Fancies and Goodnights

THREE BEARS COTTAGE

«Our hen has laid two eggs,» said Mrs. Scrivener, «and I have boiled them for breakfast.» As she spoke she unfolded a snowy napkin, and displayed the barnyard treasures, and she placed the white one in her husband's egg-cup, and the brown one in her own.

The Scriveners lived in a house with a steep roof and a white gable, set in a woodland tract, among juvenile birch trees. It was extremely small, but so was the rent, and they called it Three Bears Cottage. Their ménage was frugal, for Henry had retired at forty, in order to study Nature. Nevertheless, everything was as neat as a pin, and everything was carefully regarded. Each week, in their tiny garden, a new lettuce approached perfection. Its progress was minutely inspected from day to day, and, at that hour when it reached the crest and pinnacle of its development, they cut it, and ate it.

Another day, they had the cauliflower.

People who live thus, from one cherished detail to the next, invariably have complexions clear to the point of transparency, and bright and bird-like eyes. They are also keenly sensitive to the difference between one new-laid egg and another, which, like many other fine points, is often overlooked by the hurrying multitudes in cities. The Scriveners were both well aware that, contrary to a commercially fostered superstition, it is the brown egg that is superior in nourishment, in appearance, and in flavour. Mr. Scrivener noted that his wife had retained the brown egg for herself, and his eyes grew rounder and more bird-like than before. «Ella,» said he, «I notice that you have given me the white egg, and retained the brown one for yourself.»

«Well,» said she, «why not? Why should I not have the brown egg? It is I who keep everything neat and trim in the house, and polish the canary's cage, which you, if you were a man, would do for me. You do nothing but scratch about in the garden, and then go lounging about the woods, studying Nature.»

«Do not call Dickie 'the canary' in that fashion,» responded her husband. «I sometimes think you have no affection for any living creature about you, least of all for myself. After all, it is I who feed our dear hen every day, and, when she lays a brown egg, I think I should at least be asked if I would like it.»

«I think I know what the answer would be,» said his wife with a short laugh. «No, Henry. I have not forgotten your conduct when the tomato ripened. I think the less said about who has what in this house, the better.»

Henry was unable to think of a fitting reply. He gazed moodily at the white egg, which seemed more than ever contemptible to him. His wife sawed off the top of her own egg with a grating and offensive sound. Henry took another look at his. «By God,» thought he, «it is not only white! It is smaller!»

This was altogether too much. «Ella,» said Henry, «you probably are uninterested in Ripley's Believe It or Not, for you despise the marvels of Nature. I am not sure he did not have a picture of a boiled egg, with an undigested worm coiled up inside it. I believe the egg was a brown one.»

«There is no worm in this egg,» replied Ella, munching away imperturbably. «Look in your own. Very likely you will find one there.»

Henry, like an unskillful operator of a boomerang, was forcibly struck by the idea he had launched at Ella, in the hope of making her abandon her egg to him. He looked closely at his own egg, essayed a spoonful, and found he had no taste for it. «Hell and damn it!» he muttered, for like many a mild man he was subject to fits of fury, in which he was by no means guarded as to his language.

His wife looked at him quickly, so that he was ashamed without being mollified. «Selfishness and greed,» said he, «have made the world what it is today.» Ella, with unconcealed relish, devoured a heaping spoonful. With tight lips and burning eyes, Henry rose from the table, reached for his cap, and stamped out of the house. Ella, with a lift of her eyebrows, took over his neglected egg, which she found not noticeably inferior in flavour to the first. This put her in an excellent humour, and it was with a whimsical rather than a gloating smile that she set about her household tasks.

Henry, on the other hand, slashed savagely at the tall weeds and grasses as he strode along the path to the woods. «What a fool I was,» muttered he to himself, «to retire so early, believing that happiness is to be found in a cottage! I conceived a simplicity as pleasurable as a tale for children. Two cups, one adorned with roses, and the other with cornflowers. Two plates, one with a blue ring, and the other with a red ring. Two apples on the tree, both rosy, but one slightly larger than the other. And that should be for me! I am a man, and it is right that I should have the larger one. Yes, it could be a divine life, if Ella had only a sense of the fitness of things. How happy I might be, if only she was less greedy, better tempered, not addicted to raking up old grudges, more affectionate, with slightly yellower hair, slimmer, and about twenty years younger! But what is the good of expecting such a woman to reform?»

He had just reached this point in his meditation when his eye fell upon a singularly handsome mushroom, of the genus Clavaria, and he uttered an exclamation of delight. It was part of their frugal economy at Three Bears Cottage to enliven their menus with all kinds of gleanings from the woods and fields, with wild berries and hedge salads, and above all with various sorts of edible fungi, which they found singularly palatable and nutritious.

Henry therefore gathered this one, and wrapped it in his handkerchief. His natural impulse was to make tracks for the cottage, and burst in radiant upon his mate (or perhaps enter lugubriously, holding his treasure trove behind his back for a surprise), but in any case sooner or later to come out with it exultingly, with, «Here it is, my love, an admirable specimen of the genus Clavaria! Rake together your fire, my dear, and serve it up piping hot for lunch. You shall nibble a little, and I will nibble a little, and thus we shall have half each.» This generous urge was dashed by the thought that Ella was neither as good-tempered, nor as yellow-haired, nor as slim, nor as young as she ought to be. «Besides,» thought he, «she will certainly contrive to keep the better half for herself, and in any case, it is a mistake to cut a mushroom, for it allows the nutritious juices to escape.»

