An account of the Burns' Household as told by
Gilbert Burns the Poet's younger brother
"To the buffetings of misfortune, we could only oppose hard
labour and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparingly. For
several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while
all members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost strength,
and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother at
the age of thirteen assisted in threshing the crop of corn, and
at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm, for we had no
hired servant male or female. The anguish of mind we felt at our
tender years, under these straights and difficulties, was very great.
To think of our father old (for he was now above fifty) broken down
with long continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other
children, and undeclining state of circumstances, these reflections
produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the deepest
distress".
EXERCISE
Imagine you are a young boy like Robert Burns
(a) Say how you might spend your day 'yoking' the plough?team and
spending 8 ? 10 hours in the field. Describe some of your thoughts.
(b) Draw a picture of a plough?team. (NOTE: two horses would be
unable to draw the Scots wooden plough).
(c) Draw a picture of an 18/19th century ploughman?lad.
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