He does not work it right.
What a vulgar saying the Prompter has selected for his text in this
number! Yet these vulgar sayings are often full of good sense.
I knew a young man who left the army with an invincible attachment
to gambling. He followed it closely till he had lost most of his
wages--he then purchased a shop of goods, mostly on credit--he had
his nightly frolics--_he kept it up_--he was a blood of the first
rate--his goods were soon gone and not paid for--his creditors began
to cry _peccavi_--in fact, _he did not work it right_. But his
friends helped him out of six scrapes, yea, out of seven. At length
necessity broke his spirit--it tamed him--he married, became a man
of business, recovered his lost credit--and now _he works it right_.
I often say to myself, as I ride about the country, what a pity it
is our farmers _do not work it right_. When I see a man turn his
cattle into the street to run at large and waste their dung, during
a winter's day, I say this man does not work it right. Ten loads
of good manure, at least, is lost in a season by this slovenly
practice--and all for what? For nothing, indeed, but to ruin a farm.
So when I see cattle, late in the fall or early in the spring,
rambling in a meadow or mowing field, pouching the soil and breaking
the grass roots, I say to myself, this man _does not work it right_.
So when I see a barn yard with a drain to it, I say the owner does
not work it right; for how easy it is to make a yard hollow, or
lowest in the middle, to receive all the wash of the sides, which
will be thus kept dry for the cattle. The wash of the yard, mixed
with any kind of earth, or putrid straw, is the best manure in the
world--yet how much do our farmers lose! In fact they do not work it
right.
When I pass along the road and see a house with clapboards hanging
an end with one nail, and old hats and cloths stuffed into the
broken windows, and the fences tumbling down or destroyed, I
conclude the owner loves rum--in truth, he does not work it right.
When I see a man frequently attending courts, I suspect _he does not
work it right_.
When I see a countryman often go to the retailer's with a bottle,
or the labouring man carrying home a bottle of rum after his work
is done on Saturday night, I am certain this man _does not work it
right_.
When a farmer divides a farm of one hundred acres of land among five
or six sons, and builds a small house for each, and sets them to
work for a living on a little patch of land, I question whether _he
works it right_. And when these sons are afterwards unable to live
on these mutilated farms, and are compelled by a host of children to
go to work by the day to get bread, I believe they are all convinced
that _they have not worked it right_.
When a man tells me his wife will not consent to go from home into
new settlements, where he may have land enough, and live like a
nabob, and therefore he is obliged to sit down in a corner of his
father's farm, I laugh at him, and some time or other he will own
_he has not worked it right_.
A man in trade, who is not punctual in his payments, certainly _does
not work it right_; nor does the man, who trusts his goods to _any
body_, and _every body_.
Whether in Congress or a kitchen, the person who _talks much_ is
_little regarded_. Some members of Congress then certainly _do not
work it right_. A hint to the _wise_ is sufficient; but twenty
hints have not been sufficient to silence the clamorous tongues of
some Congressional spouters.
Family government gives complexion to the manners of a town: but
when we see, every where, children profane, indelicate, rude, saucy,
we may depend on it, their _parents do not work it right_.
I once knew a young man of excellent hopes, who was deeply in love
with a lady. The first time he had an opportunity to whisper in
her ear; and before he had made any impression on her heart in his
favour, he sighed out his sorrowful tale to her in full explanation.
The lady was frightened--she soon rid herself of the distressed
lover--she said, _he did not work it right_.