In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston Bogs

We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do.

Miss Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which she apparently did not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was perfectly willing to remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.

Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was, in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of it.

"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she confided, "but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin'

three, same as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't.

Somehow the kind of help over here don't seem to need managin'. They manage me more than I do them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole told me she was a 'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate, she's superior to me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool'

is and I'm sure I don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_ should never have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better, accordin' to my reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets'

and fruit is dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the 'between-maid'--between upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse. Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never saw such obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job, that seems to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."

It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my own "job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden, his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to return from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no account save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor was not done by the "gentry." I should have lost caste with the servants a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory were it not for one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was expected of an American.

When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare after me. The group at the blacksmith shop--where the stone coping of the low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had sat upon it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it now--turned, after I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the conversation, then an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking about the "foreigner" of course, and laughing at him. At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes. "That coat was not made in England, sir," he said. "We don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir. That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir."

Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was so homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their faces were New England faces quite as much as they were old England.

But their clothes were just a little different, and their ways were different, and a dry-goods store was a "draper's shop," and a drug-store was a "chemist's," and candies were "sweeties" and a public school was a "board school" and a boarding-school was a "public school." And I might be polite and pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I must not be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I lost caste and they would despise me.

Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.

Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well as the richer element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am sure; and was self-respecting and independent. He would have resented any infringement of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such infringements and fought against them since history began. But what I am trying to make plain is that political equality and social equality were by no means synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of a title he was revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered. The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had a row of shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare titles of eminent customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered like this: "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the Duke of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc. It was my first impression that the hatter was responsible for thus proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard, convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's Hotel. And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in very large letters, "Lord Eustace Stairs." Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised it accordingly.

I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy about the latter she laughed, too.

"That's funny, isn't it," she said. "Suppose the folks that have their names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh, wouldn't they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town."

So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.

Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that kind are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty well when she said:

"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't it, Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he never saw one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor.

They've been brought up to it, same as you have to the coat."

On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse with the people of Mayberry.

"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be accepted as desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave us to ourselves we must make the best of it."

Hephzy agreed thoroughly. "You're right," she said. "And, after all, it's just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody would have anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're foreigners here and you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin'

chances; it looks as if nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt so new and shiny in my life as I do around this old rectory and this old town."

Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new and shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--began to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly as if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my brief career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors in Mayberry.

The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables," the pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself, shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds--with the doctor and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the medical college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present acting as his father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.

Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of whom were gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse, gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked some questions concerning its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my ship acquaintance who abhorred "griddle cakes." I imagined he would be somewhat surprised at that meeting. It was an odd coincidence.

As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.

Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive. I thanked him, but there was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play that forenoon to make my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously before attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the golfing honor of my country.

Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb they were not in the least "preachy." Hephzy, although she liked them, expressed surprise.

"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said. "They didn't ask us to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet they looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A curate is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?"

"Not exactly," I answered. "He is only partially hatched. But, whatever you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't consider it a compliment."

Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. "Well, I guess a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared. "And they don't ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"

Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf had been partially vindicated.

While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part of the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss, whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food which she was certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also asked similar embarrassing questions.

"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed. "One of our English girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English."

"Partly English," I could not help saying. "Her mother was an American."

"Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."

"Perhaps not."

"No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?"

"Yes--in England and France."

"Your niece, I think you said."

I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without many explanations. So I nodded.

"She doesn't--er--behave like an American. She hasn't the American manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"

"Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you see."

"Yes, yes, of course," hastily. "When are you and I to have the nine holes you promised, Knowles?"

One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The "between-maid" had arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we had tea every day, of course--were getting quite accustomed to it.

Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better health then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly, although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks. Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.

"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.

"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."

I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the most comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was sure I did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the girl the impossible situation in which she had placed us became more impossible, to my mind. And the question, "What on earth shall we do with her?" more insistent.

Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.

"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."

"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.