Latterly, George did duty as a bailiff, attending auction sales, keeping the door, and handing the drink round to the thirsty bidders. He wore a blue coat with metal buttons, knee-breeches and brown stockings, with a pair of clogs at least fourteen inches in length, and a sole an inch and a half thick. He was also adorned with a blue apron which was usually tucked round his waist, and he wore for years an old felt hat that had scarcely a vestige of brim left.
George, when I knew him, lodged with two elderly maiden sisters, Ann o' th' Kiln and Judie, but he kept his own room in order, and did his own cooking. One evening George's supper was on the hob, and some practical jokers, being on the look out, attracted his attention outside, whilst one of them slipped in and emptied a cupful of salt into the pot.
George, on sitting down to his evening meal, found the porridge so over-seasoned that it was impossible to eat them. He tried again and again, muttering to himself: "Tha'll ha' to come to 't, George! Tha'll ha' to come to 't!" but it was of no use, he had to give them up at last.
Determined, however, that they should not be thrown away or otherwise wasted, he got a pudding cloth, and tying them up in this, hung them from a hook in the ceiling of his room, and instead, thereafter, of salting his porridge in the usual way, he cut a slice from the over-salted compound as long as it lasted and put it in the pot, so saving both salt and oatmeal. By frugality and self-denial George managed to save a considerable sum of money, and was in the habit of lending it out on security at good interest.
Somewhat akin to this display of frugality was the action of some of the first co-operators in Bacup. They early followed the example of the Rochdale Pioneers, their society being established in the year 1847. They had a good deal to learn in those early days, and made mistakes in buying. One of the mistakes, I remember, was the purchase of a small cargo of Dutch or American cheeses. These, when they came to hand, proved to be so hard that a knife blade stood no chance with them. They were more like "young grindlestones" (as one of the shopmen expressed it) than cheeses.
What was to be done? It would never do to throw them away—that was out of the question. A hatchet would have mauled them and spoilt their appearance; so Abram o' Bobs, who was equal to the emergency, brought his hand-saw one night and divided them into a number of saleable pieces. When cut, they had the appearance of brown ivory, and were nearly as hard. There must have been some aching teeth and jaws before those same cheeses were finally polished off!
It is not often that Rossendale men are so taken in. Waugh in one of his sketches remarks that the men of Rossendale are "a long way through." That is quite true as regards many of them. For that reason they are also a long way round, and it is not easy "coming round" one of the pure breed.
I was amused with a remark made on one occasion by an old fellow best known by the sobriquet of "Jobber Pilling's feyther." He had a two-foot rule, and was trying to take the dimensions of a deal board on which he was at work. The figures on his two-foot, however, were quite illegible by reason of the blade being either soiled or worn. Spitting on it, and giving it a rub with his coat sleeve, he looked shrewdly at me, and remarked: "This thing wants kestnin' o'er again." Whether he meant that the application of water would improve it, or that the figures would do with recutting, I don't just know, but the christening simile would be applicable either way.