Mr. Russell would persist in helping me. I had to let him bring the tray across the passage to the door of the room, where his sister was.
I thought that uncommon pretty, and nice of him too. It seemed fine to be waited on by Mr. Russell, in the sort of way that I knew gentlemen waited on ladies in grand houses. I had seen it for myself at the big house, when I went there to help for a week, one of the housemaids being taken suddenly ill. The servants all made a pet of me, and the ladies too, and I was sent in and out of the drawing-room with messages.
I had seen the gentlemen picking up what the ladies dropped, and fetching what they wanted, and carrying what they had to take anywhere, and so on. Mother said it was always like that with real gentlemen.
But I didn't see, and I never do see, why things shouldn't be something like that too, in the homes of working-men. Because a man is a working-man, and wears rough clothes, that's no reason why he must be gruff and short. The Bible command, "Be courteous," is meant for everybody alike—not for gentlefolk only.
To be sure I've known many a working-man who wasn't exactly gruff or short, and who was always kind; and yet it would never come into their heads to do that sort of little polite thing, just because they were not trained to it, you know. I suppose they would have laughed at the idea outright; though I don't know why they should, except that Englishmen always laugh at what they are not used to.
I'm quite sure of one thing, and that is that the more gentle-mannered and attentive a man is to his women-folk, the more they'll slave their lives out for him. Scolding and gruff words don't bring but only a sullen sort of service; and there's too many a husband and father who seldom troubles himself to speak in his home at all, except in a grumble.
But then of course there's another side to the matter. If the husbands have got to be polite and gentle to their wives, the wives have got to be polite and gentle to their husbands. I have known wives who'd speak to their husbands in a tone like the screech of an engine-whistle. And that, to say the least of the matter, isn't pretty!
Well,—to come back to our tea that afternoon!
Unhappy as Mr. Russell was, he managed to eat plenty. He said he had never in his life tasted such bread as ours, and he praised our milk and our butter and the jam, as if he hadn't had food worth eating before. I thought it kind of him; though to be sure I never do hold with a lot of talking about the food we eat. It's right to be thankful for nice things, but there's plenty that's better worth talking about than eatables.
He told us next a few things about himself and his sister.