When Jone came home and I told him a gentleman was coming to live with
us, he thought at first I was joking; and when he found out that I
meant what I said he looked very blue, and stood with his hands in his
pockets and his eyes on the ground, considering.
"He's not going to take his meals here, is he?"
"I don't think he expects that," I said, "for Mrs. Locky only spoke of
lodging."
"Oh, well," said Jone, looking as if his clouds was clearing off a
little, "I don't suppose it will matter to us if that room is occupied
over Sunday, but I think the next time I go out for a stroll I'll take
you with me."
I didn't go out that afternoon, and sat on pins and needles until
half-past five o'clock. Jone wanted me to walk with him, but I wouldn't
do it, because I didn't want our lodger to come here and be received by
Miss Pondar. At half-past five there came a cart with the gentleman's
luggage, as they call it here, and I was glad Jone wasn't at home.
There was an enormous leather portmanteau which looked as if it had
been dragged by a boy too short to lift it from the ground, half over
the world; a hat-box, also of leather, but not so draggy looking; a
bundle of canes and umbrellas, a leather dressing-case, and a flat,
round bathing-tub. I had the things taken up to the room as quickly as
I could, for if Jone had seen them he'd think the gentleman was going
to bring his family with him.
It was nine o'clock and still broad daylight when Mr. Poplington
himself came, carrying a fishing-rod put up in parts in a canvas bag, a
fish-basket, and a small valise. He wore leather leggings and was about
sixty years old, but a wonderful good walker. I thought, when I saw him
coming, that he had no rheumatism whatever, but I found out afterward
that he had a little in one of his arms. He had white hair and white
side-whiskers and a fine red face, which made me think of a strawberry
partly covered with Devonshire clotted cream. Jone and I was sitting in
the summer-house, he smoking his pipe, and we both went to meet the
gentleman. He had a bluff way of speaking, and said he was much obliged
to us for taking him in; and after saying that it was a warm evening, a
thing which I hadn't noticed, he asked to be shown to his room. I sent
Hannah with him, and then Jone and I went back to the summer-house.
I didn't know exactly why, but I wasn't in as good spirits as I had
been, and when Jone spoke he didn't make me feel any better.
[Illustration: "I see signs of weakening in the social boom"]
"It seems to me," said he, "that I see signs of weakening in the social
boom. That man considers us exactly as we considered our lodging-house
keeper in London. Now, it doesn't strike me that that sample person you
was talking about, who is a cross between a rich farmer and a poor
gentleman, would go into the lodging-house business." I couldn't help
agreeing with Jone, and I didn't like it a bit. The gentleman hadn't
said anything or done anything that was out of the way, but there was a
benignant loftiness about him which grated on the inmost fibres of my
soul.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said I, turning sharp on Jone, "we won't
charge him a cent. That'll take him down, and show him what we are.
We'll give him the room as a favor to Mrs. Locky, considering her in
the light of a neighbor and one who sent us a cucumber."
"All right," said Jone, "I like that way of arranging the business. Up
goes the social boom again!"
Just as we was going up to bed Miss Pondar came to me and said that the
gentleman had called down to her and asked if he could have a new-laid
egg for his breakfast, and she asked if she should send Hannah early in
the morning to see if she could get a perfectly fresh egg from one of
the cottages. "I thought, ma'am, that perhaps you might object to
buying things on Sunday."
"I do," I said. "Does that Mr. Poplington expect to have his breakfast
here? I only took him to lodge."
"Oh, ma'am," said Miss Pondar, "they always takes their breakfasts
where they has their rooms. Dinner and luncheon is different, and he
may expect to go to the inn for them."
"Indeed!" said I. "I think he may, and if he breakfasts here he can
take what we've got. If the eggs are not fresh enough for him he can
try to get along with some bacon. He can't expect that to be fresh."
Knowing that English people take their breakfast late, Jone and I got
up early, so as to get through before our lodger came down. But, bless
me, when we went to the front door to see what sort of a day it was we
saw him coming in from a walk. "Fine morning," said he, and in fact
there was only a little drizzle of rain, which might stop when the sun
got higher; and he stood near us and began to talk about the trout in
the stream, which, to my utter amazement, he called a river.
"Do you take your license by the day or week?" he said to Jone.
"License!" said Jone, "I don't fish."
"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Poplington. "Oh, I see, you are a cycler."
"No," said Jone, "I'm not that, either, I'm a pervader."
