Chapter One, Episode 51 - A Man of Few Words - Situationally Theirs

June 26, 2020

Review, Edit and Update

I thought that this short passage would be just fine. Not so. There was one - and a big one. My first line: Samuel didn't have a last name.' was wrong. Now maybe Samuel had me convinced that this was so. Maybe he just didn't read Episode 30 when Emmie said: 'I'm meeting Samuel Forrester, the gardener and yardman........" So how do I fix this and keep the intent of this short passage? Because it is short, I will keep the original and add the edited one. I'll let you, my readers, be the judges.

A Man of Few Words - Original version

Samuel didn’t have a last name. According to him: “Never needed one.” No one knew where he lived or whether he had any family. Digby kept a supply of cheques just for Samuel. For everyone else he sent out the payroll by direct deposit. “Don’t have one o’them computer things. Never needed one. Bank just gives me my money when I hand them this here cheque.” 

There had always been a Samuel on the land of the estate. No one takes pictures of the hired help. If they had it would have shown the same ‘Samuel’ for decades. Never aging. Always wearing the same rough blue denim coveralls over a light blue short sleeved shirt. Always open at the neck. Always the same scruffy straw hat that looked as old as Samuel himself. A dusty, red kerchief flagged from his right back pocket. He didn’t smoke but kept an old corncob pipe in his breast pocket, taking it out to chew on once in a while. 

Samuel saw Giles and Brigitte move the old red picnic table. He straightened up from opening a new row. He stabbed his well used spade into the dirt. With the red kerchief he wiped the dirt from his face and his hands. Keeping an eye fixed on the red table, he clamped his jaw down on his corncob pipe. “Guess there’ll be a weddin’ before long.” Pipe back in its pocket, he went back to digging.

“To be of few words is natural.”

~ Lao Tzu

A Man of Few Words - Edited version

Samuel didn’t want a last name. According to him: “Never needed one.” No one knew where he lived or whether he had any family. Digby kept a supply of cheques just for Samuel. For everyone else he sent out the payroll by direct deposit. “Don’t have one o’them computer things. Never needed one. Bank just gives me my money when I hand them this here cheque.” 

There had always been a Samuel on the land of the estate. No one takes pictures of the hired help. If they had it would have shown the same 'Samuel' for decades. Never aging. Always wearing the same rough blue denim coveralls over a light blue short sleeved shirt. Always open at the neck. Always the same scruffy straw hat that looked as old as Samuel himself. A dusty, red kerchief flagged from his right back pocket. He didn’t smoke but kept an old corncob pipe in his breast pocket, taking it out to chew on once in a while. 

Samuel saw Giles and Brigitte move the old red picnic table. He straightened up from opening a new row. He stabbed his well used spade into the dirt. With the red kerchief he wiped the dirt from his face and his hands. Keeping an eye fixed on the red table, he clamped his jaw down on his corncob pipe. “Guess there’ll be a weddin’ before long.” Pipe back in its pocket, he went back to digging.

“To be of few words is natural.”
~ Lao Tzu