![]() | LABOR DAY
[FIRST MONDAY IN SEPTEMBER] Good stories for great holidays : arranged for story-telling and
reading aloud and for the children's own reading | ![]() |
THE CHAMPION STONE-CUTTER
BY HUGH MILLER
DAVID FRASER was a famous Scotch hewer. On hearing that it had been remarked among a party
The letter specified neither his qualifications nor his name. It had been written merely to secure for him the necessary employment, and the necessary employment it did secure.
The better workmen of the party were engaged, on his arrival, in hewing columns, each of which was deemed sufficient work for a week; and David was asked somewhat incredulously, by the foreman, if he could hew.
“Oh, yes, he thought he could hew.”
“Could he hew columns such as these?”
“Oh, yes, he thought he could hew columns such as these.”
A mass of stone, in which a possible column lay hid, was accordingly placed before David, not under cover of the shed, which was already occupied by workmen, but, agreeably to David's own request, directly in front of it, where he
Buttoning his long tartan coat fast around him, he would first look along the stone from the one end, anon from the other, and then examine it in front and rear; or, quitting it altogether for the time, he would take up his stand beside the other workmen, and, after looking at them with great attention, return and give it a few taps with the mallet, in a style evidently imitative of theirs, but monstrously a caricature.
The shed all that day resounded with roars of laughter; and the only thoroughly grave man on the ground was he who occasioned the mirth of all the others.
Next morning David again buttoned his coat; but he got on much better this day than the former. He was less awkward and less idle, though not less observant than before; and he succeeded ere evening in tracing, in workmanlike fashion, a few draughts along the future column. He was evidently greatly improving!
On the morning of Wednesday he threw off his coat; and it was seen that, though by no means in a hurry, he was seriously at work. There were no more jokes or laughter; and it was whispered in the evening that the strange Highlander had made astonishing progress during the day.
By the middle of Thursday he had made up for
The foreman went out and greeted him.
“Well,” he said, “you have beaten us all. You certainly can hew!”
“Yes,” said David, “I thought I could hew columns. Did the other men take much more than a week to learn?”
“Come, come, David Fraser,” replied the foreman, “we all guess who you are. You have had your week's joke out; and now, I suppose, we must give you your week's wages, and let you go away!”
“Yes,” said David, “work waits for me in Glasgow; but I just thought it might be well to know how you hewed on this east side of the country.”
![]() | LABOR DAY
[FIRST MONDAY IN SEPTEMBER] Good stories for great holidays : arranged for story-telling and
reading aloud and for the children's own reading | ![]() |