OLD COUNTRY FOLK 237 



The ending is a little abrupt and disdainful of both 

 rhyme and rhythm. 



They worked long hours in those old days, children and all. 

 Children of six and seven years of age were employed on 

 the farms, just as they were fifty years before. An example 

 of such children's work is given in the case of William 

 Cobbett, who was a West Surrey man, born near Farnham 

 in 1762. A 'Life of William Cobbett,' published in 1835, 

 says that he ' was employed at a very early age in driving the 

 small birds from the turnip seed, and the rooks from the 

 peas. His next employment was weeding wheat, and leading 

 a single horse at harrowing barley. Hoeing peas followed, 

 and hence he arrived at the honour (to use his own words) 

 of joining the reapers at harvest, driving the team and 

 holding the plough. William and his brothers were strong 

 and laborious, and their father used to boast, with honest 

 pride, that the eldest boy, who was then but fifteen, did as 

 much work as any three men in the parish of Farnham.' 



I can remember quite small boys scaring birds in the 

 fields — ' Keeping the crows ' or ' minding the crows ' it 

 was called. 



The children were better disciplined and therefore better 

 mannered in these old, hard-working days. Boys in a 

 labourer's family, when a meal was ready, having made 

 themselves clean, stood in a row while grace was said, and 

 did not sit down till they were told. 



' I mind when we always ate off wooden trenchers, not 

 crockern plates,' said one of my old friends. ' AVhen we 

 used to have a meat pudden, it was boiled in a pudden 

 cloth, not in a basin as now. There was meat and 



