action of planing a deal board always brings back the scene clearly to
my mind.

I suppose, therefore, it was partly old associations that induced the
fascination of watching Tom G. at his work, but there were other
reasons. With his axe, the edge beautifully ground and sharpened to a
razor-like finish, he could trim a piece of wood, or shape it, so
neatly that it presented almost the appearance of having been planed;
his saw, with no apparent effort, raced from end to end of a board or
across the grain of a piece of "quartering," and his chisels and plane
irons were ground to the correct concave bevel that relieves the
parting of a chip or shaving, and gives what he called "sweetness" to
the cutting action. He was a strong Conservative, good at an argument,
and had many heated discussions with some of my men whose tendencies
leaned to the opposite side; but his sound logic and common sense were
observable in all his ideas, and I think he generally came off best as
a shrewd and clear-headed debater, for from his employment in various
places his horizon was wider than that of the ordinary farm labourers.

Tom G. had considerable knowledge of the Bible, which he sometimes
employed in conversation; alluding to the work that was nearly always
waiting for him at Aldington, he told a friend of mine that there was
"earn (corn) in Egypt"; and when he had a written contract with me for
a special piece of work, and wished to suggest that as time went on we
might think of some improvement, and that there was no necessity to
adhere to the original specifications, he announced that "we bean't
Mades, nor we bean't Piersians" (we're not Medes, nor are we
Persians).

No necessary measurement was ever guessed at, his "rule" was always