I need hardly say that this public ridicule left me dazed. Desperately
I recalled our calm and orderly England where such things would not be
permitted. There we are born to our stations and are not allowed to
forget them. We matter from birth, or we do not matter, and that’s all
to it. Here there seemed to be no stations to which one was born; the
effect was sheer anarchy, and one might ridicule any one whomsoever.
As was actually said in that snarky manifesto drawn up by the rebel
leaders at the time our colonies revolted, “All men are created free
and equal”--than which absurdity could go no farther--yet the lower
middle classes seemed to behave quite as if it were true.
And now through no fault of my own another awkward circumstance was
threatening to call further attention to me, which was highly
undesirable at this moment when the cheap one-and-six Hobbs fellow had
so pointedly singled me out for his loathsome buffoonery.
Some ten days before, walking alone at the edge of town one calm
afternoon, where I might commune with Nature, of which I have always
been fond, I noted an humble vine-clad cot, in the kitchen garden of
which there toiled a youngish, neat-figured woman whom I at once
recognized as a person who did occasional charring for the Flouds on
the occasion of their dinners or receptions. As she had appeared to be
cheerful and competent, of respectful manners and a quite marked
intelligence, I made nothing of stopping at her gate for a moment’s
chat, feeling a quite decided relief in the thought that here was one
with whom I need make no pretence, her social position being sharply
defined.
We spoke of the day’s heat, which was bland, of the vegetables which
she watered with a lawn hose, particularly of the tomatoes of which
she was pardonably proud, and of the flowering vine which shielded her
piazza from the sun. And when she presently and with due courtesy
invited me to enter, I very affably did so, finding the atmosphere of
the place reposeful and her conversation of a character that I could
approve. She was dressed in a blue print gown that suited her no end,
the sleeves turned back over her capable arms; her brown hair was
arranged with scrupulous neatness, her face was pleasantly flushed
from her agricultural labours, and her blue eyes flashed a friendly
welcome and a pleased acknowledgment of the compliments I made her on
the garden. Altogether, she was a person with whom I at once felt
myself at ease, and a relief, I confess it was, after the strain of my
high social endeavours.
After a tour of the garden I found myself in the cool twilight of her
little parlour, where she begged me to be seated while she prepared me
a dish of tea, which she did in the adjoining kitchen, to a cheerful
accompaniment of song, quite with an honest, unpretentious
good-heartedness. Glad I was for the moment to forget the social
rancors of the town, the affronted dignities of the North Side set,
and the pernicious activities of the Bohemians, for here all was of a
simple humanity such as I would have found in a farmer’s cottage at
home.
As I rested in the parlour I could not but approve its general air of
comfort and good taste--its clean flowered wall-paper, the pair of
stuffed birds on the mantel, the comfortable chairs, the neat carpet,
the pictures, and, on a slender-legged stand, the globe of goldfish.
These I noted with an especial pleasure, for I have always found an
intense satisfaction in their silent companionship. Of the pictures I
noted particularly a life-sized drawing in black-and-white in a large
gold frame, of a man whom I divined was the deceased husband of my
hostess. There was also a spirited reproduction of “The Stag at Bay”
and some charming coloured prints of villagers, children, and domestic
animals in their lighter moments.
Tea being presently ready, I genially insisted that it should be
served in the kitchen where it had been prepared, though to this my
hostess at first stoutly objected, declaring that the room was in no
suitable state. But this was a mere womanish hypocrisy, as the place
was spotless, orderly, and in fact quite meticulous in its neatness.
The tea was astonishingly excellent, so few Americans I had observed
having the faintest notion of the real meaning of tea, and I was
offered with it bread and butter and a genuinely satisfying compote of
plums of which my hostess confessed herself the fabricator, having, as
she quaintly phrased the thing, “put it up.”
And so, over this collation, we chatted for quite all of an hour. The
lady did, as I have intimated, a bit of charring, a bit of plain
sewing, and also derived no small revenue from her vegetables and
fruit, thus managing, as she owned the free-hold of the premises, to
make a decent living for herself and child. I have said that she was
cheerful and competent, and these epithets kept returning to me as we
talked. Her husband--she spoke of him as “poor Judson”--had been a
carter and odd-job fellow, decent enough, I dare say, but hardly the
man for her, I thought, after studying his portrait. There was a sort
of foppish weakness in his face. And indeed his going seemed to have
worked her no hardship, nor to have left any incurable sting of loss.
