I replied that I had arrived but a few hours before, and that I would depart the next day at any hour Agnes was ready.
“I am sorry,” Mr. Biggs was good enough to say, “I should be delighted to show you how we carry on a four hundred acre farm. Other great farmers have from four to a dozen hired men about them, but Big Adam and I do all the work here; and we are equal to it, though it keeps us very busy, as you will imagine. We have no time for the fine arts, you may be certain.”
He ran on gayly in this way, making himself out in ignorance and muscle the equal of one of our Fairview farmers, although he was really nothing else to my mind than a fop, until Agnes came in and said we were to walk out to supper. There was no one in the supper room when we entered it, and although I expected other members of the family every moment, none came. Agnes was there most of the time, but did not sit down, and supplied the place of a servant.
“Those of us who live in the country,” said Mr. Biggs, helping me to meat and bread with the greatest ceremony, “cannot be particular as to what we eat, except that it is substantial and hearty. Meat and bread and milk make muscle, and muscle is in great demand on a farm. Big Adam and I find a great deal of it necessary in tilling these four hundred acres, therefore we insist on plenty of plain and substantial food. Excuse me, if I eat like a hog.”
The supper was a very good one, but he talked a great deal about its being plain but hearty; and although he was dainty in his eating, and ate nothing but bread and milk, and toasted bread and tea, he kept apologizing for his ravenous appetite. He had something to say, too, about shovelling in his food with a knife, and bolting it--he did neither, but on the contrary was very delicate--and as he kept watching me, I thought that he must be apologizing for his guest, which made me very uncomfortable at my bad manners, for up to that time I had not been backward in falling to. But as he continued to denounce his unnatural craving for food, and frequently expressed the fear that the meal lacked so much of what I was accustomed to, that I could not possibly make out a comfortable supper, I finally made up my mind he did not mean me at all.