How well we more special students of the fungus know him! and how he wins our tender regard with his keen solicitude for our well-being! We meet him everywhere in our travels, and always with the same old story! We emerge from the wood, perhaps, with our basket brimful of our particular fungus tidbits, topped off with specimens of red Russula and Boletus, and chance to pass him on the road or in the meadow. He scans the basket curiously as he passes us. He has perhaps heard rumors afloat that "there's a city chap in town who is tempting Providence with his foolin' with tudstools;" and with genuine solicitude and superior condescension and awe, all betrayed in his countenance, he must needs pause in his walk to relieve his mind in our behalf. I recall one characteristic episode, of which the above is the prelude.
"Ye ain't a-goin' to eat _them_, air ye?" he asks, anxiously, by way of introduction.
"I am, most certainly," I respond; "that is, if I can get my good farmer's wife to cook them without coming them and inundating them in lemon-juice."
"Waal, then, I'll say good-bye to ye," he responds, with emphasis. "Why, don't ye know them's tudstools, 'n' they'll _kill_ ye as _sartin_ as _pizen_? I wonder they ain't fetched ye afore this. You never larned tew tell mushrooms. My father et 'em all his life, and so hev I, 'n' I _know_ 'em. Come up into my garden yender 'n' I'll show ye haow to tell the _reel mushroom_. There's a lot of 'em thar in the hot-bed naow. Come along. I'll _give_ ye a mess on 'em if ye'll only throw them pizen things away."
"And how do you know that those in your garden _are_ real mushrooms?" I inquire.
"Why, they ain't _anything_ like _them_ o' yourn. They're pink and black underneath, and peel up from the edge."
"How many kinds of mushrooms are there, do you suppose?" I ask.
"They's only the _one_ kind; all the others is _tudstools_ and _pizen_. It's easy to tell the _reel_ mushroom. Come up and I'll show ye. Don't eat _them_ things, I beg on ye! I vaow they'll _kill_ ye!"
At this point he catches a glimpse of a Shaggy-mane mushroom, which comes to light as I tenderly fondle the specimens, and which is evidently recognized as an acquaintance.
"What!" he exclaims, in pale alarm. "Ye _ain't_ goin' t' eat them _too_?"