Village Stories
In the 1950s the parson stood up in the pulpit at Harvest Festival and said sarcastically, “What a lot of people have come to the fruit and flower show." A farmer to the vicar at Harvest Festival: “I’ve got more faith in fourteen loads of muck to the acre than all your prayers!”
First Aid classes by Mr Lake, the headmaster, were held at the turn of the 20th century. On one night, the subject of blood circulation was discussed. “The blood flows from the heart throughout the body”, said the teacher, “when it goes down this leg, where does it go?” “Aha”, said one of the audience, “down one leg and up the other one and back again."
A great fire was roaring in the grate of the Durham Ox. One well-known character, known for a certain habit, swilled back his pint, strode up to the fire, and was about to spit with relish into it. “Look up”, says a villager, “here comes the fire engine."
The custom of ‘throwing the hat in’: should a husband come home the worse for drink, he would open the door a crack, and throw his cap in. He would wait, and if the cap came flying out again, he knew he should clear off for a bit.
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Famous quotes containing the words village and/or stories:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Wags try to invent new stories to tell about the legislature, and end by telling the old one about the senator who explained his unaccustomed possession of a large roll of bills by saying that someone pushed it over the transom while he slept. The expression “It came over the transom,” to explain any unusual good fortune, is part of local folklore.”
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)