On Tinkers and Tailors

Tinker: a craftsman, often traveling from place to place, who repairs metal goods, such as pots, pans, and kettles.

"Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had any thing to say. 'Tell the tailors,' said he, 'to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.' His companion's prayer is forgotten. However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).