 
who would even take such a job into consideration. 
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 some- 
body 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—Azs boy could carry it; the labourer’s 
