"You can throw this out and draw fresh tea, Bridget; we can"t drink it," said I, handing her the tea-pot.
"You see how it works," I remarked as Bridget left the room, and my husband leaned back in his chair to wait for a fresh cup of tea.
"One half of the time, when anything is returned, we can"t use it.
The b.u.t.ter Mrs. Jordon got a little while ago, if returned to-morrow, will not be fit to go on our table. We can only use it for cooking."
"It isn"t right," sententiously remarked my husband. "The fact is,"
he resumed, after a slight pause, "I wouldn"t lend such a woman anything. It is a downright imposition."
"It is a very easy thing to say that, Mr. Smith. But I am not prepared to do it. I don"t believe Mrs. Jordon means to do wrong, or is really conscious that she is trespa.s.sing upon us. Some people don"t reflect. Otherwise she is a pleasant neighbor, and I like her very much. It is want of proper thought, Mr. Smith, and nothing else."
"If a man kept treading on my gouty toe for want of thought," said my husband, "I should certainly tell him of it, whether he got offended I or not. If his friendship could only be retained on these terms, I would prefer dispensing with the favor."
"The case isn"t exactly parallel, Mr. Smith," was my reply. "The gouty toe and crushing heel are very palpable and straightforward matters, and a man would be an egregious blockhead to be offended when reminded of the pain he was inflicting. But it would be impossible to make Mrs. Jordon at all conscious of the extent of her short-comings, very many of which, in fact, are indirect, so far as she is concerned, and arise from her general sanction of the borrowing system. I do not suppose, for a moment, that she knows about everything that is borrowed."
"If she doesn"t, pray who does?" inquired my husband.
"Her servants. I have to be as watchful as you can imagine, to see that Bridget, excellent a girl as she is, doesn"t suffer things to get out, and then, at the last moment, when it is too late to send to the store, run in to a neighbor"s and borrow to hide her neglect.
If I gave her a _carte blanche_ for borrowing, I might be as annoying to my neighbors as Mrs. Jordon."
"That"s a rather serious matter," said my husband. "In fact, there is no knowing how much people may suffer in their neighbors" good opinion, through the misconduct of their servants in this very thing."
"Truly said. And now let me relate a fact about Mrs. Jordon, that ill.u.s.trates your remark." (The fresh tea had come in, and we were going on with our evening meal.) "A few weeks ago we had some friends here, spending the evening. When about serving refreshments, I discovered that my two dozen tumblers had been reduced to seven or eight. On inquiry, I learned that Mrs. Jordon had ten--the rest had been broken. I sent to her, with my compliments, and asked her to return them, as I had some company, and wished to use them in serving refreshments. Bridget was gone some time, and when she returned, said that Mrs. Jordon at first denied having any of my tumblers. Her cook was called, who acknowledged to five, and, after sundry efforts on the part of Bridget to refresh her memory, finally gave in to the whole ten. Early on the next morning Mrs. Jordon came in to see me, and seemed a good deal mortified about the tumblers.
""It was the first I had heard about it," she said. "Nancy, it now appears, borrowed of you to hide her own breakage, and I should have been none the wiser, if you had not sent in. I have not a single tumbler left. It is too bad! I don"t care so much for the loss of the tumblers, as I do for the mortifying position it placed me in toward a neighbor.""
"Upon my word!" exclaimed my husband. "That is a beautiful ill.u.s.tration, sure enough, of my remarks about what people may suffer in the good opinion of others, through the conduct of their servants in this very thing. No doubt Mrs. Jordon, as you suggest, is guiltless of a good deal of blame now laid at her door. It was a fair opportunity for you to give her some hints on the subject. You might have opened her eyes a little, or at least diminished the annoyance you had been, and still are enduring."
"Yes, the opportunity was a good one, and I ought to have improved it. But I did not and the whole system, sanctioned or not sanctioned by Mrs. Jordon, is in force against me."
"And will continue, unless some means be adopted by which to abate the nuisance."
"Seriously, Mr. Smith," said I, "I am clear for removing from the neighborhood."
But Mr. Smith said,
"Nonsense, Jane!" A form of expression he uses, when he wishes to say that my proposition or suggestion is perfectly ridiculous, and not to be thought of for a moment.
"What is to be done?" I asked. "Bear the evil?"
"Correct it, if you can."
"And if not, bear it the best I can?"
"Yes, that is my advice."
This was about the extent of aid I ever received from my husband in any of my domestic difficulties. He is a first-rate abstractionist, and can see to a hair how others ought to act in every imaginable, and I was going to say unimaginable case; but is just as backward about telling people what he thinks of them, and making everybody with whom he has anything to do toe the mark, as I am.
As the idea of moving to get rid of my borrowing neighbor was considered perfect nonsense by Mr. Smith, I began to think seriously how I should check the evil, now grown almost insufferable. On the next morning the coffee-mill was borrowed to begin with.
"Hasn"t Mrs. Jordon got a coffee-mill of her own?" I asked of Bridget.
"Yes, ma"am," she replied, "but it is such a poor one that Nancy won"t use it. She says it takes her forever and a day to grind enough coffee for breakfast."
"Does she get ours every morning?"
"Yes, ma"am."
Nancy opened the kitchen door at this moment--our back gates were side by side--and said--
"Mrs. Jordon says, will you oblige her so much as to let her have an egg to clear the coffee? I forgot to tell her yesterday that ours were all gone."
"Certainly," I said. "Bridget, give Nancy an egg."
"Mrs. Jordon is very sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Smith," said Nancy, re-appearing in a little while, and finding me still in the kitchen, "but she says if you will lend her a bowl of sugar it will be a great accommodation. I forgot to tell her yesterday that the sugar was all gone."
"You appear to be rather forgetful of such matters, Nancy," I could not help saying.
"I know I am a little forgetful," the girl said, good humoredly, "but I have so much to do, that I hardly have time to think."
"Where is the large earthen dish that you use sometimes in making bread?" I asked, after Mrs. Jordon"s cook had withdrawn, missing it from its usual place on the shelf.
"Nancy borrowed it last week."
"Why don"t she bring it home?"
"I"ve told her about it three or four times."
Nancy opened the door again.
"Please, ma"am to let Mrs. Jordon have another half pound of b.u.t.ter.
We haven"t enough to do for breakfast, and the b.u.t.ter man don"t come until the middle of the day."
Of course, I couldn"t refuse, though I believe I granted the request with no very smiling grace. I heard no more of Nancy until toward dinner-time. I had given my cook orders not to lend her anything more without first coming to me.
"Mrs. Jordon has sent in to know if you won"t lend her two or three scuttles full of coal," said Bridget. "Mr. Jordon was to have sent home the fires are going down."
"Certainly," I replied, "let her have it, but I want you to see that it is returned."
"As to that, ma"am, I"ll do my best; but I can"t get Nancy to return one half what she borrows. She forgets from one day to another."
"She mustn"t forget," I returned, warmly. "You must go to Mrs.
Jordon yourself. It isn"t right."
"I shall have to go, I guess, before I"m able to get back a dozen kitchen things of ours they have. I never saw such borrowing people.
And then, never to think of returning what they get. They have got one of our pokers, the big sauce-pan and the cake-board. Our m.u.f.fin rings they"ve had these three months. Every Monday they get two of our tubs and the wash-boiler. Yesterday they sent in and got our large meat-dish belonging to the dinner-set, and haven"t sent it home yet. Indeed, I can"t tell you all they"ve got."
"Let Nancy have the coal," said I. "But we must stop this in some way, if it be possible."