A bit off beat however I think you hand tool guys will appreciate this. I am re reading My Antonia by Willa Cather. In it is a passage about a pioneer farm hand building a coffin on a prairie in Nebraska in the "dead" of winter. Although a bit morbid the description is wonderful. This is copied from the Project Gutenberg : it states that the material can be used for any purpose.
If anyone has a collection of similar passages from literary texts / fiction I would love to see them.
Enjoy....:slap:
Fuchs, who was the only cabinetmaker in the neighbourhood was set to work on a coffin.
Our heavy carpenter's bench had to be brought from the barn and carried
down into the kitchen. Fuchs selected boards from a pile of planks
grandfather had hauled out from town in the fall to make a new floor for
the oats-bin. When at last the lumber and tools were assembled, and the
doors were closed again and the cold draughts shut out, grandfather rode
away to meet the coroner at the Shimerdas', and Fuchs took off his coat
and settled down to work. I sat on his worktable and watched him. He did
not touch his tools at first, but figured for a long while on a piece of
paper, and measured the planks and made marks on them. While he was
thus engaged, he whistled softly to himself, or teasingly pulled at his
half-ear. Grandmother moved about quietly, so as not to disturb him. At
last he folded his ruler and turned a cheerful face to us.
'The hardest part of my job's done,' he announced.
All afternoon, wherever one went in the house, one could hear the
panting wheeze of the saw or the pleasant purring of the plane. They
were such cheerful noises, seeming to promise new things for living
people: it was a pity that those freshly planed pine boards were to be
put underground so soon. The lumber was hard to work because it was full
of frost, and the boards gave off a sweet smell of pine woods, as the
heap of yellow shavings grew higher and higher. I wondered why Fuchs
had not stuck to cabinet-work, he settled down to it with such ease and
content. He handled the tools as if he liked the feel of them; and when
he planed, his hands went back and forth over the boards in an eager,
beneficent way as if he were blessing them. He broke out now and then
into German hymns, as if this occupation brought back old times to him.
Seriously...Is that amazing or what???:dontknow:
I am a neanderthal for sure.
If anyone has a collection of similar passages from literary texts / fiction I would love to see them.
Enjoy....:slap:
Fuchs, who was the only cabinetmaker in the neighbourhood was set to work on a coffin.
Our heavy carpenter's bench had to be brought from the barn and carried
down into the kitchen. Fuchs selected boards from a pile of planks
grandfather had hauled out from town in the fall to make a new floor for
the oats-bin. When at last the lumber and tools were assembled, and the
doors were closed again and the cold draughts shut out, grandfather rode
away to meet the coroner at the Shimerdas', and Fuchs took off his coat
and settled down to work. I sat on his worktable and watched him. He did
not touch his tools at first, but figured for a long while on a piece of
paper, and measured the planks and made marks on them. While he was
thus engaged, he whistled softly to himself, or teasingly pulled at his
half-ear. Grandmother moved about quietly, so as not to disturb him. At
last he folded his ruler and turned a cheerful face to us.
'The hardest part of my job's done,' he announced.
All afternoon, wherever one went in the house, one could hear the
panting wheeze of the saw or the pleasant purring of the plane. They
were such cheerful noises, seeming to promise new things for living
people: it was a pity that those freshly planed pine boards were to be
put underground so soon. The lumber was hard to work because it was full
of frost, and the boards gave off a sweet smell of pine woods, as the
heap of yellow shavings grew higher and higher. I wondered why Fuchs
had not stuck to cabinet-work, he settled down to it with such ease and
content. He handled the tools as if he liked the feel of them; and when
he planed, his hands went back and forth over the boards in an eager,
beneficent way as if he were blessing them. He broke out now and then
into German hymns, as if this occupation brought back old times to him.
Seriously...Is that amazing or what???:dontknow:
I am a neanderthal for sure.
