He always sang when he mended boots because of the jolly sound of hammering.

And he was rather happy when he sat putting great patches on his moleskin pit trousers, which he would often do, considering them too dirty, and the stuff too hard, for his wife to mend.
But the best time for the young children was when he made fuses.

Morel fetched a sheaf of long sound wheat-straws from the attic.

These he cleaned with his hand, till each one gleamed like a stalk of gold, after which he cut the straws into lengths of about six inches, leaving, if he could, a notch at the bottom of each piece.

He always had a beautifully sharp knife that could cut a straw clean without hurting it.