He looked about on all sides in the hope of finding another, but this was the only one. «How eagerly I would take it home,» thought he, «if I might be greeted by such a creature as I have often imagined! I would willingly sacrifice the juices. As it is, I had better toast it on a stick. It is a pity, for they tend to dry up that way.»

He began to hunt about for some twigs with which to make a little fire, and almost at once his eye fell upon another fungus, of singularly interesting shape, and of a pearly pallor that spoke volumes to the student of Nature. He recognized it at once as the Death Angel, that liberal scientists give a grosser name, calling it Amanita phalloides, if the ladies will pardon the Latin. It combines the liveliest of forms with the deadliest of material, and the smallest morsel will fell a man like a thunderbolt. Henry gazed respectfully at this formidable fungus, and was unable to repress a shudder. «Nevertheless,» said he, «it is certainly very appropriately named. It is around such a toadstool that one might expect to see a fairy tripping, a delicious little creature with golden hair …»

«And, by all that's wonderful,» cried he, «figuratively speaking, I believe that is just what I do see!»

With trembling hands he garnered the lethal tidbit, and wrapped it in his handkerchief beside the other, carefully interposing a fold of the linen to avoid any contact between them. «Ella has always made nasty cracks at Nature,» said he. «Now Nature shall have a crack at her.»

He at once hurried back to the cottage, where Ella greeted him with a smile. «It is easy to smile when you have had two eggs for breakfast,» thought our hero. «Let us see how you'll manage after having Amanita phalloides for lunch. »This reflection struck him as being highly diverting, and he accorded his wife a very creditable smirk in return, from which she concluded their little tiff was all forgotten. This she found especially gratifying, for she was a simple, primitive creature, and her double breakfast ration had caused the blood to flow warm and sluggish in her veins.

«See what I have found,» said Henry. «Two mushrooms, and of different varieties. This one is a Clavaria, a wholesome fungus, with a decent, satisfying flavour.»

«And what,» said she, «is the other, which looks so white and pearly?»

«Oh, that,» said he deceitfully, «that is Eheu fugaces.»

«What a pretty name!» said she. «But what a very odd shape! I mean, of course, for a mushroom.»

«Pay no attention to that,» said he. «It is more nutritious than you can possibly imagine: it is rich in vitamins D, E, A, T, and H. What's more, it has a flavour fit for a king, so I shall eat it myself, for you can hardly be called kingly, not being built that way.»

«Ah, that is true,» said she, with a giggle. «That is perfectly true, darling. Ha! Ha! I am not built that way.»

This reply set Henry back a hundred leagues, for he had expected her to assert a strong claim to the deadly mushroom, as soon as she heard him credit it with a superior vitamin content and flavour. However, he was quick-witted, and at once changed his tack. «Nevertheless,» said he, «you shall have this excellent mushroom, for I think you thoroughly deserve it.»

«Why, Henry,» she said, «that is very sweet of you. How can I reward you for your kindness? What can a mere woman do, to show how she appreciates a good husband?»

«Mince them up,» said he, «and cook them separately, so as not to confuse the flavours. Serve them each on a toast, and cover them liberally with grated cheese.»

«I will do that,» she said, «though it goes to my heart to chop it.» She gave him a nudge and went into the kitchen, and began to dress and prepare the mushrooms. Henry waited in the sitting-room, thinking of a delicious creature, not a day more than twenty years old. Ella, peeking lovingly round the door, recognized the glimmer in his bird-like eye, and continued her cookery with a song in her heart. «He deserves nothing but the best,» thought she, «and he shall have it. He shall have the better mushroom, for he is a king among men, and he said it is highly nutritious. After all, I had two eggs for breakfast, and those, tra-la-la, were sufficient for me».

«Come, my dear,» said she, when all was done. «Here is our lunch ready, and here are our two plates, mine with a blue ring and yours with a red one. Eat heartily, my angel, and soon you shall be rewarded for your kindness and consideration.»

Henry, who was peckish by reason of his diminished breakfast, wished moreover to fortify his tissues against the day when the true Goldilocks should arrive at Three Bears Cottage. He therefore sawed himself off a sizable morsel and crammed it into his maw. He at once shot out of his chair, and began to leap, writhe, stagger, spin, curvet, gyrate, loop, and flounder all over the room. Simultaneously he was seized with giddiness, nausea, spots before the eyes, palpitations, convulsions, flatulence, and other symptoms too hideous to mention.

«What on earth is the matter, darling?» said his wife. «Are you feeling unwell?»

«The Devil!» he gasped. «I have eaten the Death Angel! I have eaten Amanita phalloides!»

«Really, my dear!» said she in amazement. «What an expression! Whatever can you be thinking of?»

«You b — !» cried he. «Will you stand there bandying words? I am dying! I am poisoned! Run for a doctor. Do you hear?»

«Poisoned?» said she. «By that mushroom? Why, Henry, that is the one you tried to palm off on me!»

«I confess it,» said he. «I was feeling aggrieved and resentful. Forgive me. And, for heaven's sake, fetch me a doctor, or in five minutes I shall be dead.»

«I forgive you for trying to poison me,» said Ella. «But I cannot forget that awful name you called me just now. No, Henry, a lady dog cannot run for a doctor. I shall go no further than to that powerfully built young wood-cutter who is chopping away at an elm tree down in the hollow. He has often whistled when I passed him, like an oriole in full song. I shall ask him what he thinks of a man who calls his wife such a name, and what he thinks of a man who brings home a thing like that to his wife. And I have no doubt at all he will tell me.»