"Really!" said the old gentleman; "what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I pervade the scenery, sometimes on foot and sometimes in
a trap. That's my style of rural pleasuring."
"But you do fish at home," I said to Jone, not wishing the English
gentleman to think my husband was a city man, who didn't know anything
about sport.
"Oh, yes," said Jone, "I used to fish for perch and sunfish."
"Sunfish?" said Mr. Poplington. "I don't know that fish at all. What
sort of a fly do you use?"
"I don't fish with any flies at all," said Jone; "I bait my hook with
worms."
Mr. Poplington's face looked as if he had poured liquid shoe-blacking
on his meat, thinking it was Worcestershire sauce. "Fancy! Worms! I'd
never take a rod in my hands if I had to use worms. Never used a worm
in my life. There's no sort of science in worm fishing."
"There's double sport," said Jone, "for first you've got to catch your
worm. Then again, I hate shams; if you have to catch fish there's no
use cheating them into the bargain."
"Cheat!" cried Mr. Poplington. "If I had to catch a whale I'd fish for
him with a fly. But you Americans are strange people. Worms, indeed!"
"We don't all use worms," said Jone; "there's lots of fly fishers in
America, and they use all sorts of flies. If we are to believe all the
Californians tell us some of the artificial flies out there must be as
big as crows."
"Really?" said Mr. Poplington, looking hard at Jone, with a little
twinkling in his eyes. "And when gentlemen fish who don't like to cheat
the fishes, what size of worms do they use?"
"Well," said Jone, "in the far West I've heard that the common black
snake is the favorite bait. He's six or seven feet long, and fishermen
that use him don't have to have any line. He's bait and line all in
one."
Mr. Poplington laughed. "I see you are fond of a joke," said he, "and
so am I, but I'm also fond of my breakfast."
"I'm with you there," said Jone, and we all went in.
Mr. Poplington was very pleasant and chatty, and of course asked a
great many questions about America. Nearly all English people I've met
want to talk about our country, and it seems to me that what they do
know about it isn't any better, considered as useful information, than
what they don't know. But Mr. Poplington has never been to America, and
so he knows more about us than those Englishmen who come over to write
books, and only have time to run around the outside of things, and get
themselves tripped up on our ragged edges.
He said he had met a good many Americans, and liked them, but he
couldn't see for the life of him why they do some things English people
don't do, and don't do things English people do do. For instance, he
wondered why we don't drink tea for breakfast. Miss Pondar had made it
for him, knowing he'd want it, and he wonders why Americans drink
coffee when such good tea as that was comes in their reach.
Now, if I had considered Mr. Poplington as a lodger it might have
nettled me to have him tell me I didn't know what was good, but
remembering that we was giving him hospitality, and not board, and
didn't intend to charge him a cent, but was just taking care of him out
of neighborly kindness, I was rather glad to have him find a little
fault, because that would make me feel as if I was soaring still higher
above him the next morning, when I should tell him there was nothing to
pay.
So I took it all good-natured, and said to him, "Well, Americans like
to have the very best things that can be got out of every country.
We're like bees flying over the whole world, looking into every blossom
to see what sweetness there is to be got out of it. From the lily of
France we sip their coffee, from the national flower of India, whatever
it is, we take their chutney sauce, and as to those big apple tarts,
baked in a deep dish, with a cup in the middle to hold up the upper
crust, and so full of apples, and so delicious with Devonshire clotted
cream on them that if there was any one place in the world they could
be had I believe my husband would want to go and live there forever,
_they_ are what we extract from the rose of England."
Mr. Poplington laughed like anything at this, but said there was a
great many other things that he could show us and tell us about which
would be very well worth while sipping from the rose of England.
After breakfast he went to church with us, and as we was coming
home--for he didn't seem to have the least idea of going to the inn for
his luncheon--he asked if we didn't find the services very different
from those in America.
"Yes," said I, "they are about as different from Quaker services as a
squirting fountain is from a corked bottle. The Methodists and
Unitarians and Reformed Dutch and Campbellites and Hard-shell Baptists
have different services too, but in the Episcopal churches things are
all pretty much the same as they did this morning. You forget, sir,
that in our country there are religions to suit all sizes of minds. We
haven't any national religion any more than we have a national flower."
"But you ought to have," said he; "you ought to have an established
church."
"You may be sure we'll have it," said Jone, "as soon as we agree as to
which one it ought to be."
_Letter Number Seven_