disagreeably frank, when another's comfort is the price thereof. An
unkind sentence has the power of lodgment in the mind. It is like the
red "chigoe" which inserts his tiny head in the flesh and burrows
until he causes a throbbing fester. For instance, I have never
forgotten a speech which was addressed to me over twenty years ago. It
was just after we had built an unpretending, but thoroughly cozy
summer cottage, nestled in a grove of trees that threw long shadows
into a silvery lake. The man in question told me he never saw our
light at night from the other side of the pretty sheet of water that
it did not "remind him of a charcoal-burner's hut in the heart of a
wilderness." It would be of interest to ascertain why this needlessly
unkind remark was made. Since there were at least one or two pleasant
features in the landscape, why could he not call attention to them?

It is not necessary that we should flatter, but let us be lavishly
generous with what French cooks call _sauce agreable_, since parsnips
must be eaten. Some efforts in this line remind me of a story I
recently heard of a farmer who received at a New York restaurant the
customary small pat of butter with his Vienna roll. Imperiously
beckoning to a waiter, he commanded him to "wipe that grease spot off
that plate, and bring him some butter!"

Let us give more than the grease spot. Better go to the other extreme,
and drown our friend's neglected parsnips in fresh, pure
un-oleomargarined, and entirely sweet butter.




CHAPTER XV.