Now no man who was
really fond of the esculent and homely fungus would have employed such
a metaphor by way of disparagement. I can only infer that Mr.
Chesterton thinks mushrooms very nasty. His opinion of Little Bethel
does not concern me. It is neither here nor there. But Mr. Chesterton
does not like _mushrooms_! I cannot get over that!

I feel very sorry for Mr. Chesterton. It is not merely a matter of
taste. I would not presume to set my opinion in a matter of this kind
over against his. But the authorities are with me. I have looked up
the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and its opening sentence on the subject
affirms that 'there are few more delicious members of the vegetable
kingdom than the common mushroom.' I suppose that in these matters
association has a lot to do with it. I cannot forget those delicious
summer mornings in England when we boys, rising with the lark, stole
out of the house like so many burglars, and scampered with our baskets
across the fragrant meadows to gather the white buttons that dotted the
sparkling, dew-drenched grass. It was, as I have said in the
introduction to this book, a large part of childhood's radiant romance!
What tales our fancy wove into the fairy-rings under the elm-trees! We
lifted each moist fungus half expecting to see the brownies and the
elves fly from beneath it! And what fearsome care we took to include
no single hypocritical toadstool among our treasures! I am really
afraid that Mr. Chesterton would have been less conscientious.
Mushrooms and toadstools are all alike to him. He can never have had
such frolics in the fields as we enjoyed in those ecstatic summer
mornings. And he never, therefore, knew the fierce joy of the
breakfast that followed when, hungry as hunters, we returned with
flushed faces to feast upon the spoils of our boisterous foray. Over
such brave memories Mr. Chesterton cannot fondly linger. For Mr.
Chesterton does not like mushrooms.

What would the Harvester have said to Mr. Chesterton? For, to Gene
Stratton Porter's hero, mushrooms were half-way to destiny. 'In the
morning, brilliant sunshine awoke him, and he arose to find the earth
steaming.

'"If ever there was a perfect mushroom morning!" he said to his dog.
"We must hurry and feed the stock and ourselves, and gather some!" The
Harvester breakfasted, fed the stock, hitched Betsy to the spring
wagon, and went into the dripping, steamy woods. If any one had asked
him