Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/164

150 "Simmily" is a word of little interest, being evidently a mere provincialism and distortion of "seemingly," as "summat" of "something," or "somewhat," indifferently.

Occasionally a person is seized with a giggling fit, laughs on the least, or without any, provocation—a rather idiotic state—which he is quite conscious of but cannot stop. Persently some one will ask, "Have you found a wicker's nest?" which is a biting sarcasm, though the precise meaning seems uncertain, unless it bears some relation to mare's nest. Mares wicker, so do goats; giggling is wickering. The first work a boy does is to go out with a clapper, or his own strong voice, to scare birds from the corn all day; this we call bird-keeping, but the lads themselves, with an appreciation of the other side of the case, call it bird -starving. Forage is often used in a general sense of food, or in the more particular sense of green food, as clover, or vetches. Fodder, on the other hand, indicates dry food, such as hay; the labourers go twice a day in winter to fodder the cattle, that is, to carry them their hay. Many of these labourers before they start out to work, in their own words, "fodder" their boots. Some fine soft hay is pushed into the boots, forming a species of sock. Should either of them have a clumsy pair, they say his boots are like a seed -lip, which is a vessel like a basket used in sowing corn, and would be a very loose lit. They have not yet forgotten the ancient superstition about Easter Sunday, and the girls will not go out without a new ribbon at least; they must have something new on that day, if the merest trifle.