Headscratchers / The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain

• As charming as the image of so many people walking up the hill with bushels of dirt may have been, wouldn't it have saved a huge amount of time and effort to just bring a bunch of shovels up onto the hilltop, dig up the necessary soil there, and haul it a matter of yards instead? Even if the peak itself was too rocky, there was so much lush vegetation on the hillsides that they surely could've found adequate soil partway up.
  • In the town hall meeting where the community first decides to raise the height of the hill, the pastor, Rev. Robert Jones, dismisses that exact idea as amounting to cheating. Instead, he proposes that they dig up the soil from their own gardens, and bring it all the way up the hillside, thus making the height change more legitimate for their hard work.