“Well,” I commented, “although you are not really fat, you’re too fat for your height. And you puffed like the dickens after that run, and it wasn’t anything.” And then I broke off with, “What’s that?” for a horn of the prettiest, clear tone had tooted, and it made me wonder.
“Horn,” said Mr. Wake, “they do that in the stations before the trains pull out; haven’t any bells over here, you know. . . . Now watch this start—smooth as glass; no jolts! Government over here seems to know how to run railroads.”
I smiled, because I thought that any government should be able to run the funny little trains that looked as if they ought to be running around a Christmas tree, and as if they would fall off at every curve, to lie, feet up, buzzing until some one started them on again.
Mr. Wake saw my smile, and I was glad he did, because what it led him to say helped me lots later.
“Think they’re funny?” he asked.
“They look as if they ought to be full of pine needles,” I answered. “You know how the needles begin to drop all over the Christmas tree yard about the second of January?”
“Of course they look like that,” he answered, “we got our patterns for toys, with many another thing, from this side of the pond. . . . My child, a great many Americans come over here, and derive real benefit; they see things that are beautiful and rare, but their gratitude is of a strange variety, for they evidence it only with bragging.”
I felt flat. I said so.
“Pshaw, don’t!” Mr. Wake begged. “I didn’t mean you and I don’t mean to be a preachy old codger, but I do think one sees more if one appreciates and doesn’t depreciate. You know, as a matter of fact you wouldn’t go into a neighbor’s house and say, ‘My house is better than your house, my bath tub is shinier; my doorbell is louder, my front porch is wider—’ and lots of us—in various ways—do just that, for this is a neighbor’s house.”
I said a really humble “Thank you—” and Mr. Wake moved over to sit by me. He looked down and smiled in a very gentle way, and I began to love him.