although durnik was often on the stream bank , bending all of his attention to the problem of convincing some wary trout that a thumbnail-sized bit of polished metal with a few strands of red yarn trailing behind it in the current was not merely edible but irresistibly delicious , he nonetheless maintained the cottage and its immediate surroundings in that scrupulously tidy condition which announced louder than words that the proprietor of any given farmstead was a sendar .