He waved his hands toward some lettuces of a fat figure and plump proportions. “Doan’t want no work—that’s why,” answered Matthew Smallridge. “The straggly sort be better, but they axes for tying up an’ trouble.” “Ezacally so. An’ a man as goes out of his way to sow trouble be a fule, Matthew,” retorted Joseph, triumphantly. The gardeners met every day, and every day differed on affairs of horticulture and life. Joseph was stout, with a red face set in a white frill of whisker. He had a rabbit mouth, a bald brow and a constitutional capacity for idleness. He talked much. He had a fine theory that we do not leave enough to nature in matters of the garden. Mr. Smallridge, the squire’s gardener, enjoyed a different habit of body and mind. He was a man who lived for work and loved it; he read the journals proper to his business; he kept his subordinates to their labours from morn till eve; and idleness he loathed as the worst sin to be laid at the door of any agriculturist, great or small. Mr. Hannaford alleged that the literature of his business was desirable for beginners, but he declared it to be unnecessary in his case. If asked concerning his authorities, he would tap his forehead and say, “Books? I don’t want no books. ’Tis all here.” No man possessed sure proofs that he could either read or write. These two were ancient men, yet not old for Dartmoor, where those of hardy stock, who have weathered the ordeal of infancy, usually advance far into the vale of years before their taking off. Joseph attributed his excellent health and spirits to a proper sense of what was due to himself in the matter of rest; while Matthew, on the other hand, assigned his physical and mental prosperity to hard work and temperance. Now the men stood together in Joseph’s little garden and discussed general questions. “If us was all your way of thinking, theer’d be no progress, an’ never a new pea growed an’ never a new potato taken to a show,” said Mr. Smallridge. “I hate shows,” answered Joseph. “’Tis flying in the face of nature an’ God Almighty, all this struggling for size. If He’d a’ meant to grow twenty peas in a pod, an’ all so big as cherries, He’d have done it wi’ a turn o’ the wrist. He didn’t do it, an’ for us worms to try an’ go awver the Lord in the matter of garden-stuff be so bad as bad can be. ’Twas touching that very thing I fell out with the Reverend Truman. ‘I be gwaine to show grapes, Joseph,’ he said to me last year; an’ I nodded an’ said, ‘Ess, sir,’ an’ went my even way. Us didn’t show. Then ’twas chrysanths. Weern’t satisfied wi’ a nice, small, stuggy bloom, as nature meant, but must be pinching, an’ potting, an’ messing with soot an’ dirt, an’ watering twice a day—ten months’ toil for two months’ pleasure. Then what? A gert, ramshackly, auld blossom, like a mop dipped in a pail o’ paint. However, I let his reverence do the work, an’ what credit was about I got myself. Not that I wanted it.”