Three cups of the almost perfect tea I drank, as we talked of her own
simple affairs and of the town at large, and at length of her child
who awakened noisily from slumber in an adjacent room and came
voraciously to partake of food. It was a male child of some two and a
half years, rather suggesting the generous good-nature of the mother,
but in the most shocking condition, a thing I should have spoken
strongly to her about at once had I known her better. Queer it seemed
to me that a woman of her apparently sound judgment should let her
offspring reach this terrible state without some effort to alleviate
it. The poor thing, to be blunt, was grossly corpulent, legs, arms,
body, and face being wretchedly fat, and yet she now fed it a large
slice of bread thickly spread with butter and loaded to overflowing
with the fattening sweet. Banting of the strictest sort was of course
what it needed. I have had but the slightest experience with children,
but there could be no doubt of this if its figure was to be
maintained. Its waistline was quite impossible, and its eyes, as it
owlishly scrutinized me over its superfluous food, showed from a face
already quite as puffy as the Honourable George’s. I did, indeed,
venture so far as suggesting that food at untimely hours made for a
too-rounded outline, but to my surprise the mother took this as a
tribute to the creature’s grace, crying, “Yes, he wuzzum wuzzums a
fatty ole sing,” with an air of most fatuous pride, and followed this
by announcing my name to it with concerned precision.
“Ruggums,” it exclaimed promptly, getting the name all wrong and
staring at me with cold detachment; then “Ruggums-Ruggums-Ruggums!” as
if it were a game, but still stuffing itself meanwhile. There was a
sort of horrid fascination in the sight, but I strove as well as I
could to keep my gaze from it, and the mother and I again talked of
matters at large.
I come now to speak of an incident which made this quite harmless
visit memorable and entailed unforeseen consequences of an almost
quite serious character.
As we sat at tea there stalked into the kitchen a nondescript sort of
dog, a creature of fairish size, of a rambling structure, so to speak,
coloured a puzzling grayish brown with underlying hints of yellow,
with vast drooping ears, and a long and most saturnine countenance.
Quite a shock it gave me when I looked up to find the beast staring at
me with what I took to be the most hearty disapproval. My hostess
paused in silence as she noted my glance. The beast then approached
me, sniffed at my boots inquiringly, then at my hands with increasing
animation, and at last leaped into my lap and had licked my face
before I could prevent it.
I need hardly say that this attention was embarrassing and most
distasteful, since I have never held with dogs. They are doubtless
well enough in their place, but there is a vast deal of sentiment
about them that is silly, and outside the hunting field the most
finely bred of them are too apt to be noisy nuisances. When I say that
the beast in question was quite an American dog, obviously of no
breeding whatever, my dismay will be readily imagined. Rather
impulsively, I confess, I threw him to the floor with a stern,
“Begone, sir!” whereat he merely crawled to my feet and whimpered,
looking up into my eyes with a most horrid and sickening air of
devotion. Hereupon, to my surprise, my hostess gayly called out:
“Why, look at Mr. Barker--he’s actually taken up with you right away,
and him usually so suspicious of strangers. Only yesterday he bit an
agent that was calling with silver polish to sell--bit him in the leg
so I had to buy some from the poor fellow--and now see! He’s as
friendly with you as you could wish. They do say that dogs know when
people are all right. Look at him trying to get into your lap again.”
And indeed the beast was again fawning upon me in the most abject
manner, licking my hands and seeming to express for me some hideous
admiration. Seeing that I repulsed his advances none too gently, his
owner called to him:
“Down, Mr. Barker, down, sir! Get out!” she continued, seeing that he
paid her no attention, and then she thoughtfully seized him by the
collar and dragged him to a safe distance where she held him, he
nevertheless continuing to regard me with the most servile affection.
{Illustration: “WHY, LOOK AT MR. BARKER--HE’S ACTUALLY TAKEN UP WITH
YOU RIGHT AWAY, AND HIM USUALLY SO SUSPICIOUS OF STRANGERS”}
“Ruggums, Ruggums, Ruggums!” exploded the child at this, excitedly
waving the crust of its bread.
“Behave, Mr. Barker!” called his owner again. “The gentleman probably
doesn’t want you climbing all over him.”
The remainder of my visit was somewhat marred by the determination of
Mr. Barker, as he was indeed quite seriously called, to force his
monstrous affections upon me, and by the well-meant but often careless
efforts of his mistress to restrain him. She, indeed, appeared to
believe that I would feel immensely pleased at these tokens of his
liking.
As I took my leave after sincere expressions of my pleasure in the
call, the child with its face one fearful smear of jam again waved its
crust and shouted, “Ruggums!” while the dog was plainly bent on
departing with me. Not until he had been secured by a rope to one of
the porch stanchions could I safely leave, and as I went he howled
dismally after violent efforts to chew the detaining rope apart.
