336 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
September, 1909 
~ Monthly Comment 
The Village Workman 
1 N THOSE strange works of fiction, the 
guides to country living, which many philan- 
thropically disposed persons are putting 
upon the literary market with a bravery 
worthy of a better cause, the village work- 
man has a place wholly his own. He occu- 
pies, as it were, a niche of universal con- 
venience, and is able to do anything at any time and in the 
most excellent way. It is time that a word of caution should 
be spoken on this theme, for, among the disillusions that 
sometimes come to too-sanguine souls seeking to worship 
nature and enjoy the simple life in the country, none is more 
unexpected than the shattering of the legends with which 
busy writers have for years idealized and surrounded the 
country workman and his labors. 
THE country workman of the books is a legendary figure, 
no truer to life than excellent old Rip Van Winkle. Modern 
research has shown on what flimsy basis many of the finest 
of old legends rests, but it requires no research at all to dem- 
onstrate that the country workman of the books, or the coun- 
try workman of any sort, is a very human being, with a 
multitude of failings and deficiencies of his own that could 
make him a study of abounding interest were his vagaries 
not practised at your expense and his peculiarities not de- 
voted to your own undoing. Each year his legendary char- 
acter moves farther and farther into the background; each 
year he becomes more of a trial and more of an expense. 
You pick up your copy of “How to Make Ten ‘Thousand 
Dollars in Ten Thousand Years on One Thousand Square 
Feet of Ground,” and you read with amazement the number- 
less ingenious things the author had done for her, and then 
you go out and look at some of the strange things that have 
been done for you by the only available workman within 
miles. You wonder that such things can be, and you are 
most particularly sorry that they happen to be yours. 
THE newcomer establishing himself in the country natur- 
ally requires some outside assistance. It is a need that can 
not be dispensed with, for there are many kinds of work 
about a place, old or new, that the most ingenious man can 
not do, even if his time were completely at his disposal. ‘To 
the unsophisticated it would seem the easiest thing in the 
world to get some one to “help” if not to completely carry 
out a piece of work. The books and magazines teem with 
experiences of obliging neighbors or skilled geniuses of 
labor that have lived sheltered lives in the unappreciative 
countryside. One of the chiefest joys of country living, it 
would seem, was the engaging of these conveniently at hand 
and most ingenious persons. To look for one of these chaps 
is apt to be the first step in the disillusionment of country life, 
the first step toward reality, the step from out of the clouds 
of what may be right down onto the solid earth of reality. 
A VERY shrewd observer once wrote an interesting essay 
beginning with a reference to first catching.your hare. It 
was a profound thought, and if it happens to occur to you 
at this juncture you can not but wonder if he ever tried to 
find a workman in the rural districts. To those who have 
not met with the experience it may seem strange, yet it is 
completely true, that there are many regions quite near to 
some of our largest cities in which not a single workman or 
helper can be had for any price. This is a condition that 
is not only existant at times, but has been prevalent indefi- 
nitely and with no signs of relief in progress. There is a real 
cause for this, since for many years there has been a steady 
drain of the country youth to the cities and in many country 
regions there is scarce any one left save the older men who, 
too late in life, have come to see that the real thing to do is 
to swagger into town with kid gloves and a cigarette and 
engage in a cheap clerkship in a city house. 
WHEN a country workman is finally captured a new 
series of experiences begins. He may, as a matter of fact, be 
no worse than any average city workman. ‘The real hard- 
ship lies in his scarcity. In the city, if one does not exactly 
care for the particular man engaged for a certain job, there 
are many others, apparently as available as the one you have 
picked out. But in the country you are fortunate if you 
find one man to do your work, and having found him you 
presently discover there are no others; or, if there be others, 
they are endowed with various qualifications that make them 
more uncertain than the one you have been fortunate enough 
to obtain. The number of persons following special trades 
being limited, the number of people who can be hired for 
anything being restricted, one must put up with what one 
can obtain, and the results are often very disastrous. You 
get ineficient work and you are practically without redress, 
for there is no one else who could do better. 
Day work is highly in favor in the country. Miscella- 
neous jobs are always difficult to figure on in lump sums, 
and it is often convenient to have people working for you 
by the day, moving them around from job to job as one is 
finished or new ones present themselves. Moreover, in day 
work the country workman is sure not to lose money. He 
may have underestimated his contract price, the work may 
have been more difficult than he anticipated; but with day 
work it can be strung right along and finished in a profitable 
manner. It is a delightful method, and works beautifully 
for every one except the unfortunate who is to pay the bill. 
Rebates and reductions are even more unfavorably regarded 
than in town, the proper thing being to pay the bill as ren- 
dered, even though it contain monstrous overcharges and 
extras. The reason for this is obvious: the person presenting 
the bill has a larger local acquaintance than you have; more- 
over, he knows every one else who makes out bills. As 
rendered his bill is eminently just and fair and ought to be 
paid; if it is not paid with the exactness with which it is ren- 
dered, the bill-emaker tells everybody else, and before you 
know it you have no credit whatever in a community you 
once thought to live in peacefully and at ease, meeting all 
your just debts, and incurring no more expense than you can. 
Ir you don’t mind the expense you will often find the vil- 
lage workman a most agreeable fellow. Life in the quiet 
countryside has sharpened his’ wits and aided his memory. 
The latter will be prodigious, and he can tell you all about 
everyone else and many diverting adventures that he himself 
went through at some remote epoch of his career. Perhaps 
this entertainment should be paid for, and if the stream of 
talk could be turned off as readily as it is turned on the 
village workman might be a very entertaining person to have 
around. His ways of doing business are not your ways; a 
pleasant day or a chance at fishing may interrupt your job 
with no other reason, but in one respect he is thoroughly 
modern and up-to-date; he knows how to charge, and he is 
fully alive to the merits of an astounding bill. 
