ABOUT BORROWING.

Northern Advocate, 18 August 1888, Page 6

ABOUT BORROWING.

I READ this inscription in a wagonshop the other day: "I neither borrow nor lend tools." I don't know whether borrower or lender is mo3t to be pitied. The man who lends runs the risk of losing tools, or of having them injured, or of wanting them during their absence. But he may get them back all right, especially if reputed to be cross and crabbed enough to resent an injury. But the man who borrows makes a certain loss of time, and in greater or less degree of self-respect, and he makes himself liable to lend in return things more valuable than he borrows. In Arkansas, I stayed over night with a man who keeps a good assortment of tools. In the morning a neighbour rode up and said, "There is your augur; I was very busy and didn't bring it back as soon as I meant to." J "When the borrower was gone I asked now far he lived from there. " A mile and a quarter," was the reply. In borrowing and returning the auger he had travelled five miles ; it was an inch auger, worth about seventy-five cents. The habit of borrowing naturally leads to slackness in returning; good-natured lenders often suffer serious inconvenience* Every householder ought to keep an assortment of tools, farmers quite a full assortment, and they ought to be taught in youth how to use them. Saws, augers, bits, chisels, planes, three or four each, monkey- wrench, drawshave, vice, etc., ought to be owned by every farmer. Then he can make and mend many things in less time than he would spend getting the work done at the shop. Ii he is level-headed he will at odd times make a great many conveniences for the family and keep things in good repair.— (Hugh T. Brooks.