XIV
The Bonfire
I had pointed out, quite nicely and kindly, to Virginia, that she was not clipping the top of the square box-tree table straight and even; and she had pointed out, quite witheringly, to me that she was cutting it by perspective, adding that if I had only been privileged to learn perspective when I was young, I should have known that for a thing to be correct in its outlines and proportions it must necessarily run askew and aslant and out-at-corners, just as the top of the box-tree table was now doing. She assured me, however, that it would appear all right, she thought, if I looked at it from an airship above, with half-closed eyes.
And then she advised me to do a little hoeing.
I ignored her sarcasm, knowing full well that a pair of shears, applied by amateur hands to tough overgrown greenstuff, is apt to provoke cutting remarks when the wielder has got to the moist stage and the hedge is looking like a ploughed field.
You see, there was an inwardness in her last remark; for hoeing looks an easy, graceful, carefree occupation—till you try it. My own method is distinctive; I didn’t invent it, it came to me as a natural inspiration. I find I invariably start to hoe with my back, doubling up more and more, and aching more and more, as I proceed with the hacking. Then, as I warm to the work (and it’s very much warm as a rule), I likewise hoe with my teeth. By the time I have set and ground these nearly to nothing—my hands all the while getting lower and lower down the handle of my tool—I find myself beginning to hoe quite viciously with my head.
When I have extracted all the motive power I can from this part of me, and have projected it so far in front of the rest of me—hoe included—that I almost lose my balance, the only thing left for me to do, by way of piling up yet more energy and effort, appears to be to go down on all fours, seeing that by this time I am clasping the hoe handle at about a foot from the ground.
Fortunately, it is just here that I usually realize what I am doing, and I straighten my rounded back, and undo my teeth (that doesn’t sound polite, but you know what I mean), and return my head to its proper place. I then remind myself that I am not hoeing at all scientifically, that most of the energy I have been putting forth has been waste—because misdirected—force.
Whereupon I stand at ease, and other things like that. Maintaining the upright as far as I can, I take hold of the top end of the long handle of my weapon, and, still keeping quite in the perpendicular, I merely hoe with my arms, thus saving the rest of me quite a considerable number of unclassified aches. So long as I can remember to keep my vertebræ like this, all is well, and I really get through a fair amount of work. But, alas, I soon forget.