There was one singular, inexplicable thing about work.

If there was work at hand, one could always find something else to do, attractive and absorbing.

If there wasn't work to do, the sheer shock of it seemed to dull you into mental vacuity and loose ends of time came up and hit you in the face.

Garry had written something or other like that sarcastically in a letter.
He helped Hannah churn and sang with a soft brogue, to her abashed delight, a song he called "The Gurgling of the Churn." He helped Hetty milk the roan cow and sang while Hetty's apple-cheeks bloomed redder, an exquisite folk tune of a pretty girl who milked a cow in Ireland.

Later in the summer he even helped Hughie rake the hay and had a song for that.
As Hannah said, he seemed to have songs for everything and what he couldn't sing he could play with dazzling skill on the old piano.
"There's 'lectricity," said Hannah, "in the very air." "I wished," grumbled Hughie, "he'd put it in the ground instid.