To understand the use of carpenter's tools, I assure you, is no despicable or useless kind of knowledge here. I would strongly recommend all young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for the want of it.
I was once much amused with hearing the remarks made by a very fine lady, the reluctant sharer of her husband's emigration, on seeing the son of a naval officer of some rank in the service busily employed in making an axe-handle out of a piece of rock-elm.
"I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so," she said, addressing his father.
The captain looked up with surprise. "Degrade himself! In what manner, madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, steals, nor tells lies."
"But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop, too?"
"Most assuredly I do. That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by him after he had left study yesterday," was the reply,
"I would see my boys dead before they should use an axe like common labourers."
"Idleness is the root of all evil," said the captain. "How much worse might my son be employed if he were running wild about streets with bad companions."
"You will allow this is not a country for gentlemen or ladies to live in," said the lady.
"It is the country for gentlemen that will not work and cannot live without, to starve in," replied the captain bluntly; "and for that reason I make my boys early accustom themselves to be usefully and actively employed."