124 HOME AND GARDEN 



England, as far as I am aware, in the extreme south- 

 west ; the implement lingering as if in company with 

 the racial relationship. We have the same word in 

 the baker's peel, the long-handled wooden shovel used 

 for taldng the hot loaves from the oven. As this 

 word is still in general use, it points to a wider use 

 in former days of the foreign-shaped tool that, except 

 in the one remote county, has given way to the 

 short-handled shovel with wider blade. 



Then the hammer-axe family branches into all 

 the smaller tools of the chopper class : hatchet, hand- 

 bill, and butcher's cleaver, and from these come 

 the reaping-hook or fag-hook, and the scythe. But 

 the stroke of these harvesting tools is much lighter, 

 for whereas the choppers are used with a hammer 

 stroke, that of the fag-hook, and still more that of 

 the scythe, have a light swing in it that seems to 

 be allied to that of the axe, and perhaps has some 

 relation to light strokes of sword and cutlass ; but as 

 I am unacquainted with the use of these weapons, in 

 their case I can only surmise. My impression is that 

 the sword is used with a rather tighter grasp, whereas 

 in many tools the tight grasp makes the stroke in- 

 effective. I sometimes see a woman with a hammer 

 held tight and short, making stiff and feeble dabs at 

 a tin-tack ; but then, of course, the right knack can 

 only come by practice. What a joy it is, after much 

 tr3dng, to catch the trick of a tool ! When it is 

 known, its exercise becomes quite unconscious, and 