I finished my stroll with the greatest satisfaction, for during the
entire hour I had been enabled to forget the manifold cares of my
position. Again it seemed to me that the portrait in the little
parlour was not that of a man who had been entirely suited to this
worthy and energetic young woman. Highly deserving she seemed, and
when I knew her better, as I made no doubt I should, I resolved to
instruct her in the matter of a more suitable diet for her offspring,
the present one, as I have said, carrying quite too large a
preponderance of animal fats. Also, I mused upon the extraordinary
tolerance she accorded to the sad-faced but too demonstrative Mr.
Barker. He had been named, I fancied, by some one with a primitive
sense of humour, I mean to say, he might have been facetiously called
“Barker” because he actually barked a bit, though adding the “Mister”
to it seemed to be rather forcing the poor drollery. At any rate, I
was glad to believe I should see little of him in his free state.
And yet it was precisely the curious fondness of this brute for myself
that now added to my embarrassments. On two succeeding days I paused
briefly at Mrs. Judson’s in my afternoon strolls, finding the lady as
wholesomely reposeful as ever in her effect upon my nature, but
finding the unspeakable dog each time more lavish of his disgusting
affection for me.
Then, one day, when I had made back to the town and was in fact
traversing the main commercial thoroughfare in a dignified manner, I
was made aware that the brute had broken away to follow me. Close at
my heels he skulked. Strong words hissed under my breath would not
repulse him, and to blows I durst not proceed, for I suddenly divined
that his juxtaposition to me was exciting amused comment among certain
of the natives who observed us. The fellow Hobbs, in the doorway of
his bake-shop, was especially offensive, bursting into a shout of
boorish laughter and directing to me the attention of a nearby group
of loungers, who likewise professed to become entertained. So
situated, I was of course obliged to affect unconsciousness of the
awful beast, and he was presently running joyously at my side as if
secure in my approval, or perhaps his brute intelligence divined that
for the moment I durst not turn upon him with blows.
Nor did the true perversity of the situation at once occur to me. Not
until we had gained one of the residence avenues did I realize the
significance of the ill-concealed merriment we had aroused. It was not
that I had been followed by a random cur, but by one known to be the
dog of the lady I had called upon. I mean to say, the creature had
advertised my acquaintance with his owner in a way that would lead
base minds to misconstrue its extent.
Thoroughly maddened by this thought, and being now safely beyond close
observers, I turned upon the animal to give it a hearty drubbing with
my stick, but it drew quickly off, as if divining my intention, and
when I hurled the stick at it, retrieved it, and brought it to me
quite as if it forgave my hostility. Discovering at length that this
method not only availed nothing but was bringing faces to neighbouring
windows, and that it did not the slightest good to speak strongly to
the beast, I had perforce to accompany it to its home, where I had the
satisfaction of seeing its owner once more secure it firmly with the
rope.
Thus far a trivial annoyance one might say, but when the next day the
creature bounded up to me as I escorted homeward two ladies from the
Onwards and Upwards Club, leaping upon me with extravagant
manifestations of delight and trailing a length of gnawed rope, it
will be seen that the thing was little short of serious.
“It’s Mr. Barker,” exclaimed one of the ladies, regarding me brightly.
At a cutlery shop I then bought a stout chain, escorted the brute to
his home, and saw him tethered. The thing was rather getting on me.
The following morning he waited for me at the Floud door and was
beside himself with rapture when I appeared. He had slipped his
collar. And once more I saw him moored. Each time I had apologized to
Mrs. Judson for seeming to attract her pet from home, for I could not
bring myself to say that the beast was highly repugnant to me, and
least of all could I intimate that his public devotion to me would be
seized upon by the coarser village wits to her disadvantage.
“I never saw him so fascinated with any one before,” explained the
lady as she once more adjusted his leash. But that afternoon, as I
waited in the trap for Mr. Jackson before the post-office, the beast
seemed to appear from out the earth to leap into the trap beside me.
After a rather undignified struggle I ejected him, whereupon he
followed the trap madly to the country club and made a farce of my
golf game by retrieving the ball after every drive. This time, I
learned, the child had released him.
It is enough to add that for those remaining days until the present
the unspeakable creature’s mad infatuation for me had made my life
well-nigh a torment, to say nothing of its being a matter of low
public jesting. Hardly did I dare show myself in the business centres,
for as surely as I did the animal found me and crawled to fawn upon
me, affecting his release each day in some novel manner. Each morning
I looked abroad from my window on arising, more than likely detecting
his outstretched form on the walk below, patiently awaiting my
appearance, and each night I was liable to dreams of his coming upon
me, a monstrous creature, sad-faced but eager, tireless, resolute,
determined to have me for his own.
Musing desperately over this impossible state of affairs, I was now
surprised to receive a letter from the wretched Cousin Egbert, sent by
the hand of the Tuttle person. It was written in pencil on ruled
sheets apparently torn from a cheap notebook, quite as if proper pens
and decent stationery were not to be had, and ran as follows: