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+Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs
+
+Author: Anne Warner
+
+Illustrator: H. M. Brett
+
+Release Date: September 1, 2011 [EBook #37289]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
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+
+
+                                SUSAN CLEGG
+
+                            AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS
+
+                               BY ANNE WARNER
+
+      Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," "Sunshine Jane," etc.
+
+
+    WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
+    H. M. BRETT
+
+    BOSTON
+    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
+    1916
+
+    _Copyright, 1916_,
+
+    BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+    Published, May, 1916
+    Reprinted, May, 1916
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Nothing but the floor stopped me from falling through to
+China." FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 144._]
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING                              1
+
+      II. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY                   32
+
+     III. SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY                     58
+
+      IV. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH                   80
+
+       V. SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"                      104
+
+      VI. SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED                              129
+
+     VII. SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED                             153
+
+    VIII. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE                       176
+
+      IX. SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND                    216
+
+       X. SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION                  236
+
+      XI. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT                    256
+
+     XII. SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE                       277
+
+
+
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING
+
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sat on her front piazza, and Susan Clegg sat with her. Mrs.
+Lathrop was rocking, and Susan was just back from the Sewing Society.
+Neither Mrs. Lathrop nor Susan was materially altered since we saw them
+last. Time had moved on a bit, but not a great deal, and although both
+were older, still they were not much older.
+
+They were not enough older for Mrs. Lathrop to have had a new rocker,
+nor for Susan to have purchased a new bonnet. Susan indeed looked almost
+absolutely unaltered. She was a woman of the best wearing quality; she
+was hard and firm as ever, and if there were any plating about her, it
+was of the quadruple kind and would last.
+
+If the reader knows Susan Clegg at all, he will surmise that she was
+talking. And he will be right. Susan was most emphatically talking. She
+had returned from the Sewing Society full to the brim, and Mrs. Lathrop
+was already enjoying the overflow. Mrs. Lathrop liked to rock and
+listen. She never went to the Sewing Society herself--she never went
+anywhere.
+
+"We was talking about dreams," Susan was saying; "it's a very curious
+thing about dreams. Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop," wrinkling her brow and
+regarding her friend with that look of friendship which is not blind to
+any faults, "do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, they said down there that dreams
+always go by contraries. We was discussing it for a long time, and they
+ended up by making me believe in it. You see, it all began by my saying
+how I dreamed last night that Jathrop was back, and he was a cat and
+your cat, too, and he did something he wasn't let to, and you made one
+jump at him, and out of the window he went. Now that was a very strange
+dream for me to have dreamed, Mrs. Lathrop, and Mrs. Lupey, who's
+staying with Mrs. Macy to-day and maybe to-morrow, too, says she's sure
+it's a sign. She says if dreams go by contraries, mine ought to be a
+sign as Jathrop is coming back, for the contraries is all there: Jathrop
+_wasn't_ a cat, and he never done nothing that he shouldn't--nor that he
+should, neither--and you never jump--I don't believe you've jumped in
+years, have you?"
+
+"I--" began Mrs. Lathrop reminiscently.
+
+"Oh, that time don't count," said Susan, "it was just my ball of yarn,
+even if it did look like a rat; I meant a jump when you meant it; you
+didn't mean that jump. Well, an' to go back to the dream and what was
+said about it and to tell you the rest of it, there wasn't any more of
+it, but there was plenty more said about it. All of the dream was that
+the cat went out of the window, and I woke up, but, oh, my, how we did
+talk! Gran'ma Mullins wanted to know in the first place how I knew that
+the cat was Jathrop. She was most interested in that, for she says she
+often dreams of animals, but it never struck her that they might be any
+one she knew. She dreamed she found a daddy-long-legs looking in her
+bureau drawer the other night, but she never gave it another thought.
+She'll be more careful after this, I guess. Well, then I begun to
+consider, and for the life of me I can't think how I knew that that cat
+was Jathrop. As I remember it was a very common looking cat, but being
+common looking wouldn't mean Jathrop. Jathrop was common looking, but
+not a common cat kind of common looking. It was a very strange dream,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the more I consider it, the more I can't see what give it
+to me. I finished up the doughnuts just before I went to bed, for I was
+afraid they'd mold in another day with this damp weather, but it don't
+seem as if doughnuts ought to result in cats like Jathrop. If I'd
+dreamed of mice, it'd been different, for some of the doughnuts was
+gnawed in a way as showed as there'd been mice in the jar. It does beat
+all how mice get about. Maybe it was the mice made me think Jathrop was
+a cat. But even then I can't see how I did come to dream that dream.
+Unless it was a sign. Mrs. Lupey's sure it was a sign. We talked about
+signs the whole of the Sewing Society. Dreams and signs. Everybody told
+all they knew. Mrs. Macy told about her snow dream. Whenever Mrs. Macy
+has her snow dream, somebody dies. She says it's so interesting to look
+in a paper the next time she gets hold of one and see who it was. One
+time she thought it was Edgar Allen Poe, but when she read it over
+twice, she see that it was just that he'd been born. She says her snow
+dream's a wonderful sign; it's never failed once. She dreamed it the
+night before the earthquake in Italy, and she says to think how many
+died of it that time!
+
+"This started Gran'ma Mullins, and Gran'ma Mullins told about that dream
+she had the year before she met her husband. That was an awful dream. I
+wonder she met her husband a _tall_ after it. She thought she was alone
+in a thick wood, and she saw a man coming, and she was scared to death.
+She says she can feel her trembling now. She didn't know what to do,
+'cause if she'd hid among the trees he couldn't have seen her, and that
+idea scared her as bad as the other. So she just stood and shook and
+watched the man coming nearer and nearer. I've heard her tell the story
+a hundred times, but my blood always sort o' runs cold to hear it. The
+man come nearer and nearer and, my, but she says he _was_ a man! She was
+just a young girl, but she was old enough to be afraid, and old enough
+not to want to hide from him, neither. She says it was an awful lesson
+to her about going in woods alone, because of course you can't never
+expect any sympathy if the man does murder you or kiss you--everybody'll
+just say, 'Why didn't she hide in the woods?' Well, Gran'ma Mullins
+says there she stood, and she can see herself still standing there. She
+says she's never been in the woods since just on account of that
+dream--and then, too, she's one of those that the mosquitos all get on
+in the woods. And then, besides, she doesn't like woods, anyway. And
+then, besides, there ain't no thick woods around here. But, anyhow, you
+know what happened--just as he got to her she woke up, and I must say of
+all the tame stories to have to sit and listen to over and over, that
+dream of Gran'ma Mullins is the tamest. I get tired the minute she
+begins it, but my dream had started every one to telling signs, and so
+of course Gran'ma Mullins had to tell hers along with the rest.
+
+"When she was done Mrs. Lupey told us about her mother, Mrs. Kitts, and
+a curious kind of prophetic dream she used to have and kept right on
+having up to the day she died. Mrs. Lupey said she never heard the like
+of those dreams of her mother's, and I guess nobody else ever has,
+either. No, nor never will. Well, it seems Mrs. Kitts used to dream she
+was falling out of bed, and the curious part is that she always _did_
+fall out of bed just as she dreamed it, so it never failed to come true.
+She'd dream she hit the floor _bang!_ and the next second she'd hit the
+floor _bang!_ Mrs. Lupey said she never saw such a dream for coming
+true; if old Mrs. Kitts dreamed she hit her head, she'd hit her head,
+and the time she dreamed she sprained her wrist, she sprained her wrist,
+and the time she had her stroke, as soon as her mind was got back in
+place she told them she'd dreamed she had a stroke in her chair just
+before she fell out of her chair with the stroke. Even the minister's
+wife didn't have a word to say.
+
+"Mrs. Lupey said her mother was a most remarkable woman. She's very
+sorry now she didn't board that painter for a portrait of her. The
+painter was so awful took with old Mrs. Kitts that he was willing to do
+her for six weeks and with the frame for two months. But Mrs. Lupey was
+afraid to have a painter around. She'd just read a detective story about
+a painter that killed the woman he was painting because he didn't want
+any one else to paint her. Mrs. Lupey said it was a very Frenchy
+story--there was a lot between the lines and on the lines, too--as she
+couldn't make out, but it taught her never to have painters around, for
+you never could be sure in a house with four other women that he'd kill
+the one he was painting. But she's sorry now, for she's older now and
+wiser and a match for any painter going, long-haired, short-haired or no
+hair at all. But it's too late now, and there's Mrs. Kitts dead
+unpainted, and all they've got left is a sweet memory and that cane she
+used to hit at 'em with when they weren't spry enough to suit her, and
+her hymn-book which she marked up without telling any one and left for a
+remembrance. Mrs. Lupey says such markings you never heard of.
+
+"When Mrs. Lupey was all done, Mrs. Brown took her turn and told us
+some very interesting things about Amelia. Seems Amelia is so far
+advanced in learning what nobody can understand that she can see quite a
+little ways ahead now and tell just what she's going to do. She can't
+see for the rest of the family, but she can see for herself. Sometimes
+it's just a day ahead, and sometimes it's a long way ahead. The longest
+way ahead that she's seen yet is that she can't see herself ever getting
+up to breakfast again. Mrs. Brown says of course she respects Amelia's
+religious views, but it's trying when Amelia wants to go to church, but
+doesn't see herself going, so has to stay at home. She says Amelia just
+loves to sew, but she can't see herself sewing any more, so she's given
+it all up. She says Amelia's got a superior mind--anybody can tell that
+only to see the way she's took to doing her hair--but she says it's a
+little hard on young Doctor Brown and her, who haven't got superior
+minds, to live with her. Amelia don't want to kill flies any more, for
+fear they're going to be her blood relations a million years from now,
+and Mrs. Brown says she never was any good once a mouse was caught, but
+now she won't even hear to setting a trap; she says all things has equal
+rights, and if she feels a spider, some one has got to take it off her
+and set it gently outside on the grass. Oh, Mrs. Brown says, Amelia's
+very hard to live up to, even with the best will in the world. Mrs.--"
+
+Here Susan was interrupted by Brunhilde Susan, the minister's youngest
+child, who brought the evening milk and the evening paper.
+
+"There was a letter, so I brought that, too," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+"A letter!" said Susan in surprise.
+
+"It's for Mrs. Lathrop," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+"For me!" said Mrs. Lathrop in even greater surprise.
+
+"Yes'm," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+A letter for Mrs. Lathrop was indeed a surprise, as that good lady had
+only received two in the last five years. As those had been of the
+least interesting variety, she looked upon the present one with but mild
+interest. The next minute she gave a scream, for, turning it over as
+some people always do turn a letter over before opening it, she read on
+the back "Return to Jathrop Lathrop..." and her fingers turning numb
+with surprise and her head dizzy for the same reason, she dropped it on
+the floor forthwith.
+
+Brunhilde Susan had turned and gone back down the walk. Miss Clegg, who
+had been regarding her friend's slowness to take action with
+ill-concealed impatience, now made no attempt at concealing anything,
+but leaned over abruptly and picked up the letter. As soon as she looked
+at it she came near dropping it, too. "From Jathrop!" she exclaimed, in
+a tone appalled. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was quite speechless. Susan held the letter and began to
+regard it closely. It was quite a minute before another sound was made,
+then suddenly a light burst over the younger woman's face. "It's my
+dream. I told you so. It _was_ a sign, just as Mrs. Lupey said. He's
+coming back!"
+
+She looked toward Mrs. Lathrop, but Mrs. Lathrop still sat quite limp
+and gasping for breath.
+
+"Shall I open it and read it to you?" Susan then suggested.
+
+"Y--y--" began Mrs. Lathrop and could get no further.
+
+At that Susan promptly opened the letter. It was written on the paper of
+a Chicago hotel, and ran thus:
+
+     "_Dear Mother_:
+
+     "Years have passed by, and here I am on my way home again. I've
+     been to the Klondike and am now rich and on my way home. I hope
+     that you are well and safe at home. You'll be glad to see me home
+     again, I know. How is everybody at home? How is Susan Clegg? I
+     shall get home Saturday morning.
+
+     "Your afft. son,
+     "J. LATHROP, ESQ."
+
+That was all and surely it was quite enough.
+
+"Well, I declare!" Susan Clegg said, staring first at the letter and
+then at the mother. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop! Well, I declare. It _was_ a
+sign. You and me'll never doubt signs after _this_, I guess."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop made an effort to rally, but only succeeded in just feebly
+shaking her head.
+
+Susan continued to hold the letter in her hand and contemplate it.
+Another slow minute or two passed.
+
+But at last the wheels of life began to turn again, and that active
+mind, which grasped so much so readily, grasped this news, too. Miss
+Clegg ceased to view the letter and began to take action regarding it.
+
+"Did you notice what he says here, Mrs. Lathrop? He says he's rich. I
+don't know whether you noticed or not as I read, but he says he's rich.
+I wonder how rich he means!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened and shut her eyes in a futile way that she had, but
+continued speechless.
+
+"Rich," repeated Miss Clegg, "and me dreaming of him last night; that's
+very curious, when you come to think of it, 'cause I'm rich, too. And I
+was dreaming of him! It doesn't make any difference my thinking he was a
+cat; I knew it was Jathrop, even if he was only a cat in a dream.
+Strange my dreaming of him that way! I can see him flying out of the
+window right now. He was one of those lanky, long cats that eat from
+dawn till dark and every time your back's turned and yet keep the
+neighbors saying you starve it. And to think it was Jathrop all the
+time! Thinking of me right that minute, probably. And he says, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And he's rich. I _do_ wonder what he'd call rich!"
+
+Susan paused and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop remained dumb.
+
+"The Klondike, that's where he went to, was it? Goodness, I wonder how
+he ever got there! Well, I'll never be surprised at nothing after this.
+I've had many little surprises in my life, but never nothing to equal
+this. Jathrop Lathrop come back rich! Why, the whole town will be at the
+station to meet him to-morrow. I wonder if he'll come in the parlor-car!
+Think of Jathrop being a cat overnight and coming in a parlor-car next
+day! And he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+The last three words seemed to make quite an impression on Susan, but
+Mrs. Lathrop appeared smashed so supremely flat that nothing could make
+any further impression on her. She continued dumb, and Susan continued
+to hold the letter and comment on it.
+
+"I wonder what he looks like now. I wonder if he's grown any better
+looking! I certainly do wonder if he's got any homelier. And he's rich!
+Why, nobody from this town has ever gone away and got rich before, not
+that I can remember. I call myself a rich woman, but I ain't rich enough
+to dream of writing it in a letter. I certainly should like to know
+what Jathrop calls being rich. He couldn't possibly have millions, or it
+would have reached here somehow. Maybe he's been digging under another
+name! I suppose three or four thousand would seem enough to make him
+call himself rich. If he comes home with three or four thousand and
+calls that being rich, I shall certainly feel very sorry for you, Mrs.
+Lathrop. He'll be very airy over his money, and he'll live on yours. If
+you've got to have any one live with you, it's better for them to have
+no money a _tall_, because if they've got ever such a little, they
+always feel so perky over it. Mrs. Brown says if Amelia didn't have that
+six dollars and seventy-five cents a month from her dead mother, she'd
+be much easier to live with. Mrs. Brown says whenever Doctor Brown trys
+to control Amelia, Amelia hops up and says she'll pay for it with her
+own money. Mrs. Brown says to hear Amelia, you'd think she had at least
+ten dollars a month of her own. Mrs. Brown's so sad over Amelia. Amelia
+sees herself doing such outlandish things some days. Mrs. Brown says
+your son's wife is the biggest puzzle a woman ever gets. I guess Mrs.
+Brown would have liked young Doctor Brown never to marry."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth and shut it again.
+
+"I suppose you're thinking where to put Jathrop when he comes," Susan
+said quickly. "I've been thinking of that, too. Where can you put him,
+anyway? He never can sleep in that little shed bedroom where he used to
+sleep, if he's really rich, and he'll have to have some place to wash
+before we can find out."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked distressed. "I--" she began.
+
+"Oh, that wouldn't do," said Susan, knitting her brows quickly. "Think
+of the work of changing all your things. No, I'll tell you what's the
+best thing to do; he can sleep over at my house. Father's room was all
+cleaned last week, and I'll make up the bed, and Jathrop can sleep there
+until we find out how to treat him. Maybe his old shed bedroom will do,
+after all, or maybe he's so awfully rich he'll enjoy sleeping in it,
+like the president liked to stack hay. Maybe he'll ask nothing better
+than to chop wood and take the ashes out of the stove just for a change.
+I do wonder how rich he is. If he's rich enough to have a private car, I
+expect this town _will_ open its eyes. You'll see a great change in your
+position, Mrs. Lathrop, if Jathrop comes in a private car to-morrow
+morning. There's something about a private car as makes everybody step
+around lively. I don't say that I shan't respect him more myself if he
+comes in a private car. But he can sleep one night in father's room,
+anyway, although if he calls it being rich to come home with just two or
+three thousand, I think he'd better understand it's for just one night
+right from the start. I wouldn't want Jathrop to think that I had any
+time to waste on him if he calls just two or three thousand being rich.
+It'd be no wonder I dreamed he was a cat, if he's got the face to call
+that being rich. But that would be just like Jathrop. You know yourself
+that if Jathrop could ever do anything to disappoint anybody, he never
+let the chance slide. I never had no use for Jathrop Lathrop, as you
+know to your cost, Mrs. Lathrop. But, still, if he really is rich, I
+haven't got anything against him, and I'll tell you what I'll do right
+now: I'll go home and put that room in order and get my supper, and then
+after supper I'll just run down to the square and see if anybody else
+knows, and then I'll come back and tell you if they do. It's no use your
+trying to put things a little in order, because you couldn't straighten
+this place up in a month, and, besides, it isn't worth fussing till we
+know how rich he is. He may just have writ that in for a joke--to break
+it to you gently that he's coming back again to live here. Heaven help
+you if that's the case, Mrs. Lathrop, for Jathrop never will. It isn't
+in me to deceive so much as a fly on the window, and I never have
+deceived you and I never will."
+
+With which promise Susan took her departure.
+
+It was all of three hours--quite nine in the evening--when Susan came
+back. She found Mrs. Lathrop transferred to her back porch and seemingly
+in a somewhat less complete state of total paralysis than when she had
+left her.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked up as her friend approached and smiled.
+
+"Nobody knew," Susan announced as she mounted the steps, "but every one
+knows now, for I told them. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw anything
+like it. There isn't a person in town as ever expected to see Jathrop
+again, and only about three as always thought he'd come back rich. Every
+one's going to the station to-morrow morning, even Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy
+says if it's one of the mornings she can't walk, she'll hire Hiram and
+his wheelbarrow just as she does for church those Sundays. Everybody's
+so interested. I told them about the private car, and everybody hopes
+that he's got one, and that he'll come in it. Mr. Dill says he must be
+rich if he's been to the Klondike and come back a _tall_. He says
+there's no halfway work about the Klondike. Either you come back a
+millionaire or else you eat first your dog and then your boots and
+that's the last of you. Gran'ma Mullins says she never heard of eating
+boots in the Klondike; she thought you rode on a sled there and that
+there weren't any women. She says Hiram's spoken of going there once or
+twice, and Lucy thought maybe the coasting would do him good, but
+Gran'ma Mullins says not while she's alive, no, sir. Why, it's 'way
+across America and up a ways, and so many people want to go up that they
+have to sleep three in a berth, and she says will you only think of
+Hiram, with the way she's brought him up, three in a berth. If the bed
+ain't tucked in with Gran'ma Mullins' own particular kind of tuck, Hiram
+kicks at night and don't get any proper nourishment out of his sleep.
+No, Gran'ma Mullins says she couldn't think of Hiram in the Klondike
+sleeping under a snow-pile and having to hunt up a whale whenever he was
+in need of more kerosene oil. And she says what good would millions do
+her with the bones of the only baby she ever had feeding whatever kind
+of creature they have up there. No, she says, no, and a million times
+more, no; she's been reading about it in a New York paper that came
+wrapped around her new stove lid, and she knows all there is to know on
+that subject now. She says a New York paper is so interesting. She says
+the way they print them makes it very entertaining. She was reading
+about a sea serpent, and when she turned, she turned wrong, and she read
+twelve columns about the suffragettes, looking eagerly to see when the
+sea serpent was going on again. She says she give up trying to see why
+they print them so or ever trying to finish any one subject at a time;
+she just goes regularly through the paper now and lets the subjects
+fight it out to suit themselves. She says it makes the last part very
+interesting. You read about a baby, and after a while you find out
+whether it's the Queen of Spain's or just a race-horse. She says she
+supposes next Sunday there'll be a picture of Jathrop in the paper;
+maybe there'll be a view of this house with you and me. I think that
+that would be very interesting."
+
+Susan paused to consider the idyllic little picture thus presented to
+her mind's eye, and Mrs. Lathrop continued to say nothing. After a while
+Susan went on again:
+
+"I've been thinking a good deal about that letter, Mrs. Lathrop. I don't
+know whether you noticed or not, but to my order of thinking it was very
+strange his saying, 'How's Susan Clegg?' That's a curious thing for an
+unmarried man to ask his mother about an unmarried woman. When you come
+to consider how Jathrop was wild to marry me once, it really means a
+terrible lot. I was the first woman except you he ever kissed; he wasn't
+but a year old, and I was thirteen, but those things make an impression.
+I don't mind telling you that I've often thought about Jathrop
+nights--and days, too. And lately I've been thinking of him more and
+more. And you can see that he's been feeling the same about me, for he's
+showed that plain enough by saying in black and white, 'How's Susan
+Clegg?' Jathrop is a very silent nature, you can see that from his never
+writing even to his own mother in all these years. It means a good deal
+when a silent nature opens its mouth all of a sudden and writes, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And then my dreaming of him was so strange. He had soft
+gray fur and big bright yellow eyes, and the way he flew out of the
+window! Even in my dream I noticed how nice he jumped. He made a
+beautiful cat. And you know I always stood up for him, Mrs. Lathrop,
+I always did that. Even when I thought he needed lynching as much
+as anybody, I never said so. And now he's come back rich, and he's
+coming home to you and me, and he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'
+'How's--Susan--Clegg?'"
+
+Susan's voice died dreamily away. Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. After a
+minute Susan's voice went on again: "It's too bad I haven't time to sort
+of freshen up my striped silk. It's got awful creasy laying folded so
+long. I'd of put some new braid around the bottom if I'd known, and if
+this town wasn't so noticey, I'd put my hair up on rollers to-night. A
+little crimp sets my wave off so. But, laws, everybody'd be asking why I
+did it, and if Jathrop's got any idea of me in his head, it'll be very
+easy to knock it right straight out if this town gets first chance at
+him. But I don't intend that this town shall get first chance at him. I
+shall be on that platform to-morrow morning, and I'll be the nearest to
+that train, and once he gets off that train, I shall bring him right
+straight up here to you and me. It's safest, and it's his duty, too. As
+soon as you've seen him, I'll take him over to my house to wash. Then
+I'll give him his breakfast, and by the time he's done his breakfast, if
+he really means anything, I'll know it. If he really means anything,
+we'll come over after breakfast, and it'll do your heart good to see
+how happy we'll look. He can leave his bag in father's room then, for
+we'll have so much to talk over it'll be more convenient to take him
+over there. You can see that for yourself, Mrs. Lathrop--you know how
+young people like to be alone together when they're engaged, and a woman
+of my age don't need no looking after any longer. I'm no Gran'ma Mullins
+to be worrying over woods nor yet any Mrs. Lupey as supposes every man
+you let into your house may be going to hit you over the head when
+you're thinking of something pleasant.
+
+"No, I ain't afraid of Jathrop Lathrop nor of any other man alive, thank
+heaven. _But_, if I find out as he don't mean anything, I shall march
+him over to you in sharp order, bag and all. If he don't mean anything,
+I'll soon know the reason why, and as soon as I know the reason why,
+I'll send Mr. Jathrop Lathrop flying. 'How's Susan Clegg?' indeed! He'll
+find it's a very dangerous joke to go joking about me, no matter how
+much money he's scraped out of the Klondike. A joke is a thing as I
+never stand, Mrs. Lathrop, and if you'd been one as joked, you'd have
+found that out to your deep and abiding sorrow long ago. Very few people
+have ever tried to have any fun with me, and I've got even with the most
+of them, I'm happy to remark. I shall find out yet who sent me that
+comic valentine with the man skipping over the edge of the world and me
+after him with a net, and when I do find out, I'll get even about that,
+too. Me with a net! I'd like to see myself skipping after any man that
+was skipping away from me. If he was skipping toward me, I wouldn't
+marry him--not 'nless I loved him. I know that. Love is a thing as you
+can't raise and lower just as the fancy strikes you. A woman can't love
+but once, and I've got a kind of warm bubbling all around my heart as
+tells me that I've loved that once and that it was Jathrop. It's very
+strange, Mrs. Lathrop, but I've been thinking of Jathrop a great deal
+lately. I keep remembering more and more how much I've been thinking
+about him. I suppose he was thinking of me, and that's what started me.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' I can just seem to hear Jathrop's voice; Jathrop
+had a very strange voice. 'How's Susan Clegg?'
+
+"The mind is a curious thing, when you stop to consider, Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Brown says Amelia says minds can communicate if you know how. Mrs.
+Brown says if she calls to Amelia when she's in the hammock and Amelia
+don't answer, Amelia always explains afterwards as she was
+communicating.
+
+"It all shows that the mind is a wonderful thing. There was Jathrop and
+me communicating regularly, and me so little understanding what it all
+meant that I dreamed he was a cat. I can't get over that dream. I wonder
+if that meant that he's got whiskers now. If he's got whiskers, and he
+loves me, he's got to cut 'em right straight off. You'll have to speak
+to him about that as soon as you see him, Mrs. Lathrop, for I won't be
+able to, of course. And you can see for yourself that I couldn't have
+whiskers around. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I've had no
+experience with whiskers."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop promised to remonstrate with Jathrop if he really had
+whiskers, and after some further conversation Susan went home and to bed
+and slept soundly. In the morning she was up very promptly, and Mrs.
+Lathrop saw her off for the station.
+
+The whole town was at the station. But in front of them all--closest to
+the track--stood Susan Clegg.
+
+It was a breathless moment when Johnny ran out with the flag and the
+train stopped. Susan motioned the rest back with dignity and stood her
+ground alone. The car door opened, and a stout, homely man, with eyes
+set wide apart and a very large mouth, appeared on the platform. He was
+well dressed and carried an alligator-skin traveling-bag.
+
+Everybody gasped. But it was not his appearance nor the alligator-skin
+bag that caused them to gasp. It was that Jathrop Lathrop, returning
+after his long absence, had brought back a lady with him.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY
+
+
+And not merely a lady, but a Chinese lady at that. A particularly
+chubby, solemn, Chinese lady, who descended from the train which brought
+Jathrop Lathrop back to his native town after making a fortune in the
+Klondike, and meekly trotted along in his wake, carrying the large
+valise, while Jathrop carried the small one.
+
+Susan walked off straightway with Jathrop and the Chinese lady, while
+the town remained stock and staring behind. The town was frankly "done
+did up." That Jathrop might return with a wife had never once entered
+the head of any one. Still less had the idea of any one of that
+community ever wedding a Chinese been entertained. It was a peculiarly
+overwhelming sensation, and one which led Gran'ma Mullins to lean
+against Hiram, while Mrs. Macy leaned against the equally firm side-wall
+of the station itself. It was several seconds before people came to
+their senses enough to go around by the track gate and look to see how
+far the bewildering party had got on their way. They were just crossing
+the square.
+
+"Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," said Mr. Kimball, and his words
+seemed to break the deadlock; everybody scattered forthwith, all talking
+at once.
+
+Meanwhile Jathrop, arriving at his mother's gate, paused and said quite
+easily:
+
+"I'll go in alone, Susan; mother will like the first hour or so quite
+alone with me, I know. Won't you take Hop Loo to your house for
+breakfast?"
+
+Susan, who had by no means as yet recovered from the shock of the
+Celestial bride, opened and shut her mouth once and her eyes twice, and
+yielded. For the nonce she seemed as speechless as Mrs. Lathrop
+herself. Jathrop's appealing ease of manner had overawed her all the way
+up from the station, and the walk had been accomplished in stately
+silence. If the Klondike Prodigal had been surprised over the alteration
+in Susan, he had not said so, and now he quietly handed Hop Loo his
+alligator-skin traveling-bag (or hers, whichever it was), and passing in
+through his mother's gate, shut it forthwith behind him, and went on up
+the walk. Susan cast one look, which would have thrown a basilisk into
+everlasting darkness, after him; and then, turning, marched back to her
+own gate. Hop Loo followed, Susan opened her own gate and passed through
+it; Hop Loo passed through after her. Susan went up her walk; Hop kept
+close to her heels. Together they mounted the steps and then entered the
+house.
+
+It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely to
+rally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When she climbed
+the steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She looked
+peculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the present
+moment that she was not pleased with the world in general.
+
+"I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smiling
+enough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep up
+her own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those of
+others. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew."
+
+This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as it
+might have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable of
+anything so subtle.
+
+"Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's no
+use taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already set
+about doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathrop
+never come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of being
+poisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop has
+learned too many little tricks for that."
+
+Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous striped
+silk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dipping
+it (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen that
+the vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils.
+
+"Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herself
+and looking eagerly in her friend's face.
+
+"Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan.
+
+"Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular under
+the severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em,
+or did he just buy her for beads?"
+
+"I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don't
+know a _tall_. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man does
+about a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to have
+seen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she walked straight to my rack of
+pans and took down just whatever she fancied. I _never_ saw the beat!
+No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and the
+North Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop has
+picked up. He never said a word walking up--nothing but 'Ah' once. I
+don't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked your
+cradle and might have married you, too--if she'd wanted to. For I could
+have married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever know
+what passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say what
+prevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regret
+it, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks of
+the treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken--he
+means me."
+
+Susan paused and shook her head angrily.
+
+"I don't doubt but what he's sorry," said Mrs. Macy; "maybe he married a
+Chinese for fear any other kind would remind him of you."
+
+Miss Clegg rejected this possible poetic view of Jathrop's action with a
+look of great disgust accompanied by another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't believe it's very often that a man ever marries some other
+woman on account of any other woman. That's very pretty in books, but
+books ain't life. Life's life, and if Jathrop Lathrop's married that
+heathen Chinese, he's got very strange notions of life, and that's all I
+can say. Why, if she didn't lug that heavy bag along and walk a little
+back, and he never bothered to speak to her. She's very different from
+what I'd have been, I can tell you. You can maybe fancy me carrying
+Jathrop Lathrop's bag a little behind Jathrop Lathrop! I think I see
+myself. 'How's Susan Clegg?' He'll soon find out how Susan Clegg is.
+What do you think, Mrs. Macy, what _do_ you think? When we came to his
+mother's gate, he just stopped, said he thought she'd like him alone
+best, said to me, 'Give Hop Loo some breakfast, will you?'--and then if
+my gentleman didn't walk through the gate and shut it after him! Well, I
+_never_ did. There was me and his wife carefully shut out on the other
+side of the fence like we was pigs. And then I had to bring her over
+here and give her father's room. What would my dead and gone father say
+to a Chinese woman having his room, I wonder! Father had very fine
+feelings for a man as got about so little, and if he was alive, I don't
+believe no Jathrop Lathrop would have gone sending no heathen Chinese
+wife to live with _me_. She won't live with me long, I can tell you that
+to your face, Mrs. Macy. I took her because I was too dumb did up over
+having a gate shut in my face by Jathrop Lathrop to do anything else,
+but I ain't intending to have her long. I've always been for shutting
+the Chinese out, and I ain't going back on my principles at my time of
+life. No, indeed. 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+Susan paused angrily. Her repetition of the deceptive phrase in
+Jathrop's letter seemed to turn her boiling wrath into one of still,
+white menace. She sat perfectly still, snapping her eyelids up and down,
+and breathing hard.
+
+"I don't blame you one mite, Susan," said Mrs. Macy warmly; "I wish Mrs.
+Lupey was here. She wanted to come, too, but she's got her bag to pack
+to go home. She only come for one night, and to-night'll make two, so
+she wants to get packed. But she knows all about the Chinese. Her
+husband's got a cousin who is a missionary in China, and she could have
+felt for you. The cousin's got eleven Chinese servants besides a Bible
+class of two as she's training to be missionaries after they're trained.
+Mrs. Lupey says she'd have known what to do when that Chinese lady got
+off the train this morning. They don't let 'em ride in the same cars in
+China."
+
+Just here Jathrop came out of his mother's front door and walked down
+the path. Both ladies were freshly shocked by the sight. At the gate he
+turned in the opposite direction. Both ladies stared after him. Soon he
+was out of sight. Then they stared at each other.
+
+"Well, what is he up to now?" Mrs. Macy finally ejaculated.
+
+"I don't know," said Susan in a tone of complete despair as to ever
+again gaining any insight into the motives which moved Jathrop, "I d'n
+know, Mrs. Macy. Don't ask me anything about Jathrop Lathrop after he's
+gone home to see his mother and has handed me over a Chinese wife to
+board. He may be gone up to Mrs. Brown's to run off with Amelia for all
+I know. Nothing is ever going to surprise me any more after this day. I
+only know one thing, if he does run off with Amelia, that Chinee'll find
+herself and his valises dumped off of my premises pretty quick. I never
+was one for false feelings, and I should see no call for Christian
+charity toward a heathen who comes to me with two black bags on her legs
+and a dressing-sack for an overcoat."
+
+"I wonder if Jathrop likes her wearing such clothes," said Mrs. Macy.
+"Everybody is wondering."
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Clegg, "men are very queer. There's no telling
+what they are going to fancy till they get out of the train married to
+it. Think of his having the face to write 'How's Susan Clegg?' and him
+married to that puzzle-blocks thing all the time. I wonder what his
+mother said when he told her!"
+
+"Let's go over and see Mrs. Lathrop!" suggested Mrs. Macy, "she's over
+there alone now."
+
+This idea immediately found favor with Susan. "But I'll have to go in
+and see what _she's_ up to first," she said. "If she's caught a rat and
+is making soup in my teapot with it, I shan't feel to enjoy leaving her
+alone with my teapot."
+
+Mrs. Macy could but feel the extreme justice of this view, and Susan,
+whose countenance indicated that she was sorely beset by misgivings,
+went into the house.
+
+When she came out, her face wore a relieved expression.
+
+"She's all safe," she said. "She's asleep on the floor. I must say it's
+changed my feelings toward her. It shows she knows her place."
+
+They walked sedately to Mrs. Lathrop's. They climbed the back steps, and
+they knocked.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was busy making preparations for dinner. She came to the
+door with a promptitude which, in view of her well-known habit of
+deliberation, was little short of miraculous.
+
+"We came to see how you were," said Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Come in," said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+They walked in and seated themselves on two of the wooden-bottomed
+kitchen chairs. Mrs. Lathrop went on with her work. She was uncommonly
+active, and her face wore a broad, unusual smile. "Jathrop's gone up to
+the cemetery," she said. "He's going to have a monument put up to his
+father."
+
+"What do you think of--?" interrupted Susan.
+
+"Yes, we come to--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"He's going," continued Mrs. Lathrop, taking down a plate and blowing
+the thick dust from its surface, "to have an awful handsome monument put
+up. Not a animal like you put up to your father, Susan, but a angel
+hanging to a pillar with both hands and feeling for a cloud with its
+feet. He showed me the picture. And he's going to have the parlor
+papered and give the town a watering-trough for horses, with a tin cup
+on a chain for people, and he's--"
+
+"Yes, but--" interrupted Susan.
+
+"You know, of course--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop swept off the top of the rolling-pin with the stove-brush.
+"And he's going to build me on a bedroom right off the hall," she
+continued, "and put a furnace under the whole house. And one of those
+lamps that haul up and down, and a new set of kitchen things, and he'll
+come here every year and see if I want anything else, and if I do, I'm
+to have it. I'm to have a pew in church, even if I never do go to
+church, and a paper every day, and his baby picture done big, and be
+fitted for new glasses."
+
+"But, Mrs. Lathrop--" Susan interrupted, seeing that Mrs. Lathrop was
+surely still in ignorance as to her Mongolian daughter-in-law.
+
+"Yes, you--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Liza Em'ly is to do all the sewing I want," went on Mrs. Lathrop,
+proceeding with her baking preparations at a great rate, "and Jathrop'll
+pay the bill. And any things I want, I'm just to send for, and
+Jathrop'll pay the bill; and anything I can think of what I want done,
+I'm just to say so, and Jathrop'll pay the bill."
+
+It seemed as if Susan Clegg would burst at this. It was plain now that
+Jathrop really was rich, and here was his mother supposing the rose was
+utterly thornless.
+
+"But did he tell you about his wife?" she broke in desperately. "That's
+what I want to know."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, who was mixing butter and sugar together in a yellow bowl,
+stopped suddenly and stared.
+
+"His wife!" she said blankly.
+
+"Yes, his wife," repeated Susan.
+
+"The wife he brought back with him," explained Mrs. Macy.
+
+"The wife he--" Mrs. Lathrop pushed the yellow bowl a little back on the
+table and rested her hands on the edge. They trembled visibly; "the wife
+he--" she repeated.
+
+"Surely you know that he brought his wife back with him?" said Mrs.
+Macy. "Surely he's told you?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop--turned her usual dumb self again--looked at Mrs. Macy with
+almost unseeing eyes.
+
+"I--" she ejaculated faintly, "no, he--"
+
+"Now, you see," exclaimed Susan, half to the friend and half to the
+stricken mother, "it don't make any difference what a man turns into
+outside, he stays just the same inside. What have I always said to you,
+Mrs. Lathrop? You can't make no kind of a purse out of ears like
+Jathrop's. Jathrop Lathrop could turn into fifty millionaires, and he'd
+still be Jathrop Lathrop. He can hang all the angels he pleases and
+water all the horses from here to Meadville, and still he never could be
+any other man but just himself. And being himself, he never by no manner
+of means could be frank and open. He was always one that held things
+back. You thought it was because he didn't have no brains, but you was
+his mother and naturally looked on the best side of him. But he never
+deceived me, Mrs. Lathrop; I saw through Jathrop right from the start.
+There was a foxiness about Jathrop as nobody never fully saw into but
+me. That was my reason for never marrying him--one of my many reasons,
+for his foxiness hasn't been the only thing about Jathrop that I've seen
+through. I never was one to soften the blows to a tempered lamb, so I
+will say that so many reasons for not loving a man as I've seen in
+Jathrop I never see in any other man yet. But none of my reasons for not
+marrying him has ever equalled this new reason as has cropped up now in
+his bringing home a wife. When a man comes home with a wife, then you do
+see through him for good and all, and when Jathrop come scrambling out
+from between those two cars this morning with a heathen Chinee at his
+heels--"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop screamed loudly. "A--"
+
+"Heathen Chinee," repeated Susan.
+
+"You know what a Chinee is, don't you?" interposed Mrs. Macy; "they're
+from China, you know."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop retreated to her rocker with a totter.
+
+"Yes, she's a heathen Chinee," said Susan, with unfailing firmness, "the
+kindest heart in the world couldn't mistake her for anything even as
+high up as a nigger. Her eyes cross just under her nose, and she's got
+her hair wound round her head with a piece of black tape to hold it on.
+She wears divided skirts as is most plainly divided, and not a gore has
+she got to her name or her figure. She _is_ a Chinese and no mistake,
+and you may believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but
+Jathrop without a so much as by-your-leave dumped her onto me for
+breakfast, and she's asleep on father's floor now."
+
+"On your--" gasped Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, on father's," said Susan, "and now, Mrs. Lathrop, you see what he
+is at last. He not only marries a Chinese when if he'd been patient he
+might have got a white one, but he brings her home, and don't even tell
+you he's brought her home, or even that he's got her, or even that he's
+married her, or anything. A man might line my house with furnaces and
+have his baby picture done big in every room, and I'd never forgive his
+acting in such a way. I never hear the beat. It throws all the other
+calamities as ever come upon anybody in this community clean out of the
+shade. What will be the use of your having a pew in church; you won't
+even be able to face the minister now with your son's marrying one of
+them as we have to give our good money to teach to wear clothes. What
+good will your having the parlor papered be with everybody ashamed to go
+to see a woman who has got a Chinese daughter. To my order of thinking,
+you was better off poor. Why, they eat the hen's nests, the Chinese do,
+and prefer 'em to the eggs. It's small wonder I dreamed Jathrop was a
+cat, with him descending on us like the wrath of heaven married to a
+China woman. Jathrop's no fool though, and if you'd seen that humble
+heathen going along back of him with his big valise, you'd have to see
+as the man as picks out a wife like that never could have been a fool. I
+felt for her, I really did, only she was watching me with the wrong eye
+all the time, and it made me dizzy to try and look at her kindly. I'll
+tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, when Jathrop comes back, you'll just go for
+him and give it to him good. Men must learn as they can't bring their
+Chinese wives into this community. There's a principle as we'd ought to
+live up to whether we enjoy it or not, and it's all against marrying
+Chinese. The Chinese are all right, I hope and trust, but nothing as
+feeds itself with a toothpick had ever ought to be held pressed to the
+bosom of families like you and me, Mrs. Lathrop. It isn't the way we're
+brought up to look at them, and it's a well-known fact as no matter what
+the leopard does to the Ethiopian, he sticks to his spot just the same
+as before--"
+
+"But--" broke in Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop,--we've been friends
+too long for me not to feel kindly to you,--but Mrs. Macy is a witness
+to his bringing her, even if I wasn't well known to be one as never
+lies. Mrs. Macy is a witness, too, to how he's got her dressed, and a
+more burning disgrace than this keeping your chosen wife in loose
+overalls and a jacket as any monkey on a hand-organ would weep to see
+the fit of, I never see. It may be the custom in the Klondike and may
+be convenient for sliding, but this is no sliding community, and, to my
+order of thinking, Jathrop would have showed you more affection and us
+more respect if he'd bought his wife a bonnet and a shawl before he
+brought her here."
+
+Susan paused for breath. Mrs. Lathrop continued speechless. Mrs. Macy
+tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking, "Lands, she's got a
+pigtail, too."
+
+Susan picked up the cudgels afresh at that. "Wound twice around her
+head," she said bitterly; "oh, she _is_ a figure of fun and no mistake.
+I d'n know, I'm sure, what Jathrop was ever thinking of the day he
+picked her out, but this I do know, and that is, that he'd better pick
+her off of me pretty quick. You know, Mrs. Lathrop, as a friend is a
+friend and I've always been a good friend to you, but I never was one to
+stand any nonsense--not now and not never--and when a man writes, 'I'm
+rich' and 'How's Susan Clegg?' he gets me where no Chinese wife ain't
+going to please me in a hurry. I'm glad Jathrop is rich, on your
+account, Mrs. Lathrop, but his being rich don't alter my views of him a
+mite. I look upon him as a gray deceiver, that's what I look upon him
+as, and if he's brought a piece of carnelian or anything back to me, you
+can tell him to give it to his lawfully wedded wife, for I don't want to
+have nothing more to do with him."
+
+"But, Susan--" broke in poor Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Lathrop; I'm in no mood to listen to no
+one just now. I ain't mad, but I'm hurt. It's no wonder I dreamed he
+was a cat, for of all the sly, back-door things a cat is the
+meanest. And there was always something very cat-like about Jathrop
+Lathrop--something soft and slow and creepy--nothing bold and
+out-spoken. I might have known as even if he did come home rich, he'd
+find a way to even it up. And now look how he has evened it up. Think of
+your grandchildren; there won't be one of 'em able to ever look anybody
+straight in more'n one eye at once. Marrying Chinese is terrible,
+anyway--in some States it's forbidden. It's to be hoped Jathrop'll keep
+out of those States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."
+
+Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling,
+"Where are you, mother?"
+
+He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen.
+Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to a
+sudden halt.
+
+"We've been telling your--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"--mother about your wife," finished up Susan.
+
+Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my _wife_!" he
+repeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"
+
+"Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have been
+kinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've done
+it now."
+
+"Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed poor Mrs. Lathrop in
+heart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.
+
+"But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do you
+mean?"
+
+There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.
+
+"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who
+said I had one?"
+
+Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at
+Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.
+
+"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much
+longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as
+has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to
+be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."
+
+"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely
+bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
+
+Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was all
+right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the
+situation.
+
+"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.
+
+"To buy her with beads."
+
+"To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming
+exasperated.
+
+"Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as
+you brought with you and gave me to board."
+
+Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy--my boy,"
+he said.
+
+"Your boy!" said Susan.
+
+"Yes, my boy."
+
+Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity,
+and hopeless resignation.
+
+"Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I _did_ suppose you had some sense even in
+the view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to give
+up. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe your
+wife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that you believe that that is
+your boy--well!"
+
+Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macy
+wobbling in her wake.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY
+
+
+Susan Clegg and Mrs. Macy walked down to Mrs. Lathrop's gate, and out of
+her gate and to Miss Clegg's gate; the whole in a silence deadly and
+impressive. Mrs. Macy paused there.
+
+"I don't believe I'll come in," she said doubtfully.
+
+"I don't blame you," said Susan, "I wouldn't if it was me. Jathrop's
+boy, indeed! What kind of a man is it as'll have a Chinese family and go
+forcing them onto the true and long-tried friends of his one and only
+mother!"
+
+"I can't see why he didn't leave the boy in the Klondike," said Mrs.
+Macy slowly and reflectively. "I thought men always left their Chinese
+families just where they found 'em. It's strange Jathrop brought him
+home with him."
+
+"You see now what my dream meant," said Susan darkly, "a cat, indeed.
+It's small wonder I knew the cat was Jathrop Lathrop. Of all the mean,
+sly, creeping creatures that ever come up against the back of your legs
+sudden a cat is the worst. A snake is open and aboveboard beside a cat.
+You can see a snake. You don't see 'em often around here, thank heaven."
+
+"Well, we haven't seen Jathrop often around here for a long time," said
+Mrs. Macy, whose mind was as given to easy logical deduction as many of
+her mental caliber, "and we do see a lot of cats--you know that, Susan."
+
+"'How's Susan Clegg?'" quoted Susan in a tone of reflective wrath. "I
+don't know whether you know it or not, Mrs. Macy, but Jathrop asked
+after me in his letter to his mother, and him with a Chinese wife.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' What did he write that for if he was married, I'd
+like to know."
+
+"Maybe he wanted to know how you were," suggested Mrs. Macy.
+
+The look she received in recognition of this offered explanation led to
+her immediately proposing to go on home. "You've got the Chinaman to
+look after, anyhow," she added.
+
+"You'd better come in while I go up and look at him again," said Susan
+shortly. "It's a very strange sensation to be alone in your house with
+what you fully and freely take to your dead father's bed and board,
+supposing it's a wife, and then find out as it's her son instead. Come
+on in."
+
+Mrs. Macy was easily persuaded, and they thereupon went up the walk. "I
+guess I'll go see if he's still asleep," Susan said when they reached
+the piazza, and Mrs. Macy forthwith sat down to await what might come of
+it.
+
+Susan was absent but a few minutes; she returned with a fresh layer of
+disapproval upon her face.
+
+"Is he still sleeping?" Mrs. Macy asked.
+
+"Yes, he's still sleeping," Miss Clegg replied, jerking a chair forward
+for herself. "You'd know he was Jathrop Lathrop's child just by the way
+he sleeps. You remember what a one Jathrop always was for sleeping. I
+don't know as I remember Jathrop's ever being awake till he was fairly
+grown. Whatever you set him at always just made him more sleepy. You
+know yourself, Mrs. Macy, as he wouldn't be no grasshopper with Mrs.
+Lathrop for his mother, but a cocoon is a comet beside what Jathrop
+Lathrop always was. I don't know whether he's rich or not, but I do know
+that heathen Chinee is his son, and I know it just by the way he
+sleeps."
+
+"And so Jathrop's rich," said Mrs. Macy, rocking agreeably to and fro,
+and evidently striving toward more pleasant conversation.
+
+"Yes," said Susan darkly, "rich and with a Chinese wife somewhere. Just
+as often as I think of Jathrop Lathrop writing, 'How's Susan Clegg,'
+with a Chinese wife I feel more and more tempered, and I can't conceal
+my feelings. I never was one to conceal anything; if I had a Chinese
+wife the whole world might know it."
+
+Just here Gran'ma Mullins hove in sight, coming slowly and laboriously
+up the street.
+
+"Why, there's Gran'ma Mullins!" Mrs. Macy exclaimed. "She's surely
+coming to see you, too."
+
+Both ladies remained silent, watching the progress of Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+Gran'ma Mullins arrived a good deal out of breath. Susan brought a chair
+out of the house for her.
+
+"I come to--tell you," panted the new visitor as soon as she had
+attained unto the chair, "that Jathrop's--things is--coming."
+
+"What things?" asked Susan.
+
+"They all come on--the ten o'clock--from the junction; Hiram is helping
+unload."
+
+"What's he brought?" Susan asked.
+
+"Well, he's brought an automobile," said Gran'ma Mullins, "and a lot of
+other trunks and boxes."
+
+"An automobile!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy, "well, he _is_ rich then!"
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Susan, "some very poor folks is
+riding that way nowadays."
+
+"And he brought three trunks and seventeen big wooden boxes," continued
+Gran'ma Mullins, "big boxes."
+
+"Three trunks and sev-en-teen--Three trunks and sev-en--" Susan's voice
+faded into nothingness.
+
+"Goodness knows what's in them," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Hiram was
+getting so hot unloading that I wanted him to stop and let me fan him,
+but he wouldn't hear to it. Hiram's so brave. If he said he'd unload
+something, he'd unload it if he dropped dead under it and was smashed to
+nothing."
+
+There was a pause of unlimited bewilderment while Mrs. Macy and Susan
+raised Jathrop upon the pedestal erected by his three trunks, seventeen
+boxes and the automobile.
+
+"And to think of his having a Chinese wife," Susan exclaimed, the keen
+edge of sorrow cutting crossways through all her words.
+
+It was just here that Mrs. Lupey now appeared, approaching at a good
+pace. Mrs. Lupey was a large, imposing woman and wore a silk dolman with
+fringe. It was immediately necessary for the party to adjourn to the
+sitting-room, as the piazza was strictly limited.
+
+It was Mrs. Lupey who without loss of time did away with the Lathrop
+parentage of the young Chinese.
+
+"Why, he's his servant, of course," she said in a lofty scorn. "I'm
+surprised you didn't know that by his age."
+
+"I did think of his age," Susan said, "but I read once in some paper as
+the women in China get married when they're four years old, so you'd
+never be able to tell nothing by the age of no one there. Well, well,
+and so she isn't his wife, nor yet his son. Well, I'm glad--for Mrs.
+Lathrop's sake."
+
+"But if Jathrop's really got a automobile and seventeen trunks, he
+_must_ be awful rich," said Mrs. Macy. "It'll be a great thing for this
+town if Jathrop's rich. He'd ought to be very grateful to the place
+where his happy childhood memories run around barefoot."
+
+"Oh, he'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins, "it's easy to remember when
+you've got the money to do it. But I hope to heaven he won't set Hiram
+off on that track again. Hiram does so want to go away and make a
+fortune; I'm worried for fear he will all the time. And Lucy wants him
+to, too. I can't understand a woman as wants a fortune worse than she
+wants Hiram. Lucy doesn't seem to want Hiram 'round at all any more. If
+he's asleep, she starts right in making the bed the same as if he wasn't
+in it, and if she's sewing, he don't dare go within the length of her
+thread.
+
+"Life has come to a pretty pass when a wife'll run a needle into a
+husband just for the simple pleasure of feeling him go away when she
+sticks him." Gran'ma Mullins sighed.
+
+"I wonder what they're doing now!" Mrs. Macy said.
+
+All four turned at this and looked toward the Lathrop house together. It
+was quiet as usual.
+
+"I d'n know as it changes my opinion of Jathrop much, that being his
+servant," said Miss Clegg suddenly. "It's kind of different, his handing
+his wife or his son over to me; but his heathen Chinee servant! I don't
+know as I'm very pleased."
+
+"Pleased!" said Mrs. Lupey. "Why, in San Francisco they make 'em live
+underground like rats."
+
+"Maybe that was why you dreamed he was a cat, Susan?" suggested Mrs.
+Macy, whose brain seemed to grasp at the subject under consideration
+with special illumination.
+
+Susan rose. "I think you'd better go," she said abruptly, "I've got to
+get dinner. My mind's in no state to deal with all these sides of
+Jathrop and his Chinaman just now."
+
+What the day brought up the street and in and around Mrs. Lathrop's
+house would take too long to catalogue. Suffice it to say that poor Mrs.
+Lathrop, who had been for long years the veriest zero in the life of the
+community, became suddenly its center and apex.
+
+When Jathrop went to New York at the end of the week, he left his mother
+not only sitting, but rocking in the lap of luxury, with her head
+leaning back against more luxury and her feet braced firmly on yet more
+luxury. Even her friend over the way was rendered utterly content.
+
+And the pleasantest part of it all was the way that it affected Susan
+Clegg. As Susan sat by Mrs. Lathrop and turned upon her that tender gaze
+which one old friend may turn on another old friend when the latter's
+son has suddenly bloomed forth golden, her full heart found utterance
+thus:
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop--well, Mrs. Lathrop, I guess no one will ever doubt
+anything again. Talk about dreams, _now_! I dreamed Jathrop was a cat,
+and the reason was that it's a well-known fact that cats _always_ come
+back. Why, Mrs. Macy told me once how she chloroformed a cat, and put it
+in a flour sack with a stone, and put the sack in a hogshead of water,
+and put the cover on the hogshead, and put a stone--another stone--on
+that, and went to church to hear the minister preach on 'Do unto others
+as you do unto others,' and when she came back, the cat was asleep on
+top of the hogshead, and Mrs. Macy got the worst shock she ever got. So
+you can easy see why I dreamed Jathrop was a cat; and he _did_ come
+back.
+
+"I declare that'll always be the pleasantest recollection of my life,
+how I met him at the station and how we came chatting up the street
+together. How he has improved, Mrs. Lathrop--not but what he was always
+handsome! There was always something noble about Jathrop. Gran'ma
+Mullins said yesterday as he made her think of a man she saw in a play
+once as stood on his crossed legs in front of a fire and smoked. So
+careless.
+
+"And then his bringing Mrs. Macy that polar-bear skin! Mrs. Macy says if
+there was one spot in the whole wide world where she never expected to
+set foot it was on top of a polar bear, and now she can stand on her
+head on one if the fancy takes her. I saw the minister when I was down
+in the square to-night, and he told me not to speak of it, but he
+thought a service of prayer for any stocks and mines as Jathrop has
+would be the only fitting form of gratitude which a reverent and
+affectionate congregation might offer to the great and glorious
+generosity of him who is going to give us a steeple after all these
+years of finishing flat at the top. Mr. Kimball came out to tell me to
+ask you if you'd like some one to come regularly for your order, and he
+says he'll keep caviare from now on, just on the chance of Jathrop's
+being here to eat it; he says why he didn't keep it before was he
+thought it was a kind of chamois skin.
+
+"It's beautiful to see the faces down-town, Mrs. Lathrop; you never saw
+nothing like it. Everybody's just so happy. Hiram is grinning from ear
+to ear over being took to the Klondike, and everybody is swore to not
+let Gran'ma Mullins know he's going. He's going to climb out of the
+window at night and get away that way, and Gran'ma Mullins won't mind
+what she feels when he really does come back a millionaire, too. She'll
+be just like you, Mrs. Lathrop; no one minds anything once it's over.
+Little misunderstandings are easy forgot.
+
+"And to think there's been a blue automobile puffing at these very
+kitchen steps! To think you and me was over to Meadville and back
+between dinner and supper one day! I guess Mrs. Lupey never got such a
+start. She'd been all the morning getting home on the train and was only
+just putting her bonnet away in its box when we rolled up. I never
+enjoyed nothing like that roll up in all my life! I never see
+automobiles from the automobile's side before, but now I can. When a
+automobile goes over a duck it makes all the difference in the world
+whether it's your automobile or your duck.
+
+"And then Jathrop's generosity! Not but what he was always generous.
+Deacon White says he will say that for Jathrop, he was always generous.
+And look what he brought home. Every child in town is just about out of
+their senses. Felicia Hemans is crazy about the earrings, and 'Liza
+Em'ly won't never take off the bracelet. Mr. Shores can't keep the tears
+back when he looks at his watch charm. I think it was so kind of
+Jathrop. But Jathrop was always kind; you know yourself that a kinder
+creature never lived than Jathrop. I always said that for him.
+
+"And then his having a new fence built around the cemetery. It was
+thoughtful, and Judge Fitch says nobody can't say more. But Judge Fitch
+says Jathrop was always thoughtful; he says he's been interested in him
+always just for that very reason. Judge Fitch says Jathrop's nature was
+always that deep kind that's easy overlooked. He says he'll have to
+confess to his shame that some of the time he overlooked him himself. He
+says it's very difficult to understand a deep nature, because if a deep
+nature don't make money, there's hardly any way of ever knowing that it
+really was deep; people just think you're a fool then--like we always
+thought Jathrop was. You know, nobody ever thought he ever could amount
+to nothing. You know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop. But making money lets
+you see just what a person's got in 'em and see it plain.
+
+"I'm sure for all I've loved Jathrop as if he was going to be my own,
+for years and years and years, still I never credited him with being the
+man he is. I supposed he was a tramp somewhere--yes, I really did, Mrs.
+Lathrop, you may believe me or not, but that's just what I thought when
+I thought anything at all about him--which wasn't often.
+
+"Everybody in the whole place is busy remembering pleasant things about
+him now. The minister's wife remembers his coming to a Christmas tree
+once a long time ago when they both was little; she says she hasn't
+thought of it in thirty years, but she remembers it as plain as day
+now,--he had on a coat and a little tie.
+
+"And Gran'ma Mullins says she never will forget the day before he was
+born, for she went to town and dropped her little bead bag, and you know
+how much she thinks of her little bead bag now when the beads is all
+worn off, so you can think what store she set by it when the beads were
+still on, and so she was all back and forth along the road hunting for
+it the whole blessed afternoon, and when she found it and went home, she
+_was_ tired, and she slept late next morning because her husband was out
+very late the night before, and when he slept late she always slept
+late, 'cause she said sleeping late was almost the only treat he ever
+give her, and, anyhow, when they did wake up and get up and get out,
+there was Jathrop, and she says she shall never forget her joy over
+having found the bead bag again.
+
+"Mrs. Macy says she remembers the day he hid, and you thought he was in
+the cistern, and you was kneeling down looking in when he jumped out
+from behind the stove and give you such a start you went in head first.
+
+"I remember that day myself, too--father was insisting he was paralyzed
+then, and mother and me wouldn't take his word for it, and we fully
+expected he'd race over and help haul you out, but all he said was,
+'She'll have to manage the best she can--I'm paralyzed,' and we really
+began to believe him from then on.
+
+"The minister says he shall always remember how well he looked when he
+put on long trousers; the minister's preparing a little paper on Jathrop
+to read at the Sunday-school annual, and he says he shall begin with the
+day he put on long trousers and then mark his rise step by step. The
+minister's so pleased over Jathrop's patting Brunhilde Susan on the
+head; he says there are pats and pats, but that pat that Jathrop give
+Brunhilde Susan was what he calls, in pure and Biblical simplicity, _a_
+pat."
+
+Susan paused. Mrs. Lathrop just felt her diamond solitaires, glanced at
+the new kitchen range, and was silent.
+
+"And then, Mrs. Lathrop, that dear blessed little Chinese angel--I tell
+you I shall never forget that boy. I liked his face when I first laid
+eyes on him, and when I thought he was Jathrop's lawful wife, I loved
+him as I'd loved even a Chinaman if he was your daughter; but when I saw
+him cleaning up my sink, polishing my pans, washing out my cupboards and
+all that, just the same as yours, _then_ was when I see that a heathen
+Chinee has just the same right to go to heaven that anybody else has,
+and from then on I just trusted him completely and let him do every bit
+of the work till he left.
+
+"I see now why everybody's so happy being a missionary if you can just
+get away and live with the Chinee. I'd have kept that boy if Jathrop
+hadn't wanted him--I'd have been very glad to; and it's awful to think
+we're keeping quiet, lovable natures like his from settling here. A girl
+might do much worse than marry that Chinese--_very_ much worse. A very
+great deal worse. Though I suppose many would hesitate."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop rose, went to the cupboard, took out a bottle of homemade
+gooseberry wine, poured out a little, and took a sip. She did not offer
+any to Susan.
+
+"It'll do you good," said Susan encouragingly. "I don't like the taste
+myself, but it'll do you good. Besides, Mrs. Lathrop, you must begin to
+get used to it. When you go around with Jathrop in his private car,
+you'll have to drink wine, and if I was you, I'd stop tying a stocking
+around your neck nights, for you'll have to wear a very different cut of
+gowns soon. If Jathrop buys that yacht he's gone to look at, you'll have
+to wear a sailor blouse."
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop faintly, "oh, Susan, I--" Miss Clegg put her
+hastily back into her chair.
+
+"Never mind if it does make your head go 'round a little, Mrs. Lathrop;
+you must learn how. It may be hard, but it'll make Jathrop happy, and
+now he's come back rich, that's what everybody wants to do.
+
+"Mrs. Brown says next time he comes she's going to make him a jet-black
+pound-cake, and Mrs. Allen says she's going to work him a pincushion.
+She says it'll be a plain, simple token of affection, but those whom
+Fortune smiles on soon learn to know the true worth of a simple gift of
+purest love. She says no one has ever known how she loved Jathrop,
+'cause she kept it to herself for fear you'd think she was after him for
+Polly."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop rocked dreamily.
+
+Susan rose to go.
+
+"Don't--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I must," said Susan. "Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, think of his giving me those
+fifty shares of stock just on account of my long-suffering friendship
+for you. I declare he's a great character--that's all I can say.
+
+"I always had a feeling he'd end in some unusual way; when they started
+to lynch him, I thought that was the way, but now I see that this was
+the way, and I thank heaven that I wasn't right the other time and am
+right this time. For human nature is human nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+people are always kinder to a woman whose son comes home from the
+Klondike a millionaire than they are if they had the bother of lynching
+him, no matter how much he may have deserved it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop continued to finger her solitaire earrings in happy
+silence. Miss Clegg, who never exhibited any tenderness toward anything,
+went over and arranged the fold-over of her friend's gold-embroidered,
+silk-quilted kimono.
+
+"I'll be glad when your new hair gets here, Mrs. Lathrop," she said
+tenderly, "it'll make a different woman of you. It's astonishing what a
+little extra hair can do; I always feel that when I put on my wave.
+
+"You and me will have to be getting used to all kinds of new things now.
+And that beautiful dream of mine letting us know he was coming. Mrs.
+Brown says Amelia says the Egyptians worshipped cats and used to pickle
+them when they died.
+
+"It's astonishing how, if you know enough, you can see how any dream is
+full of meaning. There's Jathrop so fond of pickles, and you and me
+worshipping him. And he writing in every letter he has time to get
+somebody to write for him, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop lapsed into beatific slumber. Susan Clegg went quietly
+home.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH
+
+
+It was not in reason to suppose that the return of Jathrop Lathrop
+should continue to occupy wholly the attention of the community. Each
+week--even each day--brought its fresh interests. Not the least exciting
+of the provocative elements was borne back from the metropolis to which
+'Liza Em'ly, that hitherto negatively regarded olive branch of the
+ministerial family, had but recently emigrated. 'Liza Em'ly, it was
+whispered one day, had written a book.
+
+The Sewing Society, at its next meeting, discussed it, as a matter of
+course; and Susan Clegg, equally as a matter of course, promptly
+reported the proceedings to her friend and neighbor, Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well," she began, sitting down with the heavy thump of one who is
+completely and utterly overcome, "I give up. It's beyond me. I was to
+the Sewing Society, and it's beyond them all, too. The idea of 'Liza
+Em'ly's writing a book! No one can see how she ever come to think as she
+could write a book. No one can see where she got any ideas to put in a
+book. I don't know what any one thought she _would_ do when she set out
+for the city to earn her own living, but there wasn't a soul in town as
+expected her to do it, let alone writing a book, too. I can't see
+whatever gives any one the idea of earning their living by writing
+books. Books always seem so sort of unnecessary to me, anyway--I ain't
+read one myself in years. No one in this community ever does read, and
+that's what makes everybody so surprised over 'Liza Em'ly, after living
+among us so long and so steady, starting up all of a sudden and doing
+anything like this. And what makes it all the more surprising is she
+never said a word about it either--never wrote home to the family or
+told a living soul. And so you can maybe imagine the shock to the
+minister when he got word as his own flesh and blood daughter had not
+only written a book but got it all printed without consulting him. His
+wife says he was completely done up and could hardly speak for quite a
+little while, and later when the newspaper clippings begin to come, he
+had to go to bed and have a salt-water cloth over his eyes. I tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the minister is a very sensitive nature; it's no light
+thing to a sensitive nature to get a shock like a daughter's writing a
+book."
+
+"Is--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I should say that it was," said Miss Clegg. "I should say that it
+was. And not only is it being advertised, but people are buying it just
+like mad, the papers say. The minister is still more upset over that;
+seems the responsibilities of even being connected with books nowadays
+is no light thing. There was that man as was shot for what he wrote in
+a book the other day, you know, and the minister's wife says as the
+minister is most nervous over what may be in the book; she says he says
+very few books as everybody is reading ought to be read, and he knows
+what he's talking about, for he's a great reader himself. Why, his wife
+says he's got books hid all over the house, and she says--speaking
+confidentially--as he says most of 'em he's really very sorry he's
+read--after he's finished 'em. She says--he says he'll know no peace
+night or day now until he's read 'Liza Em'ly's book. I guess it's no
+wonder that he's nervous. 'Liza Em'ly's been a handful for years, and
+since she fell in love with Elijah, there's been just no managing her a
+_tall_. If Elijah'd loved her, of course it would have been different,
+but Elijah wasn't a energetic nature, and 'Liza Em'ly was, and when a
+energetic nature loves a man like Elijah, there's just no knowing where
+they will end up. I never see why Elijah didn't love 'Liza Em'ly, but
+her grandmother's nose has always been against her, and he told me
+himself as it was all he could think of when he sat quietly down to
+think about her. But all that's neither here nor there, for it's a far
+cry from a girl's nose to her brains nowadays, thank heavens, and 'Liza
+Em'ly's got something to balance her now. Polly White has sent for one
+of the books. She says she'll lend it around, no matter what's in it.
+Polly says there's one good thing in getting married, and that is it
+makes you a married woman, and being a married woman lets you read all
+kinds of books. I guess Polly's been a great reader since she was
+married. She's meant to get some good out of that situation, and she's
+done it. The deacon isn't so badly off, either. I wouldn't say that he's
+glad he's married all the time, but I guess some of the time he don't
+mind, and it's about all married people ask if only some of the time
+they can feel to not be sorry. A little let-up is a great relief."
+
+"You--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Miss Clegg, "but I pick up a good deal from others,
+and there's a feeling as married women have when they talk to a woman as
+they suppose can't possibly know anything just 'cause she never got into
+any of their troubles, as makes them show forth the truth very plainly.
+I won't say as married women strike me more and more as fools, for it
+wouldn't be kindly, but I will say as the way they revel in being
+married and saying how hard it is, kind of strikes me as amusing. _I_
+wouldn't go into a store and buy a dress and then, when every one knew
+as I picked it out myself, keep running around telling how it didn't fit
+and was tearing out in all the seams--but that's about what most of this
+marriage talk comes to. I do wonder what 'Liza Em'ly has said about
+marriage in _Deacon Tooker Talks_. That's a very funny name for a book,
+I think myself, but that's what she's named it. And as it seems to be
+about most everything, I suppose it must be about marriage, too. Of
+course 'Liza Em'ly's so wild to marry Elijah that everybody knows that
+that was what took her up to town. She didn't want to earn her living
+any more than any girl does. Nobody ever really aches to earn their
+living. But some has to, and some wants to be around with men, and there
+ain't no better way to be around with men nowadays than to go to work
+with 'em. You have 'em all day long then, and pretty soon you have 'em
+all the time. 'Liza Em'ly wants to have Elijah all the time."
+
+"What--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, she says she thinks they're so congenial; she told me herself as
+Elijah 'understood.' It seems to be a great thing to understand
+nowadays. It's another of those things we used to take for granted but
+which is now got new and uncommon and most remarkable. She told me when
+she and Elijah watched the sun setting together, they both understood,
+and she seemed to feel that that was a safe basis on which to set out
+for town and start in to earn her own living. The minister didn't want
+her to go. He was very much against it. It cost such a lot, too. The
+minister's wife said it would have been ever so much cheaper to fix a
+girl to get married. You can get married with six pairs of new
+stockings, the minister's wife says, and it takes a whole dozen with the
+heels run to earn your living. The minister's wife was very confidential
+with me about it all, and 'Liza Em'ly confided considerably in me, too.
+They both knew I'd never tell. Every one always confides in me because
+they know I never tell. Why, the things folks in this community have
+told me! Well!--But I _never_ tell. The real reason I never tell is
+because they always tell every one themselves before I can get around,
+but then a confiding nature is always telling its affairs, and so you
+can't really blame 'em. I never tell my own affairs, because I've
+learned as affairs is like love letters, and if they're interesting
+enough, it is very risky. But really, Mrs. Lathrop, I must be going now,
+and as soon as I get hold of that book, I'll be over with my opinion.
+_Deacon Tooker Talks!_ My, but that is a funny name for a book! I can't
+see myself what kind of a book it can possibly be with that title--but
+anyway, we shall soon know now."
+
+"Yes, we--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Susan, and the seance broke up for that day.
+
+It was resumed the day after, and the day after that, but no further
+progress having been made in the development of 'Liza Em'ly's affairs,
+that interesting topic remained in abeyance until after the next meeting
+of the Sewing Society, when the subject was put forward with emphasis.
+
+"You never hear the beat," said the lady who nearly always went to the
+Sewing Society to the lady who hadn't been there for years; "this book
+of 'Liza Em'ly's seems to be something just beyond belief. Polly read it
+all aloud to us to-day, and I must say it's a _most_ astonishing book. I
+will tell you in confidence, Mrs. Lathrop, as I ain't surprised that the
+minister hid his copy and that the newspapers is all printing things
+about it. Seems it's a man in bed talking to his wife who is asleep
+most of the time, only he don't pay the slightest attention to her not
+paying the slightest attention. Polly had the name right, it is _Deacon
+Tooker Talks_ (which is a _most_ singular name to my order of thinking).
+The cover has got a picture of the deacon's head on a pillow talking,
+and you can think how the minister would feel over his daughter's book's
+cover having a pillow on it! I walked home with Mrs. Fisher, and she
+will have it that 'Liza Em'ly's put her father into the book, soul and
+body. There's a man called Mr. Lexicon as is a lawyer in the book, and
+Mrs. Fisher says it's the minister. I wouldn't swear as it wasn't the
+minister myself, but I hate to believe it, for a girl as'll put her
+father in a book would be equal to most anything, I should suppose. But
+Mrs. Fisher's sure it's the minister; she says she knew him right off by
+his ear-muffs. Only 'Liza Em'ly has disguised the ear-muffs by calling
+them overshoes. Mr. Lexicon has always got on his overshoes. Mrs.
+Fisher waited until we got away from all the rest, and then she showed
+me a review from a New York paper that just took my breath away. It says
+no such book has appeared before a welcoming public in two hundred and
+fifty years, and she's going to write the paper and ask what the book
+two hundred and fifty years ago was about. Mrs. Fisher says she's
+thinking very seriously of writing a book herself. She says she's always
+wanted to write a book, and now she thinks she'll go up to town and see
+'Liza Em'ly and ask her about their writing a book together. She says
+she'll furnish all the story, and 'Liza Em'ly can write the book. Then
+they'll divide the money even. And there'll be money to divide, too, for
+'Liza Em'ly's book is surely selling. Mrs. Macy come up after Mrs.
+Fisher went home, and she had a piece out of another newspaper that Mrs.
+Lupey sent her, saying the book was in its ninth edition already. She
+had it with her at the Sewing Society, but she didn't bring it out, out
+of consideration for the feelings of the minister's wife. Mrs. Macy
+says she thinks she'll write a book, too. She's got the same idea as
+Mrs. Fisher about writing it with 'Liza Em'ly, only she says she'll let
+'Liza Em'ly use some of her own ideas mixed in with Mrs. Macy's ideas,
+and she can have two thirds of the money. She says it can't be hard to
+write a book, or 'Liza Em'ly couldn't never have done it, but she says
+'Liza Em'ly has got the Fishers in her book, and she's surprised Mrs.
+Fisher didn't recognize 'em at the Sewing Society. 'Liza Em'ly calls 'em
+the Hunters. Fishers, hunters--you see! An' John Bunyan she calls Martin
+Luther, an' in place of being a genius, she covered that all up by
+making him a painter. Laws, Mrs. Macy says writing a book's easy. She
+says that book of 'Liza Em'ly's is really too flat for words, and what
+makes people buy it, she can't see. Well, I shan't buy a copy, I know
+_that_. I ain't knowed 'Liza Em'ly all my life to go doing things like
+that now."
+
+With which very common view as to the works produced by our intimate
+friends, Miss Clegg rose to take her departure.
+
+"Did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, when they next met.
+
+"No--I asked, but not a soul knew. We haven't got _any_ man in town as
+it could _possibly_ be. They was all discussing it, too. Mrs. Macy and
+Mrs. Fisher is really going to town to see 'Liza Em'ly and take up their
+ideas to talk over. Mrs. Macy is putting her ideas down on a piece of
+paper, so as to be sure she has 'em with her. Mrs. Fisher's keeping hers
+in her head, for she says if she lost them, anybody might write her
+book. They think they'll go Tuesday. I hope they will, 'cause if they
+do, they'll come straight from the train and tell me, and then I'll come
+straight over and tell you."
+
+With which amicable arrangement Miss Clegg again took her departure.
+
+It was quite two weeks before affairs shaped themselves for Mrs. Macy
+and Mrs. Fisher to go to the city on their literary errand, but they
+managed it at last, and you may be very sure that Mrs. Lathrop peeked
+eagerly and earnestly out of her window many times the afternoon after
+their journey. They came up to call upon Miss Clegg and narrate their
+adventures quite according to their usual friendly ideals, and directly
+they took their leave that good lady hied herself rapidly to Mrs.
+Lathrop to tell the tale.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop met her at the door and both sank into chairs immediately.
+
+"Well, what--" said the older lady then, and her younger friend rejoined
+promptly:
+
+"Perfectly dumfounding; nothing like it was ever knowed before or ever
+will be again."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They're both completely paralyzed. Mrs. Fisher can't say a word, and
+Mrs. Macy can't keep still."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop again.
+
+Miss Clegg drew a sharp breath. "They went to see 'Liza Em'ly, an' they
+saw her. My goodness heavens, I should think they did see her. Mrs.
+Macy says if any one ever supposed as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was
+any wonder, they'd ought to go to the city an' see 'Liza Em'ly, and the
+Hanging Gardens would keep their mouths shut forever after."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop for the third time.
+
+But Miss Clegg was now quite ready to discharge her full duty. "Seems
+'Liza Em'ly's book went into the twentieth edition yesterday," she said,
+opening her eyes and mouth with great expressiveness. "They knew that
+before they got there, for you can believe Mrs. Macy or not, just as you
+please, Mrs. Lathrop, but there were actually signboards saying so stuck
+up all along in the fields as the train went by. The train-boy had the
+books for sale on the train, too, and kept dropping 'em on top of 'em
+all the way, but they didn't mind that, for Mrs. Fisher read her book as
+fast as she could until he picked it up again, and she read to good
+purpose, for this afternoon she asked for a glass of water, and while I
+was out with her in the kitchen getting it, she told me there isn't a
+mite of doubt but Mrs. Macy is in the book, and Doctor Carter of
+Meadville is in right along with her. Mrs. Fisher says 'Liza Em'ly has
+called her Miss Grace and him Doctor Wagner of Lemonadetown, but she
+says she knew 'em instantly by the description of how they was in love;
+she says you'd recognize how they was in love right off. I must say,
+Mrs. Lathrop, as I think 'Liza Em'ly ought to be very careful what she
+writes about real people if you can tell 'em as quick as that; but
+anyway, they got to town and took a street car, and then, lo and behold,
+if their first little surprise wasn't the finding as 'Liza Em'ly has
+stopped living where she lives and gone to live in a hotel, so they had
+to go to the hotel, too, and when they got there, what do you think?--If
+'Liza Em'ly wasn't giving a reception to celebrate the twentieth
+edition!"
+
+"Wh--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg, "certainly--yes, I should say so,
+too. If they didn't get a fine shock over 'Liza Em'ly and her hotel and
+her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she'll never know what
+a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a
+elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before
+they'd caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room
+with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in
+the middle, passing cups of tea which a lady, with her muff on her head,
+was pouring out, while 'Liza Em'ly sat on a table swinging her feet in
+shoes she never bought in _this_ town, Mrs. Macy'll take her Bible oath,
+and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, that isn't anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs.
+Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two
+perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a
+kind of a party! One man and one girl was under the piano playing cat's
+cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a
+hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn't have been surprised at nothing after
+that, you'd think, but she says when it comes to 'Liza Em'ly nowadays,
+you don't know even what you're thinkin', for you'd suppose 'Liza Em'ly
+would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of
+that, she just clapped her hands and said, 'Hello, home-folks,' which
+nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and _he_
+had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn't look anywhere
+near as used up as in Mrs. Macy's opinion a man away from business with
+his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought
+to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young
+lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully
+powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then
+there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they'd
+both jumped and Mrs. Macy come near dislocating her hip, they see that
+a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says _such_
+piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared
+hereafter; she says he'd skitter up the piano with both hands, and then
+he'd bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the
+very bottom, he'd give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair
+over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose
+hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more
+till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and
+then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and
+folded his arms and was done."
+
+"Mercy on--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody
+clapped like mad, and then 'Liza Em'ly come to earth and went and threw
+her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy's order of thinking, didn't
+look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they
+could shake hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a
+lot of telegrams on a tray, and while 'Liza Em'ly was fixing half a
+spectacle in one eye to read 'em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins,
+and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their
+two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin
+about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs.
+Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed 'em to the
+door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all
+three and 'Liza Em'ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till
+somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then
+till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they
+looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak,
+and then they came home."
+
+"Well, wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it's _awful_! And the worst of it is for
+her to be the minister's daughter. Think of it! They bought a paper as
+had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they'd just been
+at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now,
+and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they
+ain't much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they
+see posters of _Deacon Tooker Talks_, and people in the cars was all
+discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text
+to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds
+with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."
+
+"Well, wha--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Clegg. "The book's made right out of this
+community, and since I've read it myself, I can see who every one is
+_except_ Deacon Tooker. I can't see who Deacon Tooker is, for we haven't
+got anybody like him. He's talking the whole time; in fact, the book is
+all what he says about everything, and all his wife ever does is to wake
+up when he shakes her and then go to sleep again. The idea's very
+remarkable of a man laying awake chattering to himself all night long,
+but I never heard of any such person here. Our only deacon is Deacon
+White, and he never talks a _tall_."
+
+"I wonder if the min--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, I don't believe so," said Miss Clegg. "My goodness, suppose he did
+and hit something like they did! No, I hope he won't ever think of it,
+and as for 'Liza Em'ly, I hope she'll remember her married father and
+mother soon and remember her quiet and loving home, too, before she gets
+in the habit of having parties like that very often. My gracious, think
+of going to call on a girl as you see christened and having a snake-lady
+gartering her way up your leg while you were trying to say good-by and
+get away alive. Mrs. Macy says the creature was diving here and
+wriggling there and slipping under tables and over chairs in a way as
+made your flesh go creeping right after her. Well, it's clear 'Liza
+Em'ly's started on a most singular career. Mrs. Macy says first they
+give her a sandwich with a bow of ribbon on it, and she swallowed the
+ribbon; and then they give her a piece out of a cake that they said had
+a lucky quarter in it, and she's almost sure she swallowed the quarter,
+so maybe she was prejudiced."
+
+"Well, I--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They felt the same way," said Miss Clegg; "they've come home very much
+used up. Mrs. Macy says you can talk to her about the days of ancient
+Rome and the way folks act underground in Paris, but she says she knows
+positively as what she and Mrs. Fisher saw with their own eyes in 'Liza
+Em'ly's sitting-room beat all those kind of little circuses hollow. Mrs.
+Macy says she's seen enough of what they call high life now to last her
+till she dies of shame. She says the only bright spot in the whole thing
+is as 'Liza Em'ly's nose isn't anywhere near as prominent as you'd think
+any more, and she's got a automobile and is going to Europe when the
+book goes into its fiftieth edition."
+
+"Well--I--" mused Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, and I will, too," said Miss Clegg. "I'll go straight home and do
+it. I'm awful tired. And it bothers me more than I like to own not
+knowing who Deacon Tooker is. You know my nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+although I was never one to try to find out things nor to talk about 'em
+after I've managed to find 'em out, still I never was one to like not to
+know things, and I must say I do want to know who Deacon Tooker is.
+Well, they say all things comes to him who waits, so I think I won't
+stop here any longer. Good-by, and when I do find out, you can count on
+my coming right over to tell you."
+
+"Goo--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+But Miss Clegg had shut the door after her.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"
+
+
+There was nothing small or mean or economical about Jathrop Lathrop, now
+that he had turned out rich. He was the soul of generosity, the epitome
+of liberality, the concentrated essence of filial devotion as expressed
+in checks and carte-blanche orders directed at his mother.
+
+One of his earliest kind thoughts was to have Mrs. Lathrop's home
+completely modernized, and as Susan Clegg lived next door and was his
+mother's best and dearest friend, he decided to build her house over,
+too.
+
+To that end he hunted up the highest-priced architect of whom he could
+hear and asked to have designs submitted forthwith. The highest-priced
+architect readily undertook the reconstruction of the Lathrop and Clegg
+domiciles, but being too occupied to go down into the country and look
+over the field personally, he delegated one of his youngest and most
+promising assistants to accomplish the task, and the young and promising
+assistant forthwith packed his dress-suit case and set off.
+
+He was an assistant of most extraordinary youth and almost unbelievable
+promise, and he saw a chance to plan colleges (endowed by J. Lathrop,
+Esq.), palaces (to be built for Lathrop, the millionaire), possibly to
+be commissioned with the overseeing of the artistic development of some
+new, up-springing city (Lathropville, Alaska, or something of that
+sort), if he should only succeed in at once accomplishing a close union
+of feeling with the golden offspring of our old friend. His first really
+rich client is to a young débutant in bricks just what a well-hung
+picture is to the budding artist, or a song before royalty is to a
+singer. Such being the well-known facts of life the young and promising
+assistant fully intended to do himself proud in the reconstruction of
+the two houses consigned by Jathrop's benevolence to his tender mercies.
+
+The young architect came to town and went to the hotel (at Jathrop's
+expense). He spent the next ten days in going twice each day to study
+his task, sketch its realities and idealities, and also make the
+acquaintance of Mrs. Lathrop and Susan Clegg, for he was a young man of
+new and novel ideas, and one of his newest and most novel ideas was to
+build a house which would really suit those who were to live in it. He
+was so young that he had no conception as to how this was to be done,
+nor the faintest inkling as to what a Titanic-crossed-with-Promethean
+undertaking it would be to do, if even he did know how; but he felt--and
+most truly--that it was a new view of the relation between house and
+builder, and he felt proud over having thought it out for himself as
+well as for all time to come. Then he had another novel idea--not so
+altogether his own, however--which was that a house should "express its
+dweller." This latter idea was quite beyond the grasp of his present
+audience and just a little beyond his own grasp, too, but he was brave
+and conscientious and didn't see it that way at all.
+
+It has taken some time to lay out all these premises, but if there is
+any one with whom one can desire close acquaintance it is surely the man
+who comes to build over a comfortable and in-most-ways-satisfactory home
+of long years' standing, so I trust that the minutes have not been
+altogether wasted.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Clegg received the young man and his mission in
+such states of mind as were entirely compatible with their individual
+outlook over life.
+
+"I must say I'm far from altogether liking him," Susan said to her
+friend, a very real note of disapproval in her voice, one day toward the
+end of the week. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking in her new old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker and listened as usual with interest. "He's on the
+woodpile now, drawing a three-quarter profile of the woodshed. The way
+he perches anywhere and then goes to work and draws anything would
+surely make an English snail pull his castle right into his house along
+with him, for I've got a feeling as there's nothing about me as he
+hasn't got in his book by this time, and there's many things he's drawn
+as I never would choose to have the world in general looking over. I'm
+sure I don't want no view of my woodshed going down to posterity for one
+thing. I've had to have a woodshed, but I've never admired it, and the
+way I've nailed anything handy over holes in it is far from my usual way
+of mending. You've always mended 'hit or miss,' Mrs. Lathrop, and after
+years of such doings as was more worthy a poorhouse than a Christian,
+heaven has seen fit to reward your patching with a son fresh from the
+Klondike, but I've always darned blue with blue and brown with brown,
+and the only spot in my whole life that I haven't carefully and neatly
+matched the stripes in is my woodshed, and now to-day when I was
+thinking very seriously of using it up for the kitchen-stove next
+winter, if there isn't a young man from New York out drawing it in black
+and white, and ten to one he'll print it in some unexpected Sunday paper
+marked 'Jathrop Lathrop's mother's friend Susan Clegg's woodshed!'
+That'll be a pretty kettle of fish, and you needn't tell me that there
+won't be somebody to perk up and say, 'No smoke without some fire,'
+which will be as good as throwing it in my teeth that I'm one of those
+as use a safety pin when a button's off, when it's a thing as I've never
+done and never would do even if there is a proverb that a pin's a pin
+for all that."
+
+Susan paused here and looked upon her friend in serious question. Mrs.
+Lathrop, however, merely continued to rock pleasantly. A change had come
+over the spirit of her rocking since the return of Jathrop. She had
+rocked for years with a more or less apologetic air, as if she knew that
+there were those who might criticize her action and yet she couldn't
+personally feel that she really ought to give it up. But now she rocked
+with a wide, free swing as if life was life and if she liked to rock,
+she was going to rock, and if there were those who objected, they could
+object--she didn't care. There is nothing that so quickly develops an
+independent standpoint as the possession of money; there is nothing that
+so fully produces a conviction that one is thoroughly justified in doing
+just exactly what one pleases; there is nothing that leads to quite the
+same lofty indifference as to whether what pleases one pleases or
+displeases all the rest of the world.
+
+We have but to look at Jathrop to see that this is true. Of all the
+tame, mild-eyed, listless young individuals, Jathrop was the worst,
+falling asleep on an average of three times an afternoon in school, and
+never keeping conscious a whole evening. Whether a sudden change in
+Jathrop's character was the cause of making him a financial power or
+whether his Klondike-acquired bank account was the cause of his
+awakening, it still is a fact that now in his quiet way he was a very
+live person.
+
+Jathrop was indifferent to a degree, also, as witness his appearance
+with his Chinese boy whom everybody took to be his wife with his great
+baggy trousers and pigtail that no respectable boy, Chinese or
+otherwise, should wear. Of course, it must be acceded that Jathrop was
+indifferent in that case from ignorance. He did not know what the world
+was saying.
+
+Perhaps that accounts for the lofty attitude, one might say lofty
+altitude, of so many of our millionaires. They are so far removed from
+the world that their ears cannot hear what is being said. People talk in
+whispers about the "very rich," which makes it doubly hard for them to
+hear, or hearing, to think that it matters very much, else people would
+shout. However, when all is said, money does make a difference.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop had been a silent, sat-upon, unaggressively-rocking person
+for years; now Jathrop had come back from the Klondike and altered all
+that; it was not that she had turned talkative, it was not that she had
+so far altered the very foundations of her being as to presume ever to
+try to contradict any other body's opinions, but the return of Jathrop
+and the wealth of Jathrop had found expression in his mother through the
+one medium of almost all expression with her. Mrs. Lathrop had ceased to
+concern herself as to the length or the vigor of her rocking. It was
+beautiful to see the energy of independence with which she went back and
+forth, bringing her feet down with an audible clap whenever she desired
+fresh impetus.
+
+Susan Clegg did not seem to sympathize. Instead, sitting on her straight
+chair opposite, she shook her head severely, further discontent making
+itself visible in the manner of her shake.
+
+But Mrs. Lathrop was proof against all manifestations of disapproval
+now. She flew back and forth in the old-gold-plush stationary rocker
+like the happy pendulum of some beatific clock. Jathrop was home.
+Jathrop was rich. Jathrop would buy her anything she wanted.
+
+"I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop," Susan went on, the discontent
+ringing somewhat more distinctly in her tone, "as I'm much taken with
+this idea of building us over, even if Jathrop does mean it kindly. I
+know there's a many as would nigh to go out of their senses at the very
+idea of being made over new for nothing, but I was never one to go out
+of my senses easy, and that young man on the woodpile doesn't give me
+any kind of secure feeling as to what he'll make out of my house. He
+looks to me like the kind of young man as will open doors square across
+windows where the knob'll smash the glass sure if you're trying to carry
+a bureau out at the time of the house-cleaning. The kind of cravats he's
+got looks to me like his chimneys would be very likely not to draw, and
+their color gives me a feeling that doughnuts in his house will smell in
+shut-up closets a week after the frying. You know what shut-up fryings
+is like after they've had no fresh air for a week, but I wasn't raised
+that way. When I have fish I have fish and done with it, and when I have
+onions I have onions, and I ain't very wild over maybe boarding my fish
+and my onions in my best bonnet henceforth and forever.
+
+"Mrs. Brown was telling me yesterday as she heard of some city woman as
+had a system of ventilation put into her house, and the rats and mice
+used it so freely that you couldn't sleep nights. They nested in it, and
+they fought in it, and they died in it, all as happy and gay as you
+please, and the family had to have it picked out of the walls in the end
+and all new paper put on. That's the kind of ideas young men call modern
+improvements, and that young man on the woodpile is about as modern and
+improving as they make 'em, I take it.
+
+"I can't say what it is about that young man that I don't like, but,
+being as I'm always frank and open with you, I will remark that so far I
+ain't found one thing about him as I _do_ like. He's been down cellar
+hammering on the wall wherever the wind blew him to listeth to hammer,
+and I had to sit up-stairs and listen without no chance to blow myself.
+I caught him down on all fours this morning peeking under my front
+porch, and he didn't even have the manners to blush. As to the way he
+makes free with the outside of _your_ house, I wouldn't waste breath
+with trying to tell you, but my own feeling is that an architect learns
+his trade on a tight-rope to judge from that young man's manner, and
+from what I've seen while he was swinging by one arm from your premises,
+I wouldn't feel safe to take a bath even on top of a chimney, myself."
+
+Susan rose at this and went to the window and looked out; from her
+expression as she turned, it was plain to be seen that the artist was
+still at his task.
+
+"I don't know, Mrs. Lathrop," she said, coming back to her seat, "I d'n
+know, I'm sure, as I'm took with this idea a _tall_. I never was one for
+favors either given or asked, and although I know this isn't no favor,
+but just a evidence of what I've been through with you first and last,
+still it's done in spite of me and I've got no feeling that I'm going to
+enjoy it. There's something about kindness as is always most trying to
+the people who've got no choice but to stand up and be tried. People who
+get freely given to is in the habit of getting what they don't want and
+can't use, but I ain't. I'm very far from it. There's nothing in me
+that's going to be pleased with getting a green hat when I needed a pink
+coat--no, sir.
+
+"And I don't need nothing. Or if I do, I can buy it. I know Jathrop
+means it kindly, but Jathrop can't enter into my ways of thinking.
+Jathrop is looking into life from the Klondike gold-fields and I'm
+looking at it from my back stoop. That young man was out swishing his
+pocket handkerchief about and sucking his thumb and holding it up all
+yesterday afternoon, and about the time I'd made up my mind to bolt him
+out of the kitchen for a lunatic, he come in and told me he really
+thought there was wind enough in your back yard and my back yard
+together to run a windmill, in which case a water system could be easy
+inaugurated. I told him I didn't know you could inaugurate anything but
+a president, but he said anything as you hadn't had before and thought
+was going to work fine and be a great improvement could be inaugurated.
+I told him I supposed I could stand a windmill if you could.
+
+"What do you think--what _do_ you think, Mrs. Lathrop, if that young man
+didn't ask if he might go and look up the parlor fireplace! Well, I told
+him he could, and I give him a newspaper to shake his head on after he
+was done looking, too. He's been in my garret until I bet he knows every
+trunk label by heart, and I must say I feel as if I'd have very little
+of my own affairs to tell on Judgment Day if he gets dressed and out of
+his grave quicker than I get dressed and out of mine. But that isn't
+all, whatever you may think. There's a many other things about him as I
+don't like and don't like a _tall_.
+
+"For one thing, he's got a way of looking around as if it was my house
+that was the main thing and I was the last and smallest piece of
+cross-paper tied in the kite's tail. To my order of thinking, that's a
+far from polite way for a young man as Jathrop's hiring and boarding to
+look on a woman whose house he may thank his lucky stars if he may get
+the chance to build over. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says architects is
+all like that, but I'm far from seeing why. I don't consider that young
+man superior a _tall_. I consider his brains as very far from being
+equal to my own. When he asks me to hold the other end of his tape-line
+and does it just as if a pin would do as well, only I was handier at the
+moment, I'm very far from feeling flattered. I never saw just such a
+young man before, and when I think of being delivered up to him--house
+and all--for the summer, I'm also very far from feeling easy. I d'n
+know, I'm sure, what will be the end of this, but I do know that it
+looks to me like a pretty bad business."
+
+Susan paused again and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop just
+rocked onward. Life had widened so tremendously for her that she
+couldn't possibly be perturbed in any way or by anything. If the roof
+fell in, Jathrop would buy her another, and if she were smashed by it,
+Jathrop would have her put together again. Why worry?
+
+The young man remained ten days in all, and when his visit of
+investigation was completed, he returned to New York. Jathrop took him
+to the Lotus Club to wash and to the Yacht Club to lunch and to
+Claremont in the afternoon (in his motor), and they talked it all over.
+The young man had his sketches, ideas, ideals, and plans all tied into a
+neat patent cover with cost-estimates lightly glued in the back. Jathrop
+was deeply interested, and the young man expounded the inmost soul of
+all his measurements and proposed altitudes and alterations. The young
+man reminded Jathrop of his pertinent hypothesis that a house should
+express its owner. Jathrop's own view of "express" was that if you
+could pay the bill, it beat freighting all out of sight, but he felt
+that perhaps the young man meant something different, so he merely gave
+him a cigar.
+
+The young man took the cigar and proceeded to elucidate his hypothesis
+by explaining that, having carefully studied both Mrs. Lathrop and Miss
+Clegg, he should suggest that Miss Clegg's house express her by being
+severely Doric and that Mrs. Lathrop's should be rambling and Queen Anne
+with wide, free floor spaces. He further suggested a hyena-headed
+door-knocker for Miss Clegg and an electric button to press, so that the
+door opened of itself for Mrs. Lathrop. Also a roofless pergola to
+connect the two houses. Jathrop liked all his ideas and sketches very
+much, but as he was really good-hearted and had not the least desire to
+present green hats to those who wanted pink coats, he had the whole book
+sent down to his mother and begged her to carefully inspect it in
+company with Susan Clegg. They inspected it.
+
+"Well," said Susan, "all I can say is I'll have to carry this book home
+and sit down and try and make out what he _does_ mean. He's done it very
+neat, that I will say, but between crosses and dotted lines and your
+house behind mine like two Roman emperors on a cameo pin, I can't make
+head or tail of what's going to be done to either of us. I can't even
+find my own house in this plan on some pages, and as for this bird-cage
+walk that I'm supposed to run back and forth in like a polar bear in a
+circus all day long, my own opinion is that if it's got no roof, it's
+going to be very hard indeed about the snow in winter, for I'll have to
+carry every single solitary shovelful to one end or the other so as to
+throw it out of either your kitchen window or mine. That's all the good
+that will do us."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop swung to and fro, totally unconcerned. No sort of
+proposition could disconcert her now. If the house when built over
+proved a failure, Jathrop would build her another.
+
+Susan took the prettily-bound portfolio home with her and spent the
+evening over it. She studied it profoundly and to some purpose, for the
+next morning when she brought it back to Mrs. Lathrop, it held but few
+secrets, other than those of a purely technical character, for her.
+
+"I've been all through it," she said to her friend, "and now I can't
+really tell what I think a _tall_. But this I _do_ know, if we ever
+really get these houses, I will be running back and forth from dawn to
+dark through that wire tunnel in a way as'll make the liveliest polar
+bear that ever kept taking a fresh turn look like a petrified tree
+beside me. Why, only to keep the conveniences he's got put in scoured
+bright would take me all of every morning in my house, to say nothing of
+wiping up the floors, for Jathrop isn't intending to buy us no carpets
+ever. We're to sit around on cherry when we ain't on Georgia pine, and
+he's got every mantelpiece marked with the kind of wood we're to burn in
+it, and he's been kind enough to tell us what colored china we're to
+use in each bedroom. We're to shoot our clothes into the cellar through
+a hole from up-stairs and wash 'em there in those two square boxes as we
+couldn't make out. That thing I read 'angle-hook' is a 'inglenook,' and
+so far from sitting in it to fish we're to set in it to look at the
+fire, if we can get any mahogany to burn in that particular fireplace.
+
+"Those fans are stairs, we're to go up 'em the way the arrow points, and
+heaven knows where or how we're to get down again. What we thought was
+beds is closets, and what we thought was closets is beds, and it's
+evident with all his hopping and hanging he didn't really charge his
+mind with us a _tall_, for he's got a bedroom in your house marked 'Mr.
+Lathrop,' when the last bit of real thought would have made him just
+_have_ to remember as you're a widow. He's give me a sewing-room when he
+must have seen that I always do my mending in the kitchen, and he's give
+us each enough places to wash to keep the whole community clean. I must
+say he's tried to be fair, for he's give both houses the same number of
+rooms and the same names to each room. We've each got a summer kitchen,
+but he left the spring and autumn to scratch along anyhow; we've each
+got a bathtub, and we've each got a china-closet as well as a pantry,
+which shows he had very little observation of the way _you_ keep things
+in order."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop absorbed all this with the happy calm of a contented (and
+rocking) sponge.
+
+"But what takes me is the way he's not only got a finger, but has just
+smashed both hands, into every pie on the place," Susan continued. "He's
+moved the chicken-house and give us each a horse and give the cow a calf
+without even so much as 'by your leave.' I don't know which will be the
+most surprised if this plan comes true--me with my horse, or the cow
+finding herself with a calf in the fall as well as the spring this year.
+Then it beats me where he's going to get all his trees, for both houses
+is a blooming bower, and the way tree-toads will sing me to sleep shows
+he's had no close friends in the country. Trees brushing your window
+mean mosquitos at night and spiders whenever they feel so disposed. And
+that ain't all, whatever you may think, for you haven't got a
+window-pane over four inches square and, as every window has fifty-six
+of them, I see your windows going dirty till out of very shame I get 'em
+washed for your funeral. And that ain't all, whatever you may think,
+either, for the snow is going to lodge all around all those little
+gables and inglenooks he's trimmed your roof with, and you'll leak
+before six months goes by, or I'll lose my guess."
+
+But it was impossible to impress Mrs. Lathrop. If things leaked, Jathrop
+would have them mended. She just rocked and rocked.
+
+"I don't know what to write Jathrop about these plans," Susan Clegg said
+slowly. "Of course, I've got to write him something, and I declare I
+don't know what to say. He means it kindly, and there's nothing in the
+wide world that makes things so hard as when people mean kindly. You can
+do all sorts of things when people is enemies, but when any one means
+anything kindly, you've got to eat it if it kills you. Mrs. Allen was
+telling me the other day that since she's took a vow to do one good
+action daily, she's lost most all of her friends.
+
+"That just shows how people feel about being grabbed by the neck and
+held under till you feel you've done enough good to 'em. Jathrop means
+this well, but I've got a feeling as we'll go through a great deal of
+misery being built over, and I really don't think we'll be so much
+better off after we've survived. You'll have to be torn right down, and
+the day that that young man was up on my porch post, he said he couldn't
+be positive that I'd keep even my north wall. He pounded it all over in
+the dining-room until the paper was a sight, and then when he saw how
+very far from pleased I was, he tried to get out of it by saying the
+wall would have to come down, anyhow. I think he saw toward the last
+that he'd gone too far in a many little ways. I didn't like his taking
+the hens off their nests to measure how wide the henhouse was. I
+consider a hen is one woman when she's seated at work and had ought not
+to be called off by any man alive. But, laws, that young man wasn't any
+respecter of work or hens or anything else! He called himself an artist,
+and since I've been studying these plans, I've begun to think as he was
+really telling the truth, for artists is all crazy, and anything crazier
+than these plans I never did see. Not content with having us wash in the
+sink and the cellar, we're to wash under the front stairs, too, not to
+speak of all but swimming up-stairs."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop just smiled and rocked more.
+
+"I'm not in favor of it," said Miss Clegg, rising to go. "I don't
+believe it'll be any real advantage. We'll be like the Indians that die
+as soon as you civilize 'em--that's what we'll be. The windmill will
+keep us awake nights, and you don't use any water to speak of, anyhow.
+So I don't see why I should be kept awake. As for that laughing tiger
+he's give me on my front door, I just won't have it, and that's all
+there is about it. A laughing tiger's no kind of a welcome to people you
+want, and when people come that I don't want, I don't need no tiger to
+let 'em know it. No, I never took to that young man, and I don't take to
+his plans. I don't like those four pillars across my front any more than
+I do that mouse-hole without a roof that he's give me to go to you in. I
+consider it a very poor compliment to you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he's fixed
+it so if I once start to go to see you, I've got to keep on, for I can't
+possibly get out so to go nowhere else."
+
+Susan Clegg paused. Mrs. Lathrop rocked.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Clegg, impatiently.
+
+But Mrs. Lathrop just rocked. If Susan didn't like it, she needn't like
+it. Jathrop would pay the bill.
+
+Susan Clegg went home, her mind still unconvinced.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED
+
+
+Many things against which we protest bitterly at first we eventually
+come to accept and possibly even to enjoy. It was that way, to a degree
+at least, with the reconstruction of the houses of Susan Clegg and her
+friend Mrs. Lathrop, neither lady being particularly charmed with the
+idea when it was originally presented, and Miss Clegg being even frankly
+displeased with the plans that were sent down for approval. But the
+plans were accepted, nevertheless, after some alterations, and by easy
+stages Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop arrived at that degree of philosophy
+which enabled them to face with commendable composure the fact that they
+must vacate their dwellings for an indefinitely extended period.
+
+It was not that Miss Clegg had ceased to entertain doubts as to the
+advisability of "being renovated," nor was it that Mrs. Lathrop looked
+forward gladly to a temporary transplanting of herself and her rocker.
+But Jathrop's glory as a millionaire was now so strongly to the fore in
+their minds that both bowed, more or less resignedly, to his wishes.
+
+"I must say I d'n know how this thing is going to work out in the end,"
+Susan observed to Mrs. Lathrop, as the date set for the beginning of the
+work drew nearer. "I'm against it myself, but I ain't against Jathrop,
+so I'm giving up my views just to see what will happen. My own opinion
+is as it's all very well to build over most anything, but if your house
+is to be built over, you've got to get out of it, and I must say as I
+don't just see as yet when we get out of our houses what we're going to
+get into. Jathrop says we can go to the hotel, and that he'll pay the
+bill. Well, I must say it's good he'd pay the bill, for I'd never go to
+any hotel if somebody else didn't pay the bill--I know that. But even
+if I haven't got the bill to pay, I don't feel so raving, raring mad to
+go to the hotel. It wouldn't matter to you, Mrs. Lathrop, for nothing
+ever does matter to you, and anyway, even if anything had mattered to
+you before, you'd not mind it now that Jathrop's come back. But just the
+same a hotel does matter to me. They take very little interest in their
+housekeeping in hotels, and no matter who's eat off of what, if they can
+use it again--and they generally can--they always do. Why, they churn up
+the melted odds and ends of ice-cream and serve 'em out as fresh-made
+with that cheerful countenance as loveth no giver. And what we'd throw
+to the cat they scrape right back into the soup pot, and glad enough to
+get it. I don't suppose you'd mind what you ate, nor what kind of a
+cloth had dusted your plate, but I was brought up to be clean, and I
+don't want to sleep with spiders swinging themselves down to see how I
+do it. No, Mrs. Lathrop, I can't consider no hotel, not even in common
+affection for Jathrop. I'd go down a well on my hands and knees to dig
+coal for him if necessary, or I'd do any other thing as a woman as
+respects Jathrop might do if she didn't respect herself more. But live
+in a hotel I will not, and you can write and tell him so, for _I_ don't
+want to hurt his feelings. But all kindness has its limits, and if I let
+a boy architect run through the heart of my house, I consider as I've
+done enough to prove my Christian spirit for one year."
+
+"What--?" ventured Mrs. Lathrop, but Susan Clegg went right on.
+
+"I don't see where we're ever going to put our things while they haul
+our walls down and rock our foundations. That young man says there won't
+be a room as won't have to have something done to it, and I don't want
+my furniture spoiled, even if I do have to have my house built over
+against my will. My furniture is very good furniture, Mrs. Lathrop. It's
+been oiled, and rubbed, and polished ever since it was bought, and none
+of the chairs has ever had their middles stepped on, and nothing of
+mine has got a sunk hole from sitting,--no, sir! My mattresses is all
+slept even, from side to side, and there ain't a bottle-mark in the
+whole house. It's a sin to take and wreck a happy home like mine. I
+shall have untold convenience hereafter, but I shall never take any more
+real comfort. That's what I see a-coming. And where under the sun we are
+going to put our things the Lord only knows."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was one of those who rarely take a question as a personal
+matter. She made no suggestion; she just rocked.
+
+"I can see what I've got to be doing," said Susan, a clearer light
+breaking. "I've got to be getting up and seeing where you and me can go,
+and where we can put our goods. I don't want to live under the same roof
+with you if I can possibly help it. And not to do it's going to be hard,
+for knowing we're such friends, folks is going to naturally plan to take
+us together. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop, and yet I
+can't in Christian courtesy deny that to live with you would drive me
+distracted, and so I shan't consider it for a minute. Not for one single
+minute. Still, I can't live far from you, for we are old friends, and
+the brother that leaveth all else to cleave to his brother wasn't more
+close when he done it than I am to you. Besides, if they're building our
+houses over, I shall naturally be pretty lively in watching them do it,
+and as one of the houses is yours, you'll like to be where I can easy
+tell you how it's being done. And so it goes without saying we've got to
+be close together. But not too close together."
+
+All these premises were so undeniably true that the passive Mrs. Lathrop
+could not have gainsaid them even had she been so disposed; which she
+wasn't.
+
+Accordingly, upon the very next day, Susan began her search for an
+abiding place, and the right abiding place was--as she had
+predicted--not to be easily found.
+
+"There's plenty of places," said Susan, when she returned from her task,
+"but they don't any of them suit my views. You're easily suited, Mrs.
+Lathrop, but I'm not and never will be. I'm of a nature that never is to
+be lightly took in vain, nor yet to be just lightly took either. And no
+one isn't going to put me in a room that'll be sunny in July, nor yet in
+one that will be shady in September. No room as is pleasant in September
+can help being most hot in summer; and although I'm willing to be hot in
+my own house, I will not be hot in any place where I pay board. You'll
+do very well almost anywhere, Mrs. Lathrop, for Lord knows whatever
+other virtues you may have, being particular could never be left at your
+door in no orphaned basket. But I'm different. Mrs. Brown would take us
+until young Doctor Brown and Amelia gets back, and Mrs. Allen would be
+glad of the very dust of our feet; but I couldn't go to either of those
+two places. Mrs. Brown would have to have both of us, for there's no one
+else to take you, and Mrs. Allen would want to read us her poetry. It's
+all right to write if you ain't got brains or time for nothing better,
+but I have, and I ain't going to knowingly board myself with no one as
+hasn't."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop made no comment. She merely rocked and waited.
+
+"As for our things," Susan continued, "I've found where we can put
+_them_. It wasn't easy, but I never give up, and Mr. Shores says he's
+willing we should have all the back of his upper part. I told him as I
+should want to be able to go to 'em any time, and he said far be it from
+him to desire to prevent no woman from visiting what was her own. I
+could see from his tone as he was thinking of his wife as run off with
+his clerk, and it does beat all how you can even make a misery out of a
+woman's visiting her furniture if you feel so inclined. So the goods is
+off our minds, and now it's just us as has got to be put somewheres till
+our own doors is opened to us again. I must say I'd like to know where
+we'll end."
+
+On the very next day the solution was effected.
+
+"I've got it all fixed," said Susan, returning, dovelike, with the
+evening shadows. "Mrs. Macy'll take one of us and Gran'ma Mullins the
+other. Gran'ma Mullins says with Hiram gone to the Klondike and Lucy
+gone to her father, either you or me can have their room; only for the
+love of heaven we mustn't look like Hiram in bed; for her heart is
+aching and breaking, and the car-wheels of his train ain't grinding on
+any track half as much as they're grinding in her tenderest spot. Now
+the question is, Mrs. Lathrop, which'll go which, and it's a thing as I
+must consider very carefully, for Lord knows I don't want to be no more
+miserable than I've got to be. And it goes without saying I wouldn't
+choose to live with Gran'ma Mullins, nor Mrs. Macy, nor nobody else if I
+had my choice. I'm too much give to liking to live alone with myself. Of
+course, Mrs. Macy is a pleasanter disposition than Gran'ma Mullins, for
+she ain't got Hiram to wear my bones into skin over; but I feel as
+living with Mrs. Macy all summer will surely lead to her trying to make
+it come out even for the rent up to next January, so I would have to
+worry over that. Then, too, even if Gran'ma Mullins is wearing, she's
+soothing too, and I shall need soothing this summer. I declare, Mrs.
+Lathrop, I can't well see how I'm ever going to pack up my things. I
+can't see what's to keep 'em from getting scratched and the corners
+knocked. How can I fix a toilet set smooth together? A toilet set don't
+never fit smooth together; the handles always stick out. And the
+frying-pan's got a handle too, and a clothesbar ain't any ways adaptable
+to nothing. Chair legs is very bad and table legs is worse, and there's
+Mother's wedding-present clock as found its level years ago and ain't
+been stirred since. Father give it to her, and it's so heavy I couldn't
+stir it if I wanted to, anyhow. But I don't want to stir it. It's my
+dead mother's last wish, and as such is sacred. I wasn't to stir Father
+nor the clock. It's a French clock, and it's marble. It's a handsome
+clock. It was Father's one handsome present to Mother. And now I've got
+to put it in storage. And then there's our hens. I don't know but what
+it'd be wisest to set right to eating them. I know one thing--I'll never
+board chickens. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, this is going to be an awful business!
+Think of the carpets! Think of the window shades, and my dead mother's
+lamberquins! Think of the things in the garret! And the things in the
+cellar! And the things in the closets! I don't know, I'm sure, how we'll
+ever get moved."
+
+As the days went on, the slow trend of life brought the problem still
+more pressingly to the front. Susan decided to lodge herself with
+Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins, whose heart was still very heavy over
+Hiram's escape from the home nest, would have preferred Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Lathrop's capacity for listening would have meant much to Gran'ma
+Mullins in these hours of bitter loneliness; but Mrs. Macy wanted Mrs.
+Lathrop, and Susan didn't want Mrs. Macy, so the outcome of that
+question was a fore-gone conclusion.
+
+When all was settled, Jathrop dispatched emissaries who, with a deftness
+and dexterity possessed only by the hirelings of millionaires, descended
+on Mrs. Lathrop, and in the course of a single afternoon transferred
+her, her rocker, and the whole contents of her bedroom to Mrs. Macy's.
+The emissaries offered to do the same thing for Susan Clegg, but she
+rejected their aid. Alone and unassisted Susan wrestled with her
+packing, and no one ever knew just how she accomplished it. It took her
+several days, and it introduced a new order of things into not only her
+life but her speech. Her struggle was valiant, but towards the end she
+had to call on Felicia Hemans and Sam Durny for help. When, on Saturday
+night, Susan arrived at Gran'ma Mullins's, her first observation was
+that when the Lord got through with the creation it was small wonder He
+arranged to rest on the seventh day.
+
+"I d'n know as I shall ever get up again," she said to Gran'ma Mullins,
+who was watching her take off her bonnet. "A apron as has been used to
+carry things in for six days is bright and starched beside me. Oh,
+Gran'ma Mullins, pray on your folded knees as Hiram won't come back rich
+and want to build you over! Anything but that."
+
+"Oh, if he'll only come back, it's all I'll ask!" returned Gran'ma
+Mullins sadly. "To think he can't get there for four weeks yet. And
+think of Hiram in a boat! Why Hiram can't even see a mirror tipped back
+and forth without having to go right where he'll be the only company.
+And then to be in a boat! A boat is such a tippy thing. I read about one
+man being drowned in one last week. They're hooking for him with
+dynamite to see if they can even get a piece of him back for his wife.
+His wife isn't much like Lucy, I guess. Oh, Susan, you'll never know
+what I've stood from Lucy! Nobody will."
+
+Miss Clegg shook her head and looked about her quarters with an eye that
+was dubious.
+
+"I've got some eggs for supper," said Gran'ma Mullins, "one for you and
+one for me, and one for either of us as can eat two."
+
+"I can eat two," said Susan, who thought best to declare herself at the
+outset.
+
+"Is your things all out of the house?" Gran'ma Mullins asked, as they
+seated themselves at the table.
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Susan, "everything is out! Towards the last we acted
+more like hens being fed than anything else, but we got everything
+finished."
+
+"Did you get the clock out safe?"
+
+Susan's expression altered suddenly. "The clock! Oh, the clock! What
+_do_ you think happened to that clock? And I didn't feel to mind it,
+either."
+
+"Oh, Susan, you didn't break it!"
+
+"I did. And in sixty thousand flinders. And I'm glad, too. Very glad.
+It's a sad thing as how we may be found out, no matter how careful we
+sweep up our trackings. And I don't mind telling you as the bitterest
+pill in my cup of clearing out has been that very same clock."
+
+"It was such a handsome clock," said Gran'ma Mullins, opening her
+naturally open countenance still wider. "Oh, Susan! What did happen?"
+
+"You thought it was a handsome clock," said Susan, "and so did I. It was
+such a handsome clock that we weren't allowed to pick it up and look at
+it. Father screwed it down with big screws, so we couldn't, and he wet
+'em so they rusted in. I had a awful time getting those screws out
+to-day, I can tell you. You get a very different light on a dead and
+gone father when you're trying to get out screws that he wet thirty-five
+years ago. Me on a stepladder digging under the claws of a clock for two
+mortal hours! And when I got the last one out, I had to climb down and
+wake my foot up before I could do the next thing. Then I got a block and
+a bed-slat, and I proceeded very carefully to try how heavy that
+handsome clock--that handsome marble clock--might be. I put the block
+beside it, and I put the bed-slat over the block and under the clock.
+Then I climbed my ladder again, and then I bore down on the bed-slat.
+Well, Gran'ma Mullins, you can believe me or not, just as you please,
+but it's a solemn fact that nothing but the ceiling stopped that clock
+from going sky-high. And nothing but the floor stopped me from falling
+through to China. I come down to earth with such a bang as brought
+Felicia Hemans running. And the stepladder shut up on me with such
+another bang as brought Sam Durny."
+
+"The saints preserve us!" ejaculated Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"It wasn't a marble clock a _tall_," confessed Susan. "It was painted
+wood. That was why Father screwed it down. Oh, men are such deceivers!
+And the best wife in the world can't develop 'em above their natural
+natures. I expect it was always a real pleasure to Father to think as
+Mother and me didn't know that marble clock was wood. I don't know what
+there is about a man as makes his everyday character liking to deceive
+and his Sunday sense of righteousness satisfied with just calling it
+fooling. Well, he's gone now, and the Bible says 'to him as hath shall
+be given,' so I guess he's settling up accounts somewheres. Give me the
+other egg!"
+
+After supper they stepped over to Mrs. Macy's, which was next door, and
+the four sat on the piazza in the pleasant spring twilight. Mrs. Macy
+was so happy over having Mrs. Lathrop instead of Susan Clegg that she
+smiled perpetually. Mrs. Lathrop sat and rocked in her old-gold-plush
+rocker. Gran'ma Mullins and Susan Clegg occupied the step at the feet of
+the other two.
+
+"Well, Susan," Mrs. Macy remarked meditatively, "I never looked to see
+you leave your house any way except feet first. Well, well, this
+certainly is a funny world."
+
+"Yes," returned Susan, brief for once, "it certainly is."
+
+"It's a very sad world, I think," contributed Gran'ma Mullins with a
+heavy, heavy sigh. "My goodness, to think this time last spring Hiram
+was spading up the potato patch! And now where is he?"
+
+"Nobody knows," answered Susan. "See how many years it was till Jathrop
+come back. But I do hope for your sake, Gran'ma Mullins, that when Hiram
+does come back he won't take it into his head to buy this house and
+build it over for you."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins looked at Mrs. Macy, and Mrs. Macy looked back at
+Gran'ma Mullins, and a message flashed and was answered in the glances.
+
+"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins with neighborly interest, "you do
+see that the house needs fixing up, don't you?"
+
+Susan was the owner and Mrs. Macy only the tenant, and the implication
+was not at all pleasing to her. She turned with the air of the weariest
+worm that had ever done so and gave Gran'ma Mullins a look that could
+only be translated as an admonition to mind her own business. Whereupon
+Gran'ma Mullins promptly subsided, and the subject did not come up
+again.
+
+It was on a Monday--the very next Monday--that the workmen arrived and
+set to work to demolish the outer casing of the homes of Susan and Mrs.
+Lathrop. Susan went up and stood about for an hour, viewing the way they
+did it with great but resigned scorn. She went every day thereafter, and
+her heart was rent at the sight of the sacrilege. Then, to add to her
+woe, Gran'ma Mullins proved less soothing than had been expected, and
+Susan suffered keenly at her hands.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she said one morning, when the exigencies of
+shopping left the two old friends full freedom of intercourse, "if I'm
+going to live in that house for this whole summer, the first thing that
+I'll have to do is either to change Gran'ma Mullins or change me! I can
+see that. Why, I never heard anything like Gran'ma Mullins' views on
+Hiram. You've heard Mrs. Macy, and I've told you what Lucy's told me
+whenever I've met her, but I never had no idea it was anything like
+what it is. I'm stark, raving crazy hearing about Hiram. Gran'ma Mullins
+says no child was ever like Hiram, and I begin to wonder if it ain't so.
+No child ever made such an impression on his mother before,--I can take
+my Bible oath on that, for she's talking about him from the time I wake
+till long after I'm asleep,--and she remembers things in the stillness
+of the night and wakes me up to hear 'em for fear she'll forget 'em
+before morning. Last night she was up at two to tell me how Hiram used
+to shut his eyes before he went to sleep when he was a baby. She said he
+had a different way of doing it from any other child that's ever been
+born. He picked it all up by himself. She couldn't possibly tell me just
+how he did it, but it was most remarkable. He had it in May and well
+into June the year he was born, but along in July he began to lose it,
+and by October he opened and shut just like other people's babies.
+That's what I was woke up to hear, Mrs. Lathrop, and Herod was a sweet
+and good-tempered mother of ten compared to me as I listened. And then
+at daybreak if she didn't come in again to explain as Hiram was so
+different from all other babies that he crept before he walked, and the
+first of his trying to walk he climbed up a chair leg."
+
+"Why, Jathrop--" volunteered Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Of course. They all do. But I must say I don't see how I'm going to
+stand it till my house is ready to receive me back with open bosom if
+this is the way she's going on straight along. I wouldn't stay with Mrs.
+Macy because I was tired of hearing what she said Gran'ma Mullins said
+about Hiram, but it never once struck me that if I stayed with Gran'ma
+Mullins I'd have it all to hear straight from the fountain mouth. My
+lands alive, Mrs. Lathrop, you never hear the beat! Hiram used to
+wrinkle up his face when she washed it, and he never wanted to have a
+bath. And he used to bring mud turtles into the house; and when she
+thinks of that and how now he's off for the Klondike, she says she feels
+like going straight after him. She says she could be very useful in the
+Klondike. She could polish his pick and his sled-runners, and hang up
+his snowy things, and wash out his gold and his clothes. She says she
+can't just see how they wash out gold, but she knows how to polish
+silver, and she says mother-love like hers can pick up anything. She
+goes on and on till I feel like going to the Klondike myself. I'm
+getting a great deal of sympathy for Lucy. Lucy always said she could
+have been happy with Hiram--maybe--if it hadn't been for his mother.
+Lucy's got no kind of tender feeling for Gran'ma Mullins, and I
+certainly don't feel to blame her none."
+
+"Is your--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, striving towards pleasanter paths.
+
+"Well, it ain't burnt up yet," answered Susan. "I stopped at Mr. Shores'
+coming back and took a look at it, and I was far from pleased to find
+the door as opens into the next room to the room as my furniture is
+locked up in a little open. Goodness knows who'd opened it, but it
+looked very much like some one had been trying my door, to me. I asked
+Mr. Shores, and I saw at a glance as it was news to him, which shows
+just how much interest he's taking in looking out for my things. He said
+maybe the cat had pushed it open. The cat! I unlocked my door and went
+in. The furniture's all safe enough, but it's enough to put any
+housekeeper's heart through the clothes wringer only to see how it's
+piled. The beds is smashed flat along the wall, and wherever they could
+turn a table or a chair upside down and plant something on the wrong
+side of it, they've done it. As for the way the dishes is combined, I
+can only say that the Lord fits the back to the burden, so the
+wash-bowls is bearing everything. They've put Mother's picture in a
+coal-hod for safety, and the coal-hod is sitting on the bookcase. It's a
+far from cheering sight, Mrs. Lathrop, but you know I was against being
+built over from the start. When I see the walls of my happy home being
+smashed flat and then picked over like they was raisins to see what'll
+do to use again, and then when I see my furniture put together in a way
+as no one living can make head or tail of, and when I see myself woke up
+at three in the night to be told that sometimes when Hiram was a baby he
+would go to sleep and sometimes he wouldn't, why I feel as if that Roman
+as they rolled down hill in a barrel because he wouldn't stay anywhere
+else where they put him was sitting smoking cross-legged compared to me.
+I d'n know what I'm going to do this summer. It would just drive an
+ordinary woman crazy. But I presume I'll survive."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked slightly saddened. "Well, Susan,--" she began to
+murmur sympathetically.
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Susan. "Of course, if it gets where I
+can't stand it, we'll just have to change houses, that's all."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED
+
+
+Life under the roof of Gran'ma Mullins eventually--and eventually was a
+matter of days rather than weeks--became unbearable for Susan Clegg. At
+least, she so decided, and finding opportunity in the fact that both
+Gran'ma Mullins and Mrs. Macy had gone to market, Susan hastened to her
+old friend, Mrs. Lathrop, and laid open her fresh burden of woes.
+
+"I can't stand it, Mrs. Lathrop," she declared with strongest emphasis,
+"I can't stand it. No matter what the Bible says, a saint on a gridiron
+would smile all over and wriggle for nothing but joy only to think as
+where he was and wasn't boarding with Gran'ma Mullins. It's awful.
+That's what it is--awful. I never had no idea that nothing could be so
+awful. I've got to where I'm thinking very seriously of leaving my
+property to Lucy. I'm becoming very sorry for Lucy. Lucy isn't properly
+appreciated. Why, Hiram was stung by a bee once,--no ordinary bee, but a
+bee a third bigger than the usual bee,--and it swelled up all different
+from common, and Gran'ma Mullins thought he was surely going to die
+right there before her streaming eyes. But Hiram was so bright he
+remembered about putting mud on bee-bites, and he did it. Only there
+wasn't no mud, and nobody knew what they could do about it. But Hiram's
+mind wasn't like the mind of a ordinary person. Hiram's mind is all
+different, and Hiram said, just as quick as scat, to mix water and earth
+and make some mud. So they did, and the water and earth, Gran'ma Mullins
+says, made the finest mud she ever saw. They covered up Hiram's bee-bite
+with it, and it didn't leave so much as a scar. And now there's Hiram in
+the Klondike, knowing just what to do when bit by a bee, but without a
+notion what to put on if a seal catches him unawares. And all this going
+on hour after hour, Mrs. Lathrop, and me sitting there waiting for my
+dinner, half mad anyway over the way my dead-and-gone father's home is
+being torn limb from limb, and in no mood to listen to anything. Oh,
+laws, no! It's no use. I can't stand it, and I won't either."
+
+Susan paused expressively.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop gasped. "What will--?"
+
+"I'm going to find another place to live right away," Susan went on.
+"I've too much consideration for you to ask you to go there, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and besides, I feel it would be exchanging the fire for the
+stew-pan for me to come here. I'm going this town over this very
+afternoon, and I think I'll find some place where I can sleep part of
+the night, at any rate. I guess I got about three quarters of a hour's
+sleep last night. Gran'ma Mullins woke me up weeping on the foot of my
+bed before daylight. Just before daylight is her special time for
+recollecting how Hiram used to drink milk out of a cup when he was a
+baby, and how he used to eat candy if anybody gave him any, and other
+remarkable doings that he did. My lands, I wish Job could have met
+Gran'ma Mullins! His friends and his boils would have just been pleasant
+things to amuse him, then. I'm going first to Mrs. Allen, and then I'm
+going to every one. I shan't make no bones about my errand, for
+everybody knows Gran'ma Mullins. I'll have the sympathy of the whole
+community. I need sympathy, and I feel I can soak up a good lot of it if
+I'm let to."
+
+"How's the--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They're still pulling 'em down," said Susan gloomily. "It's a awful
+sight, and one that doesn't give me more strength for Gran'ma Mullins. I
+shall never have another house that will suit me as mine did, Mrs.
+Lathrop. I know that Jathrop means it kindly, and I'm far from being one
+to hold any gift-horse by the tail, but the truth is the truth, and I
+must say nothing teaches you to really prize your cupboards like seeing
+men going through 'em with pick-axes. There was many little conveniences
+in my house as I never really thought much of until now I see 'em gone
+forever. But it's a poor cat that lives on spilt milk, so I'll say no
+more of that, but go back and get ready to hunt up a place to live. For
+live I must, Mrs. Lathrop, and live I will. And I won't live by eating
+and drinking and breathing Hiram Mullins the twenty-four hours round,
+neither."
+
+Miss Clegg's round of visits ended, curiously enough, in her
+establishing herself with Lucy Mullins.
+
+"Which I don't doubt is a very great surprise to you, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+confessed to her friend that evening. "But Lucy ran across me in the
+street, and when she saw me, those two women who met in the Bible and
+knew all each other's business directly was strangers passing on express
+trains beside Lucy and me. I took one look at Lucy, and I see she knowed
+it all. Judge Fitch is going to be away a lot this month, seeing where
+he can hire his witnesses for a big lawsuit, and Lucy says she and me'll
+be alone and able to be silent from dawn to dark and on through the
+night. She don't want to have to listen to no manner of talk, she says,
+and I can have the second floor all alone to myself, for her and her
+father sleep in the wings down-stairs."
+
+"So you--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I didn't look no more. I was suited, so I didn't see no use in
+further fussing. I shall tell Gran'ma Mullins to-night and go there
+to-morrow. And I may in confidence remark as no howling oasis in a
+desert ever howled for joy the way I'll feel like howling when I get my
+trunk on a wheelbarrow again. I've spoke for the wheelbarrow at eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning, so I'll be over at Lucy's and settled before
+you wake up, Mrs. Lathrop."
+
+The next day Susan went, and, surprising as it may seem, Gran'ma Mullins
+was singularly content over her going.
+
+"I don't want to make no trouble between friends," said Gran'ma Mullins,
+clambering up Mrs. Macy's steps to sit with Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Lathrop.
+"But really, Susan is become most changed since her house is begun to be
+built over. I wouldn't hardly have known her. I wouldn't say stuck-up
+and I wouldn't say airy, but I will say as she's most changed. I
+wouldn't say rude, neither, but I didn't consider it exactly friendly to
+always either pull her breath in long and loud or else let it out short
+and sharp whenever I mentioned Hiram. Hiram is my only legal and natural
+child, and with him in the Klondike, and my heart aching and quaking and
+breaking for fear the ice'll thaw and let him through into some
+unexpected volcano all of a sudden, how can I but mention him? You know
+what Hiram is to me, Mrs. Macy. We haven't lived in these two houses for
+forty years without your knowing what Hiram is to me. You remember him
+as a baby, Mrs. Macy, but you don't, Mrs. Lathrop, so I'll tell you what
+Hiram was as a baby. Hiram was a most remarkable--"
+
+When Mrs. Lathrop saw Susan Clegg again, Miss Clegg was looking far from
+happy.
+
+"Are you--?" enquired Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I d'n know," came the answer more than a little dubiously. Then:
+"Seeing that I am always frank and open with you, Mrs. Lathrop, I may as
+well say plainly as I ain't. Very far from it. I never knew when I went
+to live with Lucy as Judge Fitch has got a dog as barks. He ain't no
+ordinary dog--he's a most uncommon dog. He only barks when it's
+moonlight, or when he hears something, and I must say he's got the
+sharpest ears I ever see. But it isn't his barking that's so bad, as it
+is that whenever he barks, Lucy gets right up to see whether it's Hiram
+come back. It seems the reason Lucy took me to board is she hates to go
+around the house alone nights with the dog and a candle. That's a pretty
+thing for me to never mistrust till I got there with my trunk. I must
+say I don't blame Lucy for not liking to go around alone, for the dog
+smells your heels all the time, and if he was in the Klondike with Hiram
+his nose couldn't be colder. But all the same I think she ought to of
+told me. For whatever it may be to others, a cold nose is certainly most
+new to my heels. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, we was out hunting with our dog
+three times last night, and Lucy says often enough he gets her up nine
+and ten times. Lucy's so nervous for fear Hiram'll come back that she
+can't possibly sleep if she thinks there's a chance of it. She says if
+Hiram's come back, she wants to know it right off. She says that's her
+nature. If she's got to have a tooth out, she wants it out at once. She
+says she never was one to shrink from nothing. And the dog's prompt,
+too. He's quite of the same mind as Lucy. He gives one bark, and then he
+don't dilly-dally none. He gets right up, and by the time he's got to
+Lucy, Lucy's got up too, and they both come racing up-stairs for me to
+join 'em. My door don't lock, so the dog's licking my face before I
+know where I am. And then, before I know much more where I am, we're
+all three capering down-stairs together again. Then we take the whole
+house carefully around and listen at every door and window, with the dog
+smelling while we listen. Then, when we know for sure as it ain't Hiram,
+the dog scrambles back into his basket, and Lucy tucks him up, and she
+and I go back to bed alone and untucked. That's a pretty kettle of fish.
+And you can believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I
+never had no notion of having my heels smelled by a cold dog's nose
+three times, and maybe nine, a night when I went to live at Judge
+Fitch's, and if it keeps on, I shall just leave. Lucy's got no lease on
+me, and although I'm sorry for her, I ain't anywhere near sorry enough
+for her to be woke up to pussy-cornering all over the premises with a
+dog the livelong night through. As between having Gran'ma Mullins
+sitting on my feet wailing over Hiram, and Lucy's dog smelling of my
+heels while we hunt for Hiram, I think I'd rather have Gran'ma Mullins.
+I was warm and comfortable and laid out flat at Gran'ma Mullins, but I'm
+goodness knows what at Lucy's. And I do hate having my face licked. I
+don't like it. I never was used to such things, and I can't begin now."
+
+"What will--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I shall look up another nice place to live," said Miss Clegg, "and I
+shall take a leaf out of the dog's book and be prompt about it, too.
+I've spoke for the wheelbarrow to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I shall
+move then, whether or no."
+
+Susan, again on the lookout for a new abiding place, discovered a most
+attractive proposition in Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Allen and her husband lived
+alone, were neat and well-fed, and kept no dog.
+
+"I'll never go where there's a dog again, I know that," said Susan.
+"Why, Mrs. Lathrop, if I was in a blizzard in Switzerland and fifty of
+those little beer-keg dogs they've got there came scurrying up to rescue
+me, I wouldn't get up and let 'em have the joy of seeing me obliged. I
+won't ever get up for no dog again in my life, I know that. And I know
+it for keeps. And there's a bolt on my side of my door at Mrs. Allen's.
+I've looked to that, too; and no one is to wake me nights; I've looked
+to that. I told Mrs. Allen all the story of what I'd suffered, and she
+said she'd see as I had peace in her house. She told me that I'd
+suffered because I needed to suffer, but now I was to have peace, and
+I'd have it with her. I didn't bother to ask what she meant, for I guess
+if she's got any secret thorn, I'll find it out quick enough, anyhow.
+And if it's anything that wakes me up nights, my present feeling is as I
+won't be well able to bear it. Well, the wheelbarrow is set for ten
+o'clock, and so I must go, and when I see you, I'll know what's wrong
+with Mrs. Allen, and the Lord help me if it's something as makes me have
+to move again. That's all I can say."
+
+Susan did not visit her old friend directly after her third change of
+residence. Two whole days passed by, and Mrs. Lathrop was openly
+troubled.
+
+"Don't you worry," said Gran'ma Mullins soothingly. "There's nothing the
+matter with her, because I see her in the square this very morning. But
+she looked at me odd and went down a side street. I'm sure I hope
+Susan's not losing her mind."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't that be awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy with real sympathy.
+"We'd have to appoint a commission to catch her and sit on her, and then
+if she was put in the insane asylum, I guess Susan Clegg would be mad."
+
+"Oh, Susan wouldn't like that a bit," said Gran'ma Mullins meditatively.
+"They make little cups and saucers out of beads. I know, because Hiram
+had one once. And they read books with the letters all punched out at
+you."
+
+"You're thinking of the Home for the Blind," corrected Mrs. Macy. "I was
+there once, too. I don't think Susan would mind going there so much,
+because of course she can see, which would give her a great advantage
+over the others, and Susan does like to have an advantage over anybody
+else. But I don't believe she'd like going to the Insane Asylum much.
+The Insane Asylum's so limited. My husband's sister went to the Insane
+Asylum once, but it didn't help her none, so she came home. It wouldn't
+ever suit Susan."
+
+"Well, maybe not," said Gran'ma Mullins amicably. "And I don't think she
+could go there, anyway, for she isn't crazy, and she's got her own
+money. So why should she be a charge on the county?"
+
+The very next day Susan came wearily in to see her old friend.
+
+"Well, I d'n know what I've ever done to have this kind of a summer,"
+she began, seating herself sadly. "Why didn't I stay in my own house and
+just simply take you to board while they laid violent hands on your
+house? I was against being built over all along, Mrs. Lathrop, you know
+that. And now the fox has his cheese and the cow has her corn, just as
+the Scripture says, but Susan Clegg's absolutely forced to live with
+Mrs. Allen. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, you don't know what living with Mrs. Allen
+is, and you can't imagine, either. I never dreamed of such a thing
+before I went there. I was a little afraid she'd want to read me her
+poetry, but her poetry would have been paradise to what is. Seems as if
+Mrs. Allen has got a new kind of religion, and heaven help the present
+run of mankind if any more new religions is sprung on us, and heaven
+help me if I've got to live long with Mrs. Allen's new one. Mrs. Allen's
+new religion is most peculiar. I never see nothing like it. It's
+Persian, and it's very singular just to look at. But it's most awful to
+live with. Lucy and her dog is simple beside it, and as to Gran'ma
+Mullins, she's nothing but a baby dabbing a ball in comparison.
+According to Mrs. Allen's new religion, you mustn't find fault with
+nothing or nobody--never. Everything's all right, no matter how wrong it
+is; and if you lose your purse, you was meant to lose it, so why
+complain? You was give your purse for just a little while, and in place
+of wildly running here and there trying to find it, you must just thank
+heaven for kindly letting you have it so long, and think no more about
+it. If you're meant to see any more of that purse, it'll kindly look you
+up itself. But it's no manner of use your looking for it, because if
+heaven takes back a purse deliberately, never intending to return it, it
+never does return it, and that's all there is to be said on the subject.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you think perhaps you can see what it would be to
+live with any one that feels to see life in that way; but you don't
+really know what you think a good deal of the time, and never less than
+now. Mrs. Allen's things is mostly back in heaven's hands again, and her
+biscuits is mostly burnt, and not one bit does she care, seeing as she
+don't consider as she has the least thing to do with any of it. She's
+happy and singing and forgetting from dawn to dark. She says the day'll
+soon be that the whole earth will see the truth and be singing with
+her. She says the toiling millions will cease to toil then, and life'll
+be all Adams and Eves and no manner of misery. In the meantime, I don't
+get nothing to eat, and when I feel to holler down-stairs, she says
+dinner was meant to be late that day, or it couldn't possibly have been
+late. Not by no manner of means."
+
+"Well, I--" commented Mrs. Lathrop blankly.
+
+"Just my way of seeing it," said Susan, "and she aggravates me still
+more with pointing her moral, from dawn to dark. She says it's beautiful
+to see how beautiful life comes along. You and me needed quiet, and we
+got quiet. And now we need our houses built over, and we're getting 'em
+built over. I told her I didn't need my house built over a _tall_, and
+she said as I just thought so, but that I really did, or it wouldn't be
+being done. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, what I will run up
+against next. But I don't believe I can stay at Mrs. Allen's. I really
+don't. There's one thing--it'll be mighty easy to leave her, for I
+shan't have to say nothing. I shall say I was meant to leave and then
+and there leave. It's a poor religion as don't fit others as easy as its
+own selves; and I ain't washed in the Allens' dirty rain water full of
+dead and drowned bugs for two days because I was meant to wash and they
+was meant to drown, without learning how to turn even a drowned bug to
+my advantage. No, sir, I'm going out this afternoon and see what I can
+get, and if I can't do no better, I'll buy a bolt for my door and come
+back to Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins has her good points. I always
+said that, Mrs. Lathrop, Gran'ma Mullins certainly has her good points.
+And I must learn to bear Hiram if I must. There's one thing certain: I
+can hear about Hiram in bed, and I don't have to get up and out of bed
+to hunt for him. And whatever else Gran'ma Mullins does, she don't burn
+her bread and blame it on the Almighty. Mrs. Allen's got the Bible so
+pat that you don't need to do nothing, according to her--nothing a
+_tall_, but just sit still and let the world turn you around with its
+turning. She says Solomon said the little lilies didn't spin, and so why
+should she? Well, if we're to quit doing everything that lilies don't
+have a hand in, I must say we'll soon be in a pretty state. I never was
+one to admire Solomon like some people, and as for David, I think he was
+a fool--dancing around the ark like he'd just got it for Christmas!"
+
+Susan searched long and wearily for a fourth abiding place that
+afternoon, but in the end she had to speak for the wheelbarrow for the
+next morning and move back to Gran'ma Mullins's.
+
+And Gran'ma Mullins was very glad to see her back.
+
+"Your bed's all made up with the same sheets for you, Susan," she said
+cordially, "and I ain't even swept so as to spoil the homelike look.
+You'll see your own last burnt matches and all, just as you left 'em."
+
+"I've bought a bolt for my door," said Susan, "and I'll beg to borrow a
+screwdriver and something sharp to put it on with."
+
+"I'll get 'em," agreed Gran'ma Mullins happily, "and I won't wake you no
+more nights, Susan. I suppose it's only natural that you, never having
+been married, can't possibly know the feelings of a mother. But I meant
+it kindly, Susan. When Lucy speaks of Hiram, she means it unkindly. But
+when I speak of Hiram, I always mean it kindly."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Susan, "and if I believed like Mrs. Allen does, I'd
+know I was meant to listen and wouldn't mind. But I don't take no stock
+in that religion of Mrs. Allen's, and I won't be woke up. And although I
+don't want to hurt your feelings, I do want that understood right from
+the beginning."
+
+"I'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins submissively. "And now I'll fetch
+the screwdriver."
+
+That evening the four friends sat pleasantly once again on Mrs. Macy's
+piazza.
+
+"Mrs. Lathrop had a letter from Jathrop to-day. Did you know that,
+Susan?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, I didn't," returned Susan Clegg. "What did he say?"
+
+"He's going sailing to the West Indies in his new boat," Mrs. Macy
+informed her. "He's going for his health, and he's going to take three
+other millionaires and their own doctor."
+
+Susan appeared unimpressed.
+
+"He sent his mother a book about the place where he's going," said Mrs.
+Macy. "Do you want to see it?" She went in and brought it out.
+
+Susan took the volume and viewed the title with an indifferent eye.
+
+"_Stark's Guide to the Bahamas_," she read aloud. "What are
+they--something to eat?"
+
+"You're thinking of bananas," suggested Mrs. Macy. "It's islands. It's
+where Columbus hit first. Nobody knows just where he hit, but he hit
+there; everybody knows that."
+
+Susan placed the book under her arm. "I'll read it," she said briefly.
+"But I must say as to my order of thinking Jathrop's setting off just
+now is very much like a hen getting up from her eggs. Here's you and
+me--" addressing Mrs. Lathrop directly--"with our houses done away with,
+and him as has engineered the wreck skipping away with a parcel of men."
+
+"He isn't skipping," interposed Mrs. Macy. "He's sailing--sailing in his
+own private boat, like the tea-man with the cup."
+
+"Oh, I don't care what he's doing," said Susan, rising. "I'm about beat
+out, and I'm going home and going to bed. Such a week! The Bible says
+'Whom the Lord loveth He chaseth,' and heaven knows I've been chased
+this week till my legs is about wore off. Such a week! I've had all the
+chasing I want for one while. And I never was great on being loved, so
+I'm going home and going to bed."
+
+Whereupon, with the _Guide to the Bahamas_ under her arm and a heavy
+fold between her brows, Susan Clegg stalked over to her temporary
+domicile.
+
+"I don't think Susan's very well," said Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Maybe she's worried over Jathrop," suggested Mrs. Macy.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. She just rocked.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE
+
+
+"I d'n know, I'm sure, what star this town could ever have been laid out
+under," said Susan Clegg, one exceptionally hot night as the four
+friends sat out on Mrs. Macy's steps, "but my own opinion is as it must
+have been a comet, for we're always skiting along into some sort of hot
+water. When it ain't all of us, it's some of us, and when it ain't some
+of us, it's one of us, and now the walls of my house is up I'd be
+willing to bet a nickel as a calamity'll happen along just because
+something's always happening here and my walls is the youngest and
+tenderest thing in the community now."
+
+"Your roof ain't--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Of course not; how could it be, when my walls is only just up? I don't
+wish to be casting no stones at him as is the least among us, but I will
+say, Mrs. Lathrop, as Jathrop's orders seem to be taking you up under
+the loving protection of their wings, while I'm running around like I
+was a viper without no warm bosom to hatch me. _Your_ walls have been up
+and a-doing for a week, but my walls have been sitting around waiting
+until I was nigh to put out. To see your laths going in and your plaster
+going on, while I stay lumber and nails, is a lesson in yielding to the
+will of heaven as I never calculated on. There's few things more
+aggravating than to see some other house speeding along while your own
+house sits silently, patiently waiting. Of course I can't say nothing,
+as even the boy as carries water knows my house is going to be a present
+to me in the end. It's all right, and likely enough the Lord has seen
+fit to send this summer to me as a chastisement; but I will say that if
+I'd known how this summer was going, the Lord would most certainly have
+had to plan some other way to punish me. I don't say as it wasn't
+natural that your walls should go up first, Jathrop being your son, and,
+now that he's rich, no more to me than a benefactor--"
+
+"Oh, Susan!" expostulated Mrs. Macy.
+
+"That's what he is, Mrs. Macy; he's my benefactor, and I can't escape if
+I want to. You may tend a man's mother ten years, day and night, house
+cleanings and cistern cleanings, moths and the well froze up, and if the
+man comes back rich, he's your benefactor."
+
+"Susan!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, "you--"
+
+"Don't deny it, Mrs. Lathrop; it's the truth. It's one of those truths
+that the wiser they are, the sadder you get. It's one of those truths as
+is the whole truth and a little left over; and I'm learning that I'm to
+be what's left over, more every day. After a life of being independent
+and living on my own money, I'm now going down on my knees learning the
+lesson of being humbly grateful for what I don't want. I may sound
+bitter, but if I do it isn't surprising, for I feel bitter; and Gran'ma
+Mullins knows I'm always frank and open, so she'll excuse my saying that
+there's nothing in living with _her_ as tends to calm me much. A woman
+as sleeps in a bed as Hiram must have played leap-frog over all his life
+from the feel of the springs, and pours out of a pitcher as has got a
+chip out of its nose, ain't in no mood to mince nothing. I never was one
+to mince, and I never will be--not now and not never. Mincing is for
+them as ain't got it in them to speak their minds freely; and my mind is
+a thing that's made to be free and not a slave."
+
+"Well, really, Susan," expostulated Mrs. Macy, "what ever--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Macy. I'm full of goodness knows what, but
+whatever it is, I'm too full of it for comfort. There's nothing in the
+life I'm leading this summer to make me expect comfort, and very little
+to make me feel full, but there's things as would make a man dying of
+starvation bust if he experienced them. And I'm full of such things. I
+never had no idea of being out of my house all summer, and now, when my
+walls is up at last, and it looks like maybe I'd get back a home feeling
+some day soon, I must up and get quite another kind of feeling--a
+feeling that something is going to happen. It's a very strange feeling,
+and at first I thought it was just some more of Gran'ma Mullins'
+cooking; but it kept getting stronger, and when I was in the square, I
+spoke to Mr. Kimball about it; and he says this is cyclone weather, and
+maybe a cyclone is going to happen. He says a man was in town yesterday
+wanting to insure everybody against fire and cyclones. Most everybody
+did it. Mr. Kimball says after the young man got through, you pretty
+much had to do it. Them as had policies with the company could get the
+word 'cyclone' writ in for a dollar. I guess the young man did a very
+good day's work. Mr. Kimball says if it's true as there's any cyclones
+coming nosing about here, he wants his dried-apple machine insured
+anyhow. It's a fine machine, and every kind of fruit as is left over
+each night comes out jam next day, while all the vegetables make
+breakfast food. He says it's a wonder."
+
+"What makes him think we're going to have a cyclone?" inquired Mrs. Macy
+anxiously.
+
+"He says the weather is cyclony. And he says if I feel queer that's a
+sign, for I'm a sensitive nature."
+
+"I never--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, nor me, neither. But Mr. Kimball seemed to feel there wasn't no
+doubt. He says I'm just the kind of sensitive nature as could feel a
+cyclone. Why, he says cyclones take the roofs off the houses!"
+
+"Ow!" cried Gran'ma Mullins in surprise.
+
+"If one's coming, I'm glad to know, for I never see one near to," said
+Mrs. Macy pensively.
+
+"You won't see it a _tall_," said Susan, "for Mr. Kimball says the only
+safe place in a cyclone is the cellar; and to pull a kitchen table over
+you to keep the house from squashing you flat when it caves in."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's what he said. But he says not to worry, for the young man told
+him as they're getting so common no one notices them any more. He says
+they're always going hop, skip, and jump over Kansas and everywhere, and
+no one pays no attention to 'em. He knows all about it. But he wanted it
+clear as he was only insuring for _cyclones_; he says his firm wouldn't
+have nothing to do with tornadoes. You can get as much on a cyclone as
+on a fire, but you can't get a penny on a tornado--"
+
+"What's the diff--" asked Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"That's the trouble; nobody can just tell. A cyclone is wind and
+lightning mixed by combustion and drove forward by expulsion, the young
+man told Mr. Kimball. He said they'd got cyclones all worked out, and
+they can average 'em up same as everything else, but he says a tornado
+is something as no man can get hold of, and no man will ever be able to
+study. Tornadoes drive nails through fences--"
+
+"Where do they get the nails?" asked Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"I d'n know. Pick 'em out of the fences first, I guess. And they strip
+the feathers off chickens and scoop up haystacks and carry them up in
+the air for good and all."
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Mr. Kimball said the young man told him that a tornado dug up a
+complete marsh once in Minnesota and spread it out upside down on top of
+a wood a little ways off; and when there's a tornado anywhere near, the
+sewing-machines all tick like they was telegraphing."
+
+"No!" cried Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Yes, the young man said so."
+
+"But do you believe him?"
+
+"I don't know why not. I wouldn't believe Mr. Kimball because he's
+always fixing up his stories to sound better than they really are, which
+makes me have very little faith in him; but Judge Fitch says he'd make
+a splendid witness for any one just on that very account. Judge Fitch
+says with a little well-advised help Mr. Kimball would carry convictions
+to any man,--he don't except none,--but I see no reason why the young
+man wasn't telling the truth. Young men do tell the truth sometimes;
+most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries 'em
+miles and pulls up trees by the roots. I don't wonder they won't insure
+'em."
+
+"The pigs?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, the tornadoes."
+
+"What's the signs of a tornado?" asked Gran'ma Mullins uneasily.
+
+"Well, the signs is alike for both. The signs is weather like to-day and
+a kind of breathlessness like to-night. Mr. Kimball says a funnel-shaped
+cloud is a great sign; and when you see it, in three minutes it's on
+you, and off goes your roof if it's a cyclone, and off you go yourself
+if it's a tornado."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, clutching the arms of her
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker.
+
+"Do people ever come down again?" Gran'ma Mullins inquired; she was very
+pale.
+
+"Elijah didn't, Mr. Kimball says."
+
+"Elijah Doxey?" cried Mrs. Macy. "Why, is he off on a cyclone? No one
+ever told me."
+
+"No, Elijah in the Bible, you know. The Elijah as was caught up in a
+chariot of fire. Mr. Kimball says there ain't a mite of doubt in his
+mind but that it was a tornado. I guess Mr. Kimball told the truth that
+time, for it's all in the Bible."
+
+"That's true," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I remember Elijah myself. He kept
+a tame raven, seems to me, or some such thing."
+
+"Oh, Susan!" Mrs. Lathrop cried out suddenly. "There's a fun--" Her
+voice failed her; she raised her hand and pointed.
+
+Susan turned quickly, and her face became suddenly gray-white. "It can't
+be a cy--" she faltered.
+
+With that all four women jumped different ways at once.
+
+"Where shall we go?" shrieked Mrs. Macy. "Oh, saints and sinners
+preserve us! Oh, Susan, where shall we go?"
+
+But Susan Clegg stood as if paralyzed, staring straight at the
+funnel-shaped cloud.
+
+Gran'ma Mullins started for her own house; Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and
+clasped the piazza post nearest; Mrs. Macy grabbed her skirts up at both
+sides and faced the cyclone just as she had once faced the cow.
+
+The funnel-shaped cloud came sweeping towards them. The town was
+between, and a darkness and a mighty roar arose. Buildings seemed
+falling; the din was terrible.
+
+"I knew it," said Susan grimly. "It _is_ a cyclone!" She faced the
+worst--standing erect.
+
+The next instant the storm was on them all. It lifted Mrs. Lathrop's
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker and hurled it at that good lady,
+smashing her hard against the post. It raised the roof of Mrs. Macy's
+house and dropped it like an extinguisher over the fleeing form of
+Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Oh, Gran'ma Mullins, it _is_ a cyclone!" Susan shrieked. But Gran'ma
+Mullins answered not.
+
+A second mighty burst of fury blew down two trees, and it blew Susan
+herself back against the side wall of the house which shook and swayed
+like a bit of cardboard.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's a cyclone," Susan screamed over and over. "Oh, Mrs.
+Lathrop, it's a real cyclone! It isn't a tornado; you can see the
+difference now. It's a cyclone; look at the roof; it's a cyclone!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop could see nothing. She and the old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker were all piled together under the piazza post.
+
+And now came the third and worst burst of fury. It crashed on the
+blacksmith's shop; it carried the sails of the windmill swooping down
+the road, and then "without halting, without rest" lifted Mrs. Macy
+with her outspread skirts and carried her straight up in the air. "Oh!
+Oh!" she shrieked and sailed forth.
+
+Susan gave a piercing yell. "Oh, Mrs. Macy, it's a tornado, it's a
+tornado!" But Mrs. Macy answered not.
+
+Tipping, swaying, ducking to the right or left, she flew majestically
+away over her own roof first and then over that of Gran'ma Mullins'
+woodshed.
+
+"Help! Help!" cried Gran'ma Mullins from under the roof.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was oblivious to all, smashed by her own old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker.
+
+Susan Clegg stood as one fascinated, staring after the trail which was
+all that was left of Mrs. Macy.
+
+"It was a tornado!" she said over and over. "Mrs. Macy'll always believe
+in the Bible now, I guess. It was a tornado! It _was_ a tornado!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No, they ain't found her yet," Susan said, coming into the hotel room
+where Mrs. Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins had found a pleasant and
+comfortable refuge and were occupied in recuperating together at
+Jathrop's expense. Neither lady was seriously injured. Gran'ma Mullins
+had been preserved from even a wetting through the neat capping of her
+climax by Mrs. Macy's roof; while Mrs. Lathrop's squeeze between the
+piazza post and her well beloved old-gold-plush stationary rocker had
+not--as Gran'ma Mullins put it--so much as turned a hair of even the
+rocker.
+
+"No one's heard anything from her yet," continued Susan, "but that ain't
+so surprising as it would be if anybody had time to want to know. But
+nobody's got time for nothing to-day. The town's in a awful taking, and
+I d'n know as I ever see a worse situation. You two want to be very
+grateful as you're so nicely and neatly laid aside, for what has
+descended on the community now is worse'n any cyclone, and if you could
+get out and see what the cyclone's done, you'd know what _that_ means."
+
+"Was you to my house, Susan?" asked Gran'ma Mullins anxiously.
+
+"I was; but the insurance men was before me, or anyhow, we met there."
+
+"The insurance men!"
+
+"That's what I said,--the insurance men. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, we all know
+one side of what it is to insure ourselves, but now the Lord in his
+infinite wrath has mercifully seen fit to show us the other side. The
+Assyrian pouncing down on the wolf in his fold is a young mother
+wrapping up her first baby to look out the window compared to those
+insurance men. They descended on us bright and shining to-day, and if we
+was murderers with our families buried under the kitchen floor, we
+couldn't be looked on with more suspicion. I was far from pleased when I
+first laid eyes on 'em, for there's a foxiness in any city man as comes
+to settle things in the country as is far from being either soothing or
+syrupy to him as lives in the country; but you can maybe imagine my
+feelings when they very plainly informed me as I couldn't put the roof
+back on Mrs. Macy's house till it was settled whether it was a cyclone
+or a tornado--"
+
+"Settled--whether--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Cyclone or tornado," repeated Susan. "The first thing isn't to get to
+rights, but it is to settle whether we've got any rights to get. I never
+dreamed what it was to be injured--no, or no one else neither. Seems if
+it's a tornado, we don't get a cent of our insurance. And to think it
+all depends on Mrs. Macy."
+
+"On Mrs.--" cried Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Yes, because she's the only one as really knows whether she was carried
+off or not. Well, all I can say is, if she don't come back pretty quick,
+we're going to have a little John Brown raid right here in town; we--"
+
+"But what--?"
+
+"I'm telling you. It'll be the town rising up against the insurance men,
+and the insurance men will soon find that when it comes to
+dilly-dallying with folks newly cycloned upside down, it's life and
+death if you don't deal fair. What with chimneys down and roofs turned
+up at the corner like the inquiring angels didn't have time to take the
+cover all off but just pried up a little to see what was inside,--I say
+with all this and everything wet and Mrs. Macy gone, this community was
+in no mood to be sealed up--"
+
+"Sealed up!" cried Mrs. Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins together.
+
+"That's what it is. Sealed up we are, and sealed up we've got to stay
+until Mrs. Macy gets back--"
+
+"But--" cried Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Everybody's just as mad as you are. Charging bulls is setting hens
+beside this town to-night. Even Mr. Kimball's mad for once in his life;
+he's losing money most awful, for he can't sell so much as a paper of
+tacks. They've got both his doors and all his windows sealed, and he's
+standing out in front with nothing to do except to keep a sharp eye out
+for Mrs. Macy. He says it ain't in reason to expect as she'll fly back,
+but she's got to come from somewhere, and he means to prevent her
+getting away again on the sly. He says his opinion is as she'd have
+stood a better chance before airships was so common. He says ten years
+ago folks would have took steps for hooking at her just as quick as they
+saw her coming along, but nowadays it'd be a pretty brave man as would
+try to stop anything he saw flying overhead. I guess he's about right
+there. It's a hard question to know what to do with things that fly,
+even if Mrs. Macy hadn't took to it, too. My view is that we advance
+faster than we can learn how to manage our new inventions. I d'n know,
+I'm sure, though, what Mrs. Macy is going to do about this trip of hers.
+She went without even the moment's notice as folks in a hurry always has
+had up to now. She's been gone most twenty-four hours. She's skipped
+three meals already, not to speak of her night and her nap; and you know
+as well as I do how Mrs. Macy was give to her nights and her napping."
+
+Susan shook her head, and Mrs. Lathrop looked wide-eyed and alarmed.
+
+"But now--" Gran'ma Mullins asked.
+
+"I've been all over the place," Susan continued. "I didn't understand
+fully what was up when I scurried off to try and get those men to put
+the roof back on Mrs. Macy's house, but I know it all now. It's no use
+trying to get anybody to do nothing now; the whole town's upside down
+and inside out. I never see nothing like it. And the insurance men has
+got it laid down flat as nobody can't touch nothing till it's settled
+whether it's a cyclone or a tornado. Seems a good many was insured for
+cyclones right in with their fires without knowing it; but there ain't a
+soul in the place insured against a tornado, because you can't get any
+insurance against tornadoes--no one will insure them. The insurance men
+say if it's a tornado, we won't have nothing to do except to do the best
+we can; but if it's a cyclone, we mus'n't touch anything till they can
+get some one to judge what's worth saving and how much it's worth and
+deduct that from our insurance. That's how it is."
+
+"But what has--?" began Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"How long--?" demanded Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Nobody knows," said Susan. "The whole town is asking, and nobody knows.
+The insurance company won't let anybody go home or get anything unless
+they'll sign a paper giving up their insurance and swearing that it was
+a tornado. Mr. Dill just had to sign the paper because he was taking a
+bath and had nothing except the table cover to wear. He signed the paper
+and said he'd swear anything if only for his shoes alone; and it seems
+that his house isn't hurt a mite, and he didn't have no insurance
+anyhow. A good many is blaming him, but he says he really couldn't think
+of anything in the excitement and the table cloth. It's a awful state of
+things. The cyclone has tore everything to pieces, and the insurance
+men has put their seal on the chips. People is being drove to all
+lengths. The minister and his family is camping in the henhouse. Our
+walls is fell in so goodness knows what will happen to you and me next,
+Mrs. Lathrop. The wires is all down, so we can't hear nothing about the
+storm. The rails is all up, so there's no trains. The church is stove
+in, so we can't pray. But I must say as to my order of thinking, it
+looks as if no one feels like praying. The insurance men is running all
+over, like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more
+windows every minute and getting more signatures as it was a tornado
+before they'll unstick them. Nothing can't be really settled till Mrs.
+Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation."
+
+"But why--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"The Jilkins is in from Cherry Pond, and all it did there was to rain.
+The Sperrits was in, too, and the storm was most singular with them. It
+hailed in the sunshine till they see four rainbows--they never see the
+beat. Mr. Weskins is advising everybody to go into their houses and make
+a test case of it. Judge Fitch is advising everybody not to. It's plain
+as he's on the side of the insurance men. He says just as they do, that
+we'd better wait till Mrs. Macy comes back and hear her story. He says
+in the very nature of things her view'll be a most general one. He says
+all there is to know she'll know; she'll know the area affected and be
+able to tell whether it was electricity or just wind. Mr. Kimball said
+if she went far enough, she'd be a star witness; but no one thinks that
+jokes about Mrs. Macy ought to be told now. The situation is too
+serious. It may be _very_ serious for Mrs. Macy. If the storm stopped
+sudden, it may be very serious indeed for Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy isn't as
+young as she was, and she hadn't the least idea of leaving town; she
+wasn't a bit prepared, that we can all swear to. She was just carried
+away by a sudden impulse--as you might say--and the main question is
+how far did she get on her impulse, and where is she now? To my order
+of thinking, it all depends on how she come down. Cycloning along like
+she was, if she come down on a pond or a peak, she'll be far from
+finding it funny. I was thinking about her all the way here, and I can't
+think of any way as'll be easy for her to come to earth, no matter how
+she comes. And if she hits hard, she isn't going to like it. Mrs. Macy
+was never one as took a joke pleasant; she never made light of nothing.
+She took life very solemn-like--a owl was a laughing hyena compared to
+Mrs. Macy. It's too bad she was that way. My own view is as she never
+got over not getting married again. Some women don't. She always took it
+as a reflection. There's no reflection to not getting married; my
+opinion is as there's a deal of things more important and most thing's
+more comfortable. If Mrs. Macy was married, she'd be much worse off than
+she is right now, for instead of being able to give her whole time and
+attention to whatever she's doing and looking over, she'd be wondering
+what he was giving his time and attention to doing and prying into. When
+a man's out of your sight, you've always got to wonder, and most of the
+time that's all in the world you can do about a man. Now Mrs. Macy's
+perfectly independent, she can go where she pleases and come down when
+she pleases, and she hasn't got to tell what she saw unless she wants
+to. Mrs. Brown says she ain't never been nowhere. It's plain to be seen
+as Mrs. Brown's envying Mrs. Macy her trip."
+
+"But why--?" began Gran'ma Mullins with great determination.
+
+"That's just it," replied Susan promptly. "I declare, I can't but wonder
+what'll happen next. I'm in that state that nothing will surprise me.
+Everything's so upset and off the track there's no use even trying to
+think. My walls is fell into my cistern, and Mrs. Macy's roof is sitting
+on the ground beside her house yet. The insurance men has sealed up
+Gran'ma Mullins' house, and they wouldn't leave the henhouse open till I
+signed a affidavit on behalf of the hens and released 'em from all
+claims for feed. Mr. Dill said they tried to seal up his cow. They've
+got Mr. Kimball's dried-apple machine tied with a rope. It's awful."
+
+"But Susan--" interrupted Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Mr. Weskins says the great difficulty is the insurance men say they
+don't see how anything is going to be settled or decided until we hear
+from Mrs. Macy. The point's right here. If she comes back, it's evidence
+as it was a tornado, because if she comes back it proves as she was
+carried off, in which case the insurance men won't have to pay nothing
+anyhow, and we'll all be unsealed and allowed to go to work putting our
+roofs back on our heads and clearing up as fast as we can. But Mr.
+Weskins says if Mrs. Macy don't come back, there'll be no way to prove
+as she was even carried off by the storm for you, Mrs. Lathrop, had your
+back turned; and you, Gran'ma Mullins, was under the roof; and I'm only
+one, and it takes two witnesses to prove anything as is contrary to law
+and nature."
+
+"Do they doubt--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop, quite excited--for her.
+
+"Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men don't take nothing
+for granted. They've decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy,
+and there's Mrs. Macy gone away to, heaven knows where."
+
+"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins, "we must look on the bright side.
+Mrs. Macy'll have something to talk about as'll always interest
+everybody if she does come back, and if she don't come back, we'll
+always have her to remember."
+
+"Yes, and if we don't get our houses unstuck pretty soon, we'll remember
+her a long while," said Susan darkly.
+
+Three days passed by and no word was heard from Mrs. Macy. As soon as
+the telegraph assumed its usual route, messages were sent all about in
+the direction whither she had flown, but not a trace of her was
+discovered by any one. The town was very much wrought up, for although
+its members were given to having strange experiences, no experience so
+strange as this had ever happened there before. The exasperation of
+being barred out of house and home until Mrs. Macy should be found,
+naturally heightened the interest. Everybody had had just time to add
+the magic word "cyclone" to their policies before the cyclone came
+"damaging along"--as Susan Clegg expressed it. Susan was much perturbed.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop,"--she said on the afternoon of the third day, as
+she came into the hotel room where the mother of the millionaire was now
+equal to her usual vigorous exercise in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you may well be grateful as Jathrop has got
+money enough for us to be living here, for the living of the community
+is getting to be no living a _tall_."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins, still in bed, turned herself about and manifested a
+vivid interest, "Well, Susan," she said, "it's three days now; how long
+is this going to keep up?"
+
+"It can't keep up very much longer, or we'll have a new French
+Revolution, that's what we'll have," said Susan. "Why, the community is
+getting where it won't stand even being said good morning to pleasantly.
+The children is running all over, pulling each other's hair, and Deacon
+White says he's going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pass
+when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol, for he's just as afraid of one
+end as the other. But it's a straw as shows which way the cyclone blew
+his house."
+
+"But isn't something--?"
+
+"Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the
+door of the insurance men's room this morning, and they fell in a heap
+when they started out; and some one as nobody can locate poured a
+pitcher of ice water through the ventilator as is over their bed. Seeing
+that public feeling is on the rise, they sent right after breakfast for
+the appraisers, and they're going to begin appraising and un-sealing
+to-morrow morning. They've entirely give up the idea of waiting for
+Mrs. Macy. The town just won't stand for any more hanging around waiting
+for nothing. I never see us so before. Every one is so upset and divided
+in their feelings that some think we'd ought to horsewhip the insurance
+men, and some think we'd ought to hold a burial service for Mrs. Macy."
+
+"I wouldn't see any good in holding a service for Mrs. Macy," said
+Gran'ma Mullins. "She wouldn't have been buried here if she was dead;
+she was always planning to go to Meadville when she was dead."
+
+"Yes," said Susan, "I know. Because Mrs. Lupey's got that nice lot with
+that nice mausoleum as she bought from the Pennybackers when they got
+rich and moved even their great-grandfather to the city."
+
+"I remember the Pennybackers," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Old man
+Pennybacker used to drive a cart for rags. It was a great day for the
+Pennybackers when Joe went into the pawnbroker business."
+
+"Yes," said Susan, "it's wonderful how rich men manage to get on when
+they're young. Seems as if there's just no way to crowd a millionaire
+out of business or kill him off. I'm always reading what they went
+through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a
+thing as when it's going to be is going to be, and you've just got to
+let 'em do it once they get started."
+
+"It was a nice mausoleum," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Mrs. Macy has told me
+about it a hundred times. It's so big, Mrs. Lupey says, she can live up
+to her hospitable nature at last, for there's room for all and to spare.
+Mrs. Macy was the first person she asked. Mrs. Macy thought that was
+very kind of just a cousin. There's only Mrs. Kitts there, now, and Mrs.
+Lupey's aunt, Mrs. Cogetts."
+
+"Mrs. Macy didn't know she had a aunt," said Susan. "Mrs. Cogetts came
+way from Jacoma just on account of the mausoleum. That's a long ways to
+come just to save paying for a lot where you are, seems to me; but some
+natures'll go to any lengths to save money."
+
+"I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now," said Gran'ma Mullins, with a sigh.
+
+"Nobody knows. A good many is decided that it's surely a clear case of
+Elijah, only nobody pretends to believe in the Bible so much as to think
+that she can go up and stay there. Mrs. Macy'd have to come down, and
+the higher she went the more heaven help her when she does come down.
+Mrs. Macy was very solid, as we all know who've heard her sit down or
+seen her get up, and I can't see no happy ending ahead, even though we
+all wish her well. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming
+back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure; but even insurance men
+can't have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view
+is as it's no use worrying. Spilt milk's a poor thing to cook with. If
+you're in the fire, you ain't in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is
+this community, as is all locked out of their houses. The Browns is
+living in the cellar to the cowshed, with two lengths of sidewalk laid
+over them. Mrs. Brown says she feels like a Pilgrim Father, and she
+sees why they got killed off so fast by the Indians,--it was so much
+easier to be scalped than to do your hair. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes
+turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change
+regular, for whoever turns over spills out, and the other one is sitting
+looking at the moon and waiting all ready to get in."
+
+"I declare, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins warmly, "I think it's most
+shocking. I won't say outrageous, but I will say shocking."
+
+"But what are you going to do about it?" said Susan. "That's the rub in
+this country. There's plenty as is shocking, but here we sit at the
+mercy of any cyclone or Congress as comes along. Here we was, peaceful,
+happy, and loving, and a cyclone swishes through. Down comes half a
+dozen men from the city and seals up everything in town. I tell you you
+ought to have heard me when they was sealing up your house and Mrs.
+Macy's. I give it to 'em, and I didn't mince matters none. I spoke my
+whole mind, and it was a great satisfaction, but they went right on and
+sealed up the houses."
+
+"Oh, Susan," began Mrs. Lathrop, "how are--?"
+
+"All in ruins," replied Susan promptly. "I don't believe you and me is
+ever going to live in happy homes any more. Fate seems dead set against
+the idea. And nobody can get ahead of Fate. They may talk all they
+please about overcoming, and when I was young I was always charging
+along with my horns down and my tail waving same as every other young
+thing; but I'm older now, and I see as resignation is the only thing as
+really pays in the end. I get as mad as ever, but I stay meek. I wanted
+to lam those insurance men with a stick of wood as was lying most handy,
+but all I did was to walk home. Mr. Shores says he's just the same way.
+We was talking it over this morning. He says when his wife first run off
+with his clerk, he was nigh to crazy; he says he thought getting along
+without a wife was going to just drive him out of his senses, and he
+said her taking the clerk just seemed to add insult to perjury, but he
+says now, as he gets older, he finds having no wife a great comfort."
+
+"I wish Jathrop would--" sighed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, he will, likely enough," said Susan. "Now he's rich, some girl
+will snap him up, and he won't find how he's been fooled till three or
+four months after the wedding."
+
+"I suppose Jathrop could marry just any one he pleased now," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, sighing in her turn. "Hiram didn't have no choice;
+Jathrop'll have a choice."
+
+"He may be none the better for that," said Susan darkly. "If Jathrop
+Lathrop is wise, he'll not go routing wildly around like a president
+after a elephant; he'll stick to what's tried and true. But I have my
+doubt as to Jathrop's being wise; very few men with money have any
+sense."
+
+"Who do _you_ think--?" began Mrs. Lathrop, looking intently at Susan.
+
+"I d'n know," said Susan, looking hard at Mrs. Lathrop; "far be it from
+me to judge."
+
+"They do say, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins wisely, "as he'll end up by
+marrying you. Everybody says so."
+
+Susan shook her head hard. "It's not for me to say. Affairs has been
+going on and off between Jathrop and me for too many years now for me to
+begin to discuss them. What is to be will be, and what isn't to be can't
+possibly be brought about."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins sighed again, and Mrs. Lathrop went on rocking. As she
+rocked, she viewed Susan Clegg from time to time in a speculative
+manner. It was many, many years since she had suggested to Susan the
+idea of marrying Jathrop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the next morning that Mrs. Macy re-appeared on the scene. The
+insurance men had unsealed all the houses, and the result was her
+discovery.
+
+"Well, you could drown me for a new-born kitten, and I'd never open my
+eyes in surprise after _this_," Susan expounded to the friends at the
+hotel. "But Mrs. Macy always _was_ peculiar; she was always give to
+adventures. To think of her living there as snug as a moth in a rug,
+cooking her meals on the little oil-stove--"
+
+"But where--?" interposed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I'm telling you. She's been sleeping in a good bed, too, and being
+perfectly comfortable while we've all been suffering along of waiting
+for her to come back."
+
+"But Susan--" cried Gran'ma Mullins, wide-eyed.
+
+"I'll tell you where she was; she was in your house--that's where she
+was. The cyclone just gave her a lift over your woodshed, and then it
+set her down pretty quick. She says she came to earth like a piece of
+thistledown on the other side. Her story is as your back door was open,
+so she run in, and then it begun to rain, so she saw no reason for going
+out again. When it stopped raining, she looked out and seen nobody. That
+isn't surprising, for we wasn't there. She thought that it was strange
+not seeing any lights, but she started to go home, and she says _what_
+was her feelings when she fell over her own roof in the path. She says
+of all the strange sensations a perfectly respectable woman can possibly
+ever get to start to go home and fall over her own roof is surely the
+most singular. She says she was so sleepy she thought maybe she was
+dreaming, and not having any lantern, it was no use trying to
+investigate, so she just went back to your house and went to bed in my
+bed. She says she dreamed of Hiram's ears all night long. I'd completely
+forgot Hiram's ears, which is strange, for they was far and away the
+most amusing things in this community. I think that way he could turn
+'em about was so entertaining. That way he used to cock 'em at you
+always give him the air of paying so much attention. They say he never
+cocked 'em at Lucy but once--"
+
+"Oh, my, that once!" exclaimed Gran'ma Mullins involuntarily.
+
+"It was a sin and a shame for Lucy to choke Hiram's ears off like she
+did," Susan declared warmly. "She just seemed to take all the courage
+right out of 'em. Hiram always reminded me of a black-and-tan as long as
+he had the free use of his ears, but after Lucy broke their backbone
+like she did, he never reminded me of much of nothing." Susan paused to
+sigh. Gran'ma Mullins wiped her eyes.
+
+"You and Hiram give up to Lucy too much," said Susan. "I wish she'd
+married me."
+
+"I wish she had, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I wouldn't wish to seem
+unkind to the wife of my born and wedded only son, but I do wish that
+she'd married you, and if Hiram could only see Lucy with a mother's
+clear blue eye, he'd wish it, too."
+
+"Where is--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, desiring to recur to the main object
+under discussion.
+
+"Oh, she's gone straight over to Meadville," said Susan. "Oh, my, she
+says, but think of her feelings as she sat inside that nice, comfortable
+house and realized that she was the only person in town with a roof
+over her head! You see, she heard me talking with the insurance men, and
+she didn't know why we was to be sealed up, but she got it all straight
+as we was going to be turned out of house and home, and she says she
+made up her mind as no one should ever know as she was in a house and so
+come capering up to put her out. She says she settled down as still as a
+mouse, made no smoke, and never lit so much as a candle nights. Mrs.
+Macy is surely most foxy!"
+
+"And she's gone to Meadville?" said Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Yes, she didn't want to pay board here, and her own house hasn't got no
+roof, so she's gone to Mrs. Lupey. Old Doctor Carter was over here to
+appraise the damage done to folks, and he took her back with him."
+
+"I wonder if she'll ever--" wondered Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"I d'n know. If folks talk about a marriage long enough, it usually ends
+up that way. Doctor Carter and Mrs. Macy has been kind of jumping at
+each other and then running away for fifteen years or so. They say he'd
+like her money, but he hates to be bothered with her."
+
+"She wouldn't like to be bothered with him, either," said Gran'ma
+Mullins.
+
+"I know," said Susan. "That's what's making so few people like to get
+married nowadays. They don't want to be bothered with each other."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop fixed her little, black, beady eyes hard on Susan.
+
+Susan stared straight ahead.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND
+
+
+"Mrs. Sperrit can't stand it no longer, and she's going visiting,"
+announced Susan Clegg to the three friends who, seated together on Mrs.
+Macy's piazza, had been awaiting her return from down-town. Both Mrs.
+Macy and Gran'ma Mullins were now back in their own houses after the
+temporary absence due to the cyclone, and Mrs. Lathrop and she who might
+yet be her daughter-in-law were reëstablished as their paying guests.
+
+"Why, I never knew that Mr. Sperrit was that kind of a man," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, opening her eyes very wide indeed. "I wouldn't say he's
+han'some, and I wouldn't say he's entertaining; but I always thought
+they got on well together."
+
+"He isn't that kind of a man a _tall_," rejoined Susan, who had been
+holding one hatpin in her mouth while she felt for the other, but now
+freed herself of both. "It's just that Mrs. Sperrit's sick of all this
+clutter of mending up after the cyclone. She says she's nervous for the
+first time in her life and has got to have a change. She says the
+carrying off of the barn and its never being heard from any more has got
+on her nerves somehow, even if it was only a barn. She says God forgive
+her and not to mention it to you, Mrs. Macy, but she wishes every hour
+of her life as the cyclone had took you and left their barn, because the
+barn had her sewing-machine in it, and she'd as leave be dead as be
+without that sewing-machine."
+
+"Where--?" mildly interpolated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Mr. Sperrit says wherever she likes. He's been upset by the barn too,
+because it had his tool-chest in it, and he's such a handy man with his
+tools that he feels for her in a way as not many women get felt for."
+
+"Where does--?" began Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"She didn't know at first, but now she thinks she'll go and stay with
+her cousin. She hasn't had much to do with her cousin for years, and she
+says she feels as maybe the barn was a judgment. She never got along
+well with her cousin. She says her cousin was pretty, with curls, and
+she herself was freckled, with straight hair, and so it was only natural
+as she always hated her. I don't feel to blame her none, for curls is
+very hard on them as is born straight-haired. But there was more reasons
+than one for Mrs. Sperrit not to get along with her cousin, and she says
+it never was so much the curls as it was her not being practical. Mrs.
+Sperrit is practical, and she's always been practical, and her cousin
+wasn't. They didn't speak for years and years."
+
+"Whatever set 'em at it again?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Sperrit says it come by degrees. She says she first noticed
+as her cousin was trying to make up about five years ago, but she
+thought she'd best wait and be sure. Mrs. Sperrit's practical; she don't
+never look in anywhere until she's leaped around the edge enough to know
+what she's doing. She says her cousin named her first boy Gringer, which
+is Mrs. Sperrit's family name; but then, it is the cousin's family name,
+too, so she didn't pay any attention to that. Then she named her first
+girl Eliza, which, as we know, is Mrs. Sperrit's own name, but seeing as
+it was the name of the grandmother of both of them, she didn't pay any
+attention to _that_, either. Then she named the second boy Sperrit,
+which was a little pointed, of course; and Mrs. Sperrit says if her
+cousin had been practical, she would certainly have thought that the
+Sperrits ought to have given the child something. But she wasn't and
+didn't, and they didn't. Then she named the second girl Azile--which is
+Eliza spelt backwards--and Mrs. Sperrit says it was the spelling of
+Eliza backwards as first showed her how awful friendly her cousin was
+trying to get to be. Then, when she named the third boy Jacob, after
+Mr. Sperrit, and the fourth boy Bocaj--which is Jacob spelled
+backwards--Mrs. Sperrit says that it was no use pretending not to see.
+Besides, naming the baby Bocaj just did go to her heart, particularly as
+the baby wasn't very strong, anyway. So since then the Sperrits has sent
+'em a turkey every Thanksgiving and a quarter apiece to the children
+every Christmas."
+
+"What's she named the other children?" asked Mrs. Macy with real
+interest.
+
+"Why, there ain't no more yet. Bocaj is only six months old."
+
+"Oh, then they ain't sent no turkey yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, not yet, but when they begin, they'll keep it up steady. And now
+Mrs. Sperrit says she'll go and visit and see for herself how things
+are. She's not very hopeful of enjoying herself, for she says visiting a
+person as isn't practical is most difficult. She knows, because when she
+taught school, she used to board with a family as was that way. She says
+she kept the things she bought then, and she shall take 'em all to her
+cousin's. She says when you stay with any one as isn't practical, you
+must take your own spirit-lamp, and teapot, and kettle, and tea, and
+matches, and a small blanket, and pen and ink, and a box of crackers,
+and a sharp knife, and some blank telegrams, and a good deal of
+court-plaster, and a teacup, and sugar if you take it, and a ball of
+good heavy string, and your own Bible, and a pillow. And never forget to
+wear your trunk-key round your neck, even if you only go down-stairs to
+look at the clock. She's got all those things left over from her
+school-teaching days. She says everything always comes in handy again
+some time if you're practical, and she thanks God she's practical."
+
+"I don't think that I should care to visit that way," said Gran'ma
+Mullins thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say I wouldn't, and I wouldn't say I
+couldn't, but I don't think--"
+
+"She's going Tuesday," continued Susan Clegg. "Mr. Sperrit says she can,
+and she's going Tuesday. She's written her cousin, and her cousin's
+written her. Her cousin says they'll be too glad for words, and for her
+to stay till Christmas--or till Thanksgiving, anyway. Mrs. Sperrit says
+she won't do that, but she'll stay until the end of next week if she can
+stand her cousin's husband. She says she never had any use for her
+cousin's husband, because he isn't practical either, and when he was
+young, his tie was never on straight. Mrs. Sperrit says a man that wears
+his tie crooked when he's young is the kind to keep shy of later. She
+says he'll never have a pocket knife and borrow hers, and never have a
+pencil and borrow hers. And then, too, she's almost sure as by this time
+he's spoilt her cousin's temper; and visiting a cousin whose temper's
+spoilt wouldn't be fun, even if she was practical. Which this one
+ain't."
+
+"If her cousin's got a sharp tongue I--" began Gran'ma Mullins in quiet,
+sad reminiscence.
+
+"She was buying some wood alcohol and a cheap spoon at Mr. Kimball's,"
+Susan went on. "She took me in her buggy and drove me up to look at our
+houses, which is trying feebly to climb again to where they was before
+the cyclone. But they're a sorry sight. I don't know when we're ever
+going to get into them, I'm sure. I only wish Jathrop was to see how
+slow those carpenters can be." Then Miss Clegg's countenance assumed a
+coy expression, her eyes lowered bashfully, and her fingers nervously
+sought to touch between the buttons of her waist some treasured object
+hidden within. "I--I had a letter from him to-day."
+
+And at that all three listeners started in more or less violent
+amazement.
+
+"What!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Nothing that I can tell any one," said Susan serenely. "So it's no use
+asking me another word about it."
+
+Mrs. Sperrit left on Tuesday precisely and practically as she had
+planned; but she returned very much sooner than she had expected.
+
+"And no wonder," declared Susan, just back from the Sewing Society, to
+Mrs. Lathrop, who never went. "I should say it was no wonder. Well, Mrs.
+Sperrit has had an experience, and I guess no lost barn will ever lead
+her into looking up no more cousins after this."
+
+"She's so worn-looking," said Gran'ma Mullins, who had returned with
+Susan. "I wouldn't say white, and I wouldn't say worried, but I call it
+peaked."
+
+"Why, she's been through enough to make a book," said Mrs. Macy, who had
+come in with the others, "--a book like _The Jungle_, as makes you right
+down sick in spots."
+
+"Oh, _The Jungle_ isn't so bad," said Susan. "If it was, Roosevelt would
+have straightened it out soon enough when he was in it himself. But
+what's awful about Mrs. Sperrit is what she has suffered, for that woman
+certainly has suffered. She's a lesson once for all as to visiting. No
+one as hears her is ever going lightly visiting after this. She lost her
+trunk-key as soon as she landed in the house, and she says she was too
+took up to miss it for three days, which shows what kind of a time she
+had. Why, her cousin went right to bed as soon as she got there, because
+she said as she knowed that Mrs. Sperrit was practical and could do
+everything better than she could. So that was a nice beginning to begin
+with. Well, she says such a house you never see. The chickens come into
+the dining-room, and they was raising mud turtles in the bathtub, and
+caterpillars in the cake-box. The children was awful right from the
+start. She slept in the room with two of them, and they woke her up
+mornings playing shave with the ends of her braids. She found out as
+they dipped 'em first in the water pitcher and then in the tooth powder
+to make it like lather."
+
+"My heavens alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Then Jacob, who's only two and a half, ate mashed potatoes with his
+fingers, which is a thing, Mrs. Sperrit says, as must be seen to be
+believed, and they all just swum in jam from dawn to dark. She says she
+never see such children, anyway. Whenever anybody sat down, they'd play
+she was the Alps, and go back and forth over her wherever they could get
+a purchase. And she says--would you believe it?--her cousin is got to be
+so calm that it drives you out of your senses only to see the way she
+takes things. Mrs. Sperrit says all she can say is as when a woman as
+isn't practical does go to bed, she's resigned to that degree that you
+wish you could blow her up with dynamite if only to see her move quick
+just once."
+
+"Why didn't she come home?" asked Mrs. Macy. "My view would be as I'd
+come home. I said so to her to-day."
+
+"She did come home, didn't she?" said Miss Clegg. "You heard her, and
+you know she's home. It's Mrs. Lathrop as all this is new to, isn't it?
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it would go to your heart to hear what happened to
+all those little conveniences as she took. There wasn't no sharp knife
+in the house but hers, so she never see hers after she unpacked it.
+There wasn't no string or court-plaster either, so they disappeared
+too. Then they run out of tea the minute they see she brought some, and
+not being practical, her cousin's teapot naturally didn't have no nose,
+so she lost her teapot, too. The whole family took her hairbrush and
+used it for a clothes brush, and she thinks for a shoe brush when she
+was down-town. Her cousin wore her stockings and her collars, and her
+cousin's husband slept on the pillow with the blanket folded around him.
+Not being practical, he liked his feet free."
+
+"Well, I nev--!" ejaculated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Mrs. Sperrit said by the third day she had to begin to do something, so
+she asked if she could clean her own room, and her cousin said she was
+going to let her make herself happy in her own way and just to go ahead
+and clean the whole house if she liked. So she went to work and cleaned
+the whole house, and she says such a house she never dreamed could
+exist. She found families of mice, and families of swallows, and
+families of moths. She found things as had been lost for years, and
+they was wild with delight to see 'em again. She found things as, she
+says, she wouldn't like to say she found, because when all's said and
+done a cousin is still a cousin, but she says--Good lands, what she
+found! Well, she says when she got the house cleaned, her cousin was
+still in bed, so she took heart of grace and asked if she might teach
+the children to mind. Her cousin said she didn't care, so Mrs. Sperrit
+went to work on those six children. Well, she says that was a job, and
+it was that as led to her coming away like she did. She says the
+children was the very worst children anybody ever saw. She says she
+taught school, and she thought she knew children, but anything like
+those children nobody--even those as is chock full of things not fit to
+eat--could ever by any possibility of dreamed of. Why, she says they was
+used to heating the poker and jabbing one another with it when mad; and
+while you was leaning down to tie your shoe, they'd snatch your chair
+away from behind you, and such games. But Mrs. Sperrit is practical,
+and she believes in her Bible, and she thought as how the Lord had
+delivered them into her hands and set to work. She said she begun by
+washing them all--for they was always slippery from jam. And then she
+cut their nails very short and started in. Well, she says it was some
+work, for they was so funny she could hardly keep from laughing. She
+says they're mighty bright children--she must say that for 'em, although
+it don't soften her feelings a mite towards 'em. Well, she says you
+couldn't do nothing a _tall_ with 'em. But she didn't lose courage. When
+she talked serious, they took it as a great joke, and she had to stop
+for meals so often that it used her all up; for she says such steady
+eating she never see. She says the meals was most terrible, too, as they
+always had herring, and of course the bones made so much picking that
+the children kept telling her she ate with her fingers, herself. She
+says that was the most awful part, the way they talked back. But she
+didn't despair. She kept washing them out of the jam and taking a fresh
+cut at their nails, until finally come the last hour of wrath. And then,
+she says, they did make her mad--good and mad."
+
+"But what did--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, seems the worst child was 'Zile. Of course, Mrs. Sperrit, having
+taught school, thought they'd pronounce it like Azalea, and make a real
+pretty name out of Eliza spelt backwards, but seems they dropped the A
+and just called her 'Zile to rhyme with file; and Mrs. Sperrit says she
+rhymed with file all right."
+
+"Go on, Susan," urged Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Well, the cousin and the husband was invited to go on a all-day
+excursion, so the cousin got up and dressed and went. She said she might
+as well, seeing as Mrs. Sperrit was there with the children. When they
+was gone, Mrs. Sperrit made up her mind as now was her chance to bring
+those children to time, once and for all. So she rolled up her sleeves
+and give 'em all a good bath--for she says the way they'd get freshly
+jammed was most astonishing--and then she went up-stairs to get her
+scissors to cut their nails. She was opening her trunk to get out the
+scissors when she heard a click. Well, when she run to the door, what do
+you suppose? She found they'd locked her in.
+
+"Well, maybe you can imagine her feelings! She says she was never so mad
+in all her life. She called through the door, but not a sound. There was
+a crack big enough to put your hand through under the door, and she
+tried to look through it, but it wasn't high enough to put your eye to.
+Then she heard a shout and run to the window. There they all was, out on
+the grass in front,--all but Bocaj, who was asleep in his cradle
+down-stairs. Well, such doings! She says 'Zile, who was always full of
+ideas, was just outstripping herself in ideas this time. They had a old
+pair of scissors, and first they went to work for half an hour cutting
+each other's hair. She says you can maybe think of her feelings in the
+upper window, left in charge of 'em, with full permission to whip 'em
+if necessary, and having to sit and watch 'em trim each other anyway
+the notion hit 'em. She says tying a man to a tree while cannibals eat
+up his family is the only thing as would express it a _tall_. After they
+got done cutting hair, they went in and got a pot of jam and brought it
+out and sat down in full sight and eat jam with their fingers till there
+was no more jam. She says she'd stopped calling things to 'em by that
+time and was just sitting quietly in the window, thanking God for every
+minute as they stayed where she could see what they was doing. But when
+they had finished the jam, they went in the house and was so deathly
+quiet she was scared to fits. She thought maybe they was setting fire to
+something. But after a while they begun to bang on the piano, and when
+she was half crazy over the noise, she looked towards the door, and
+there was the key poked under. She made a jump for the key, and it was
+jerked back by a piece of string. And her own string at that. Then she
+was called to the window by Gringer yelling, and while she was trying
+to hear what he had to say--the piano jangling worse than ever--they
+opened the door suddenly and bundled Bocaj into the room and then locked
+the door again.
+
+"The baby was just woke up and hungry, and it was a pretty kettle of
+fish. She says she made up her mind then and there to quit that house
+and adopt Bocaj. She says she saw as there was no use trying to reform
+the rest; but Bocaj was so little and helpless, and nothing in her heart
+made her feel as he couldn't be raised to be practical. She went to work
+and fed him crackers soaked in boiling water while she packed her trunk.
+And when her cousin came home, she was sitting with her bonnet on ready
+to go. Her cousin just naturally felt awful. She wanted to call it a
+joke; but Mrs. Sperrit is a woman whose feelings isn't lightly took in
+vain. She left, and she took Bocaj with her. She telegraphed Mr.
+Sperrit, and he met her at the train. He was some disappointed because
+he'd forgotten about the baby's name and thought from reading it in the
+telegraph that she was bringing back a monkey. Seems Mr. Sperrit has
+always wanted a monkey, and she wouldn't have one. But now she says he
+can have a monkey or anything else, if he'll only stay practical. She
+says she doesn't believe she could ever live with any one as wasn't
+practical, after this experience."
+
+Susan paused, Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma Mullins rose to go to their kitchens
+and get suppers for their guests. When they had gone, Susan, having Mrs.
+Lathrop alone, eased a troubled conscience.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she confided, "do you remember me saying the other
+evening I'd had a letter from Jathrop?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop suddenly stopped rocking. "Yes--yes, Susan," she answered
+eagerly. "I--"
+
+"Well, I didn't have one. It was just as everybody in this community has
+got their minds fixed on Jathrop's being wild about me, so I felt to
+mention a letter, and I shall go on mentioning getting a letter from
+him whenever the spirit moves me."
+
+"Why, Susan--!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"It doesn't hurt him a _tall_," said Susan Clegg with calm decision,
+"and it saves me from being asked questions. And you know as well as I
+do, Mrs. Lathrop, that I can have him if I want him."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sat open-mouthed, dumb.
+
+"If I don't have him, it'll be because I don't want him," added Miss
+Clegg with dignity. "So it's no use your saying one other word, Mrs.
+Lathrop."
+
+And Mrs. Lathrop, thus adjured, refrained from further speech.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION
+
+
+"Far be it from me, Mrs. Lathrop," said Susan Clegg, returning from an
+early errand down-town and dropping in at Mrs. Macy's to find her friend
+still in her own room and rocking in her old-gold stationary rocker. It
+was now autumn, and to take the chill off the room an oil burner was
+brightly ablaze. "Far be it from me to say anything disrespectful of
+such a good Samaritan as your son Jathrop, but as we have it in the
+scriptures, he certainly does move in a mysterious way his neighbors to
+inform. It's mighty good of him to go to all the expense of building
+over my house in a way I'd never in this wide world have had it if I
+could 'a' understood those plans of that boy architect, and it may
+be--providing we escape earthquake, fire, blood, and famine--that I'll
+get into it once more before next summer, notwithstanding it's all of
+two months behind yours, you being his mother, Mrs. Lathrop, and me only
+your friend. But a early frost is sure to crack the plaster, and, seeing
+as the glass blowers has gone on a strike, there's no telling when
+they'll blow the panes for the windows. Just the same, kind and good as
+Jathrop is, he might have had more consideration for me as would this
+day have been his wife, if I'd felt to answer him with a three-letter
+word instead of a two, than to put me on the pillar of scorn before a
+community as has known me always as a scrupulous lover of the voracious
+truth."
+
+"You don't--" began Mrs. Lathrop, in mild astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I do," continued Susan, with growing indignation. "Jathrop has
+done his best to make me out a liar, and I don't know as I'll ever be
+able to hold my head up again. He's struck me in the tenderest spot he
+could strike me in, and not boldly neither, but in a skulking,
+underhand way that makes it all the bitterer pill to swallow."
+
+"I can't see--" objected Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, nor me neither. But he did, and in no time everybody'll know it
+from Johnny, at the station, to Mrs. Lupey in Meadville, not forgettin'
+the poor demented over to the insane asylum. And it all comes of those
+letters I have been getting from Jathrop during the summer."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Yes, I know and you know there was no letters a _tall_. But everybody
+else, except you and me and the postmaster, believed I had a letter
+regular every week. Whenever I run short of subjects at the Sewing
+Society, I just fell back on my last letter from Jathrop and told them
+all about what he was doing in those islands. I'd read the book he sent,
+and I'd read it to good profit. There was some things as I didn't quite
+understand, of course, but on them I just put my own interpretations,
+and knowing Jathrop as I did, it was easy enough for me to figure out
+how he'd be most likely to act in a strange, barbaric land. The book
+didn't have a word to say about the costumes of the native tribes, but
+I'm not so ignorant as not to know how those South Sea Islanders never
+wear nothing more hamperin' than sea-shell earrings and necklaces of
+sharks' teeth; and I'd read, too, that foreign visitors, on account of
+the unbearable heat, was in the habit of adoptin' the native fashions in
+dress. When you get started makin' things up, there's no knowing just
+where you're likely as to end. It's so easy to go straight ahead and say
+just whatever you please that seems in any way interesting. And so, when
+Mrs. Fisher asked me one day whether I supposed there was any cannibals
+there, I said there was one cannibal tribe that was most ferocious and
+had appetites that there was no such thing as quenchin'. I said that in
+Jathrop's last letter he had written me about how this tribe had
+captured the cook off the yacht and that when they finally found his
+captors and defeated them in a desperate battle lasting three days, all
+that was found of the cook was two chicken croquettes."
+
+"For gra--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's what Mrs. Fisher said. Of course, with the cook eat up--all but
+what was in the two croquettes, that is,--Jathrop and his millionaire
+friends was a good deal put about. There wasn't a one of 'em as knew the
+first thing about cooking, and after the exercise of the three days'
+battle they was most awful hungry. And then, I says, quoting from the
+letter from Jathrop which never came, they had a piece of real luck,
+just as millionaires is always having. They had taken one prisoner, and
+by means of signs, not knowin' a word of the cannibal language, they
+discovered that the prisoner was the cook of the tribe. He pointed to
+the croquettes as a example of his handiwork, and Jathrop said that he
+never saw anything in the cookin' line that looked more toothsome than
+they did. So, of course they engaged the cannibal cook on the spot and
+carried him back to the yacht with 'em. Everything went well for a few
+days, but on a day when they had invited the chief of a friendly tribe
+to dinner, there was something as aroused their suspicions. The
+principal dish for the feast was, so far as they could make out from the
+cook's sign-language, a savory rabbit stew. Now as they had never seen
+or heard tell of a rabbit in the Bahamas, they was naturally curious to
+learn where the cook had managed to dig it up. He either couldn't or
+wouldn't tell. I says that Jathrop says you might 'a' thought that the
+cook was a thirty-second degree mason and that the origin of the rabbit
+was a thirty-second degree masonic secret. The millionaires gathered in
+council and discussed the question, pro and con, from every obtainable
+or imaginable angle. Then, just as they were about to adjourn without
+having reached any conclusion whatever, they rang for the cabin boy to
+fetch some liquid refreshment. But there wasn't no answer. And they
+might 'a' been ringing yet as to any good it would do. They never did
+see that cabin boy, and the only one to eat the savory rabbit stew was
+the visiting chief."
+
+"I don't--" observed Mrs. Lathrop, rocking faster.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you're right about that," Susan confirmed,
+loosening her shawl, for the oil-stove was rapidly lifting the room's
+temperature. "I don't see, myself, why anybody should ever have known
+any better, and nobody would have, if it hadn't been as Jathrop took it
+into his head to talk to a newspaper man at Atlantic City on about the
+same day as I had him missing the cabin boy and refusing a helping to
+the rabbit stew. Mr. Kimball showed me the paper as came from New York
+wrapped around a new ledger he just received by express. The reporter
+had written two columns and over about the 'Klondike Bonanza King,' and
+if Jathrop had set his mind to makin' me out a Ananias and a Saphira
+boiled into one, he couldn't have succeeded better. He hasn't been in
+the Bahamas a _tall_. The yacht started for there, but it went to Cuba
+instead, and he and his friends only stayed in Cuba a week. From there
+they went down to Panama and looked over the canal as far as it's gone.
+They spent the summer sailin' from one summer resort to another, and I
+must say I should think there was better ways of passin' the time than
+that. When it comes to eatin', I'd about as leave eat the dishes of a
+cannibal cook as eat things made of the salt water that people go
+bathin' in, and that's what they do at Atlantic City. The minister
+showed me some candy 'Liza Em'ly sent him from Atlantic City in July,
+and I know what I'm talkin' about, for it was printed on the paper
+around each piece. 'Salt-water Taffy.' Think of that! It's plain to be
+seen that they ain't got any fresh water there, or they wouldn't use
+salt. Jathrop and the other millionaires, I suppose, drink nothin' but
+wine, but the poor folks must drink salt water or go thirsty. I suppose
+it saves salt in seasonin', but I'd rather have my vituals unseasoned
+than have 'em salted with water that folks has swum in. They certainly
+ain't got no enterprise, that's sure. If they had they'd pipe
+water--fresh water--from somewheres. And if there's no place near enough
+to pipe it from, they'd build cisterns. But water's not the only thing
+as shows their shiftlessness. Our town isn't exactly a metropolis, but
+we got a few cement sidewalks. Atlantic City ain't got a one. I heard
+about that long ago. And in these days of progress, too! Nothing but a
+board walk on its principal street--nothing a _tall_."
+
+"What did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"He said a good deal more'n his prayers, I can tell you that. He said
+his object in going to the Bahamas, to which he never went, after all,
+was to look into the possibility of securin' a large tract of land there
+for the cultivation and growth of sisal. Now what under the sun would
+you suppose sisal was? I saw in the book that sisal was being grown in
+increasing quantities in the islands, and I just naturally supposed it
+was some sort of animal. It might of been buffalo, or it might of been
+guinea pigs, but when I spoke at the Sewing Society of how Jathrop had
+mentioned the great number of sisal, and Mrs. Allen says: 'What is
+sisal?' I just right then and there on the spur of the minute says:
+'Why, don't you know? Sisal is a sort of small oxen striped like a zebra
+and spotted like a leopard.' And would you believe it, Mrs. Lathrop,
+when Mr. Kimball asked me that same question to-day, I said the very
+same thing--small oxen striped like a zebra and spotted like a leopard.
+'That's what Mrs. Allen told me you said, Miss Clegg,' says he, 'but
+accordin' to the paper, Jathrop Lathrop don't quite agree with you.' I
+don't know, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, why Jathrop should take
+pleasure in making me appear like a ignoramus, but there ain't no
+question about it that that's what he did when he gave that interview to
+that there reporter. 'What kind of animal is a sisal, then, Mr.
+Kimball?' I asked, and you can believe me my blood was boilin' in my
+veins. 'It ain't no animal a _tall_,' he says. 'It's hemp what they
+make ropes out of to hang murderers with. And the seeds they feed
+canaries on.' 'Well,' I says, 'that may be the reporter's sisal, but it
+ain't mine, and it ain't Jathrop's. The newspapers never get nothin'
+right nohow, but when it comes to reducin' cattle into rope and
+birdseed, they are certainly goin' one better on the Chicago pork
+packers.' In all my life I have never been a respecter of the untruth,
+but I know enough on the subject to tell a good lie when necessity calls
+upon me and to stick to it as long as it has an eyelid to hang by. But I
+will say this for your son Jathrop, Mrs. Lathrop, and that is that
+before he got done with that reporter, he didn't leave so much as a
+eyelash, let alone a lid. It wasn't only that he'd never been to those
+islands a _tall_, and I'd been tellin' everybody in town as how I'd had
+a letter from him there every week the whole summer through, but he must
+air his acquaintance with things on the islands just as if he'd been
+born and raised there. And it seems there ain't no natives within miles
+of the Bahamas, and hasn't been since Columbus and his people was there,
+goin' on fifteen hundred years ago. Columbus told 'em that he'd take 'em
+to the land where all their dead relatives and friends had gone to, a
+land flowin' with milk and honey, and he kept his word. Seems he shipped
+every last mother's son and daughter of 'em back to Spain with him, and
+left the islands bare for the next comers. It may have appeared a rather
+roundabout way for the native Bahamians to reach heaven and their
+departed folks, seeing as it led through hard work in the Spanish mines,
+but there ain't no question whatever that they every one got there in
+the end."
+
+"You mean--" suggested Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I mean that unless Lathrop or the reporter made it up, or the pair of
+'em together, that nobody lives there now except whites and blacks, and
+there's not enough whites to make a nice shepherd's plaid out of the
+combination. But savagery, except for pirates, has never had any place
+there, and cannibalism is absolutely unknown. It's all very
+humiliating, and it'd 'a' been much better to let people ask me and
+never said nothing back a _tall_. When people is in the dark, they've
+got to imagine for themselves, and as long as they don't tell what they
+imagine to others, no piece in a newspaper can never make 'em blush. I
+can tell you it's learnt me a lesson as I won't soon forget. I'll never
+get over the way Mr. Kimball looked at me when he said as how sisal was
+hemp; and me thinking all the time it was a animal when it was a herb.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it's a ill wind that don't chill the shorn lamb. I'm
+that chilled that I feel I never shall talk again. I'll never say black
+is black or white is white until I've looked at the color twice with my
+glasses on. Accuracy is the best policy, I says, from this day
+henceforth."
+
+"You might--" began Mrs. Lathrop sympathetically.
+
+"That's true, too. I might have known that it didn't sound true to be
+getting letters every week from a man who went away to the Klondike and
+never sent his mother so much as a picture postal card in all the years
+he was there. But then, too, you've got to consider the kind of folks as
+you're telling things to, and with all due respect to the ladies of the
+Sewing Society, from Mrs. Allen to Gran'ma Mullins, they're not
+over-burdened with the kind of intellect as can add two and two and get
+the same answer twice in succession. There wasn't a one of 'em as
+thought of that, or they'd 'a' said it straight out, without once
+considering my feelings. And I'll say this much for you, Mrs. Lathrop:
+you're not the best housekeeper I ever see, and you're about a match for
+Mrs. Sperrit's cousin when it comes to being practical, but you have got
+some brains, and I'd no more think of trying to deceive you than I'd
+think of trying to deceive Judge Fitch when he'd got a big retainer to
+get the truth out of me."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop leaned down and turned out the oil burner.
+
+"Was that--?"
+
+"No, it wasn't all. There was something else that has set me all of a
+flutter. If it wasn't as you never can tell whether a newspaper is
+voracious or just bearing false witness, I'd certainly feel as if
+Jathrop was playing fast and loose with my affections. I can remember,
+and you can remember, too, when the freedom of the press didn't mean
+freedom to make a Pike's Peak out of a ant hill. But in these days
+there's no telling whether, when we read of a poor soul being attacked
+by a wild beast, it's a jungle tiger or just a pet yellow kitten. Folks
+would rather read about the tiger than the kitten, and so the papers
+give 'em what they want without any regard for the real facts a _tall_.
+Elijah Doxey, who's a real editor if there ever was one, and knows all
+about the paper business, says that the newspaper, like everything else,
+has to keep abreast of the times or go to the wall, and that since
+people in these days 'ld rather read fiction than history, it stands to
+reason a paper can't stand in its own light by sticking always to cold
+commonplace facts."
+
+"Did the--?" Mrs. Lathrop attempted mildly to question.
+
+"I don't know, I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop. But the interview
+with Jathrop wasn't all interview, by no means. It said a lot about his
+party, and it mentioned each of the millionaires as was in it. Seems the
+interview was given on one of those Atlantic City board walks, and it
+was given--from what on earth do you think, Mrs. Lathrop? From a wheel
+chair. Jathrop in a wheel chair! Think of that! And not alone, either.
+'Beside him,' wrote the interviewer, 'was the beautiful, dark-eyed Cuban
+señora who, rumor says, is soon to become his bride.' My lands! If it
+hadn't been for Mr. Kimball's apple barrel, I certainly would have
+dropped. It would 'a' been bad enough if they was both strong and well,
+but to think of Jathrop being too weak to walk and going to marry a
+foreigner no more robust than himself. You can't imagine the shock it
+give me. For a minute I was clean speechless, and I'd 'a' been dumb yet,
+I do believe, if it wasn't as I begun to figure things out in my head
+and got sight of a ray of hope. Just as like as not, I says, Jathrop was
+suffering from the sudden change of climate,--from the Klondike to Cuba
+seems to me a pretty rigorous switch for any constitution,--and the
+Cuban woman was more'n likely his trained nurse fetched from the island.
+Either that or the woman was just recovering from a illness, and Jathrop
+got in to ride with her out of pure kindness of heart. Then, too, I
+remembered that: 'rumor says,' and cheered right up. Rumor never told
+the truth yet, as far as I know, and it's not in reason to believe the
+shameless thing is going to reform in these degenerate days. Jathrop may
+be going to marry the señora, I don't say he isn't, and I don't say he
+is. But before I believe it, I've got to have some better authority than
+what rumor says. He's steered clear of wives in the Klondike, and he's
+steered clear of 'em in other places, and I don't see as there's any
+reason to think his steering apparatus come to grief while he was in
+Cuba. 'How's Susan Clegg?' That was what he wrote in the first letter
+you'd had from him in a dog's age, Mrs. Lathrop, and it showed pretty
+clear to me who he was thinking of while engaged in the steering
+operation."
+
+"You don't think--" Mrs. Lathrop began distressfully.
+
+"No man as was seriously sick, Mrs. Lathrop, ever talked two whole long
+newspaper columns to a reporter. You can bank on that. He was well
+enough to make me out the king of prevaricators, and it took some
+strength and a good deal of attention to small details to do it, and as
+the Cuban señora never said one word in all that time, I can't think as
+she is cutting any figure eights in his affairs. Consequently, I don't
+believe it'll pay either of us to do any great lot of worrying."
+
+"If--" Mrs. Lathrop attempted once more to interpolate.
+
+"That's just what I told Mr. Kimball. 'If Mrs. Lathrop could only see
+this paper,' I says, 'I know she'd be delighted.' It stands to reason
+as a mother must be proud of a son who, after having no more sense than
+to take a kicking cow for a bad debt, goes to the Klondike and comes
+back a millionaire; but it stands to reason, too, that she'd be more
+proud of him to get two columns of free advertising in a New York paper
+that can sell its columns to the department stores for real money. Well,
+I asked him for the paper just to show you, and though he didn't feel to
+part with it, just the same he did in the end, and I carried it away in
+triumph."
+
+"You've brought--"
+
+"No, I haven't. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Lathrop, more sorry
+than I am to disappoint Mr. Kimball in not being able to return it, but
+the truth is I lost it on the way home."
+
+"Lost--"
+
+"Every last scrap of it. And I can't say as it was altogether accidental
+either. As Shakespeare says: 'Self-protection is the best part of
+valor.' If that paper was ever to get before the Sewing Society, my
+character would be stripped off me to the last rag. Mr. Kimball can say
+what was in it, but without the paper itself, he'll have a hard time
+proving anything, and my word when it comes to a dispute is as good as
+his and a thousand times better."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop leaned forward and for a moment stopped rocking.
+
+"You--" she said quietly but tensely.
+
+"Tore it into small bits," returned Susan, rising, "and scattered them
+to the winds of heaven. There's a paper trail all the way from the
+square to Mrs. Macy's gate."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop resumed her rocking and relapsed into silence.
+
+Susan Clegg, laying her finger to her lips as a parting warning, went
+quietly out.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT
+
+
+"Well," said Miss Clegg to her dear friend in the early fall of that
+same year, while they still waited under alien roofs the completion of
+their own made-over houses, "the men who write the Sunday papers and say
+that when you look at the world with a impartial eye in this century you
+can't but have hopes of women some day developing into something, surely
+would know they spoke the truth if they could see Elijah Doxey now."
+
+"But Eli--" expostulated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, of course not. But 'Liza Em'ly is, and it's her I'm talking about.
+She was up to see me this afternoon, and she says she'll spare no money
+nowhere. The trained nurse is to stay with him right along forever if
+he likes, and the two can have her automobile and ride or walk or do
+anything, without thinking once what it costs. There was a doctor up
+from the city again yesterday, and that makes four visits at a hundred a
+visit. But 'Liza Em'ly says even if Elijah hadn't anything of his own,
+she'd pay all the bills sooner'n think anything that could be done was
+being left out. It's a pretty sad case, Mrs. Lathrop, and this last
+doctor says he never see a sadder. He said nothing more could be done
+right now, for there really is nothing in this community to remind
+Elijah that he ever wrote a play, if they only could get those clippings
+from the newspapers away from him. But that's just what they can't do.
+He keeps looking them over, and then such a look of agony comes into his
+eyes,--and Elijah was never one to bear pain as you must know,
+remembering him with the colic,--and he clasps his hands and shakes his
+head, and--well, Mrs. Lathrop, Elijah just wasn't strong enough to write
+a play, and some one as was stronger ought to of restrained him right
+in the first of it."
+
+"He--" said Mrs. Lathrop pityingly.
+
+"Yes, that's it," confirmed Susan, "and oh, it's awful to take a bright
+young promising life like his and wreck it completely like that! To see
+Elijah walking about with a trained nurse and those clippings at his age
+is surely one of the most touching sights as this town'll ever see.
+'Liza Em'ly says she offered a thousand dollars to any newspaper as
+would print one good notice, 'cause the doctors say just one good notice
+might turn the whole tide of his brain. But the newspapers say if they
+printed one good notice of such a play, the Pure Food Commission would
+have 'em up for libel within a week, and they just don't dare risk it.
+This last doctor says he can't blame Elijah for going mad, 'cause he
+knows a little about the stage through being in love with a actress
+once, and he says he wasn't treated fair. He says play-writing is not
+like any other kind of writing, and Elijah wasn't prepared for the
+great difference. Seems all words on the stage mean something they don't
+mean in the dictionary, and that makes it very hard for a mere ordinary
+person to know what they're saying if they say anything a _tall_. And
+then, too, Elijah never grasped that the main thing is to keep the
+gallery laughing, even if the two-dollar people have tears running down
+their cheeks. And you can't write for the stage nowadays without you
+keep folks laughing the whole time. Elijah never thought about the
+laughing, because his play was a tragedy like _Hamlet_, only with Hamlet
+left out. For the lady is dead in the play, and her ghost is all that's
+left of her. But 'Liza Em'ly told me to-day as his trouble came right in
+the start, for the people who look plays over no sooner looked Elijah's
+over before they took hold of it and fixed it. And they kept on fixing
+it till it was _Hamlet_ with nobody but Hamlet left in. And then, so as
+to manage the laughs, they dressed everybody like chickens if they
+turned back-to. So that while the audience was weeping, if any one on
+the stage turned 'round, they went off into shrieks of laughter. 'Liza
+Em'ly says they never told Elijah about the chicken feathers, and the
+opening night was the first he knew about that little game, for he was
+laid up for ever so long before then. He got all used up in the first
+part of the rehearsals; for it seems you can only have a theater to
+rehearse in at times when even the people who sweep it don't feel to be
+sweeping. And so they always rehearse from one to six in the morning.
+And Elijah naturally wasn't used to that. But they'd had trouble even
+before then; for right from the start there was a pretty how-d'ye-do
+over the plot. Seems Elijah wanted his own plot and his own people in
+his own play, and they had a awful time getting it through his head as
+it's honor enough to have your own play, and it's only unreasonable to
+stick out for your own plot and your own people too. 'Liza Em'ly says
+they had a awful time with him over it all, and there was a time when he
+felt so bad over giving up his plot and his people that any one ought
+to have seen right there as he'd never be strong enough to stand all the
+rest of what was surely coming. 'Liza Em'ly didn't tell me the whole of
+the rest what come, but Mr. Kimball told me that what was one great
+strain on Elijah, right through to the hour he begun to scream, was that
+the leading lady fell in love with him and used to have him up at all
+hours to fix up her part, and then kiss him. And Elijah didn't want to
+fix up her part, and he hated to be kissed. But they told him the part
+must be fixed up to suit her, and that the kisses didn't matter, because
+they was only little things after all.
+
+"He was wading along through the mire as best he could, when all of a
+sudden it come out as she had one husband as she'd completely overlooked
+and never divorced. He turned up most unexpectedly and come at Elijah
+about the kisses. Then they told Elijah he couldn't do a better thing by
+his play than to let the man shoot him two or three times in places as
+would let him be carried pale and white to a box for the opening night;
+and then, between the last two acts, marry the lady and let it be in all
+the morning papers. You can maybe think, Mrs. Lathrop, how such a idea
+would come to the man as is to be shot. But, oh, my, they didn't make
+nothing of Elijah's feelings in the matter. Nothing a _tall_. They just
+set right to work and called a meeting of the play manager and the stage
+manager and the leading lady's manager and Elijah's manager, and the man
+who really does the managing. They all got together, and they drew up a
+diagram as to where Elijah was to be hit, and a contract for him and the
+leading lady to sign as they wouldn't marry anybody else in the
+meantime. And if it hadn't been for 'Liza Em'ly, the deal, as they
+called it, would have gone straight through. For Elijah was so dead beat
+by this time that about all he was fit for was to sit on a electric
+battery with a ice bag on his head, and look up words in a stage
+dictionary and then cross 'em out of his play."
+
+"Oh, I--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's just what 'Liza Em'ly said she said," rejoined Susan Clegg. "I
+tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'Liza Em'ly is no fool since her book's gone
+into the thirty-seventh edition, and that's a fact. She told me to-day
+as when she realized the man she loved--for 'Liza Em'ly really loves
+Elijah; any one can see that just by looking at the trained nurse she's
+got him--was being murdered alive, she went straight up and took a hand
+in the matter herself. I guess she had a pretty hard time, for the
+leading lady wouldn't hear to changing any of what they call the
+routing, and said if Elijah wasn't shot and married according to the
+signed agreement, she wouldn't play. And when a leading lady won't play,
+then is when you find out what Shakespeare really did write for,
+according to 'Liza Em'ly. For a little they was all running this way and
+that way, just beside themselves, with the leading lady in the
+Adirondacks and two detectives watching her husband. And the man as was
+painting the scenery took a overdose of chloral and went off with all
+his ideas in his head, and that unexpected trouble brought 'em all
+together again. The husband came down off his high horse and said he'd
+take five per cent, of the net--Don't ask me what that means, for Mr.
+Dill don't know either--and the littlest chorus girl and go to Europe.
+And he said, too, as he'd sign a paper first releasing Elijah from all
+claim on account of his wife. So they all signed, and he sailed. He was
+clear out to sea before they discovered as he had another wife as he'd
+never divorced, so the leading lady could of married Elijah, after all.
+Well, that was a pretty mess, with a husband as had no claim on nobody
+gone off to Europe with five percent of the net. The stage manager and
+Elijah's manager took the _Mauretania_ and started right after him, for
+when it comes to five per cent. on any kind of stage thing, Mr. Kimball
+says, any monkeying counts up so quick that even hiring a yacht is
+nothing if you want to catch that five per cent. in time. So they was
+off, one in the captain's room and the other in the bridal suite, while
+'Liza Em'ly was down in Savannah getting local color to patch up the
+scenery, leaving Elijah totally unprotected on his battery with his
+ideas.
+
+"But Elijah wasn't to be left in peace even now. Seems they was having a
+investigation into the poor quality of the electricity in the city, and
+a newspaper opened a referendum and made 'em double the power. The
+company was so mad, they didn't give no warning to a soul, but just slid
+up the needle from 100 to 200 right then and there; and one of the
+results was they blew Elijah nearly through the ceiling. Nothing in the
+world but the ice bag saved him from having his skull caved in, and the
+specialist thinks he's got a concussion in his sinus right now. Poor
+Elijah!"
+
+"But--?" Mrs. Lathrop queried.
+
+"They took him to the hospital, and from then on to the opening night
+he had nothing to do with his own play. The leading lady married the
+stage manager till she got the stage to suit her, and then she married
+the man who really does the managing until she got everything else to
+suit her. Next, without letting any of the others know, she married
+Elijah's manager secretly, so that when poor Elijah in the hospital
+thought he was looking at his manager, he was really nursing a viper in
+his bosom. When 'Liza Em'ly came back with her local color, they told
+her they didn't want it because they was going to have the camping-out
+scene in the parlor, and play the people all liked a joke. When she went
+to a lawyer to protest, the lawyer looked through all Elijah's contracts
+and said Elijah had never stipulated as the camping-out scene should be
+in the woods. So 'Liza Em'ly paid him fifty dollars and come away a good
+deal wiser than she went.
+
+"Then come the opening night, and Mr. Kimball says he shall never forget
+that opening night as long as he lives. You know he bought himself one
+of those hats as when you sit on 'em just gets a better shape, and then
+he went up to see his own nephew's own play. Seems he sat on his hat in
+Elijah's own box, but he says Elijah was looking very bad even before
+the curtain went up. Seems Elijah didn't expect much, but he did have
+just a little hope that here and there in spots he'd see some of his own
+play. But the hope was very faint. After the curtain went up, it kept
+getting fainter. Of course Elijah meant it for a tragedy and called it
+_Millicent_; and seeing the title changed to _Milly Tilly_ was a hard
+blow to him right in the beginning. Seems the woman poisoned herself
+because she was unhappy, and after she's dead, she remembers there was
+some poison left in the bottle, and so she wants to warn the family. It
+was a very nice plot, Polly White thinks, and Elijah was wild over it
+'cause there's never been a plot used like it. But of course his idea
+was as it should be took seriously. Do you wonder then, Mrs. Lathrop,
+that the first time in the play when one of the play actors turned
+round he nearly died? Mr. Kimball says he nearly died himself. He says
+he never saw anything so funny as those chicken backs in all his life.
+He says people was just laying any way and every way in their seats,
+wailing to stop, so they could stop too. He says he was laughing fit to
+kill himself when all of a sudden he looked up to see Elijah, and he
+says nothing ever give him such a chill as Elijah's then-and-there
+expression. Seems Elijah was just staring at the leading lady as was
+flapping her wings and playing crow, while the gallery was pounding and
+yelling like mad. And then Elijah suddenly shot out of the box and round
+behind the scenes and vanished completely."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop gasped and lifted her hands, but no word issued from
+between her lips.
+
+"Well, of course we know now what happened, but nobody did then. Nobody
+was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr.
+Kimball didn't know where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece
+before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high
+or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would
+have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it
+was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of
+advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought
+it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way.
+Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while,
+you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it.
+It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he
+was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr.
+Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was
+plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his
+interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the
+afternoon of that day, whatever do you suppose? There was Elijah, just
+where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him
+off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the
+baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him,
+ending up even with the chicken feathers."
+
+"Great heav--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it.
+Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed
+up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and
+pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was
+found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater
+that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw
+how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to
+let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every
+night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot
+out. Then she'd make a speech about his having been in the scenery car
+all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it
+would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that
+a _tall_. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and
+called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had
+in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one.
+Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where
+you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he
+told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can
+talk all you please about will power--and it may be true of people in
+general--but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one
+who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as
+takes all the marrow out of your bones and the blood out of your body.
+And he says he wasn't no more responsible when he signed that contract
+to go mad in a box every evening and at least one matinée every week
+than a grasshopper. He says his one and only thought by that time was
+to get away from 'em and make a break to where he'd never hear about his
+play again. But after he'd signed, they never let him out of sight. They
+locked him up in a dressing-room with the leading lady's pet mouse until
+after the performance, and then they took him and introduced him to two
+very big managers as was engaged to do nothing except manage him nights
+in the box.
+
+"Well, you know the rest, Mrs. Lathrop. He really did go mad, then, and
+we've got him here now helpless, getting rich almost as fast as 'Liza
+Em'ly, and crazy as a loon. I declare, it's one of the saddest cases I
+ever see. I don't know whatever can be done. They say as fast as he gets
+sane, the play'll surely drive him crazy again, so I don't see what
+'Liza Em'ly will do. She set with me the whole afternoon and talked very
+nicely about it all. To see her here, you'd never think she could act
+the way Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher tell about. I can see she's got a
+little airy, and she says she misses her maid and her secretary more
+than she ever tells the minister's family; but on the whole I like her
+very much, and her devotion to Elijah is most beautiful. She says he's
+the one love of her life, and she shall marry him if ever he gets sense
+enough to know what he's doing. If he doesn't, she says she shall take a
+yacht and sail with him and write books until he dies. She says they can
+land once in a while to get their provisions and their royalties. But
+she says the only possible salvation for Elijah, as things are now, will
+be to stay where he never sees a car to remind him of scenery, or a
+house to remind him of a stage, for years and years to come. I asked her
+what she _really_ thought of his play, and she said she thought the
+leading lady was just right and very clever, only Elijah was too
+sensitive a nature to understand little artistic touches like the
+chicken feathers. She says folks are too tired nowadays to be bothered
+to laugh. They want to be made to laugh without even thinking. She says
+Elijah is a earnest nature as likes to work his laughs out very
+carefully and conscientious; but the leading lady understands getting
+the same effect, only a million times quicker, with chicken feathers and
+divorces. 'Liza Em'ly says the leading lady is very fair according to
+her own idea of fairness. She didn't have no money to put in the play,
+so she agreed to put in four divorces and one scandal as her part of the
+stock. Now the play's only been on a month, and she's paid up everything
+except one divorce and the scandal; and she's done so well they're
+trying to work up some scheme to let her pay both those off at the same
+time. The play is going fine. They print columns about Elijah and his
+madness, and the whole company is learning to crow together at the end
+of the second act. Every night they take out a little of what Elijah
+wrote, and the main manager says that there'll soon be nothing of Elijah
+left in except the ghost, and the ghost of the bottle, and the agreement
+to pay Elijah his royalties. And according to the main manager's views,
+that's being pretty fair and square with Elijah."
+
+"Do you--?" queried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I don't know," answered Miss Clegg, "I really d'n know what to
+say. I'm kind of dumb did over both 'Liza Em'ly and Elijah, for you know
+as well as I do, Mrs. Lathrop, that nobody ever looked for those kind of
+things from them."
+
+"Shall--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, if it ever comes where I can," responded Miss Clegg, "I shall like
+to see it very much."
+
+"Did--?" pressed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, yes, I asked her," Susan admitted, "I asked her fair and square. I
+says: ''Liza Em'ly, there's no use denying as you've used real people in
+this community in your book, and now I want to know who is Deacon
+Tooker?' She said Deacon Tooker was just the book itself. She seemed
+more amused than there was any particular sense in; but I thought if
+anything could give her a good laugh, it wasn't me would begrudge her.
+There's this to be said for our young folks when they do get rich, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and that is that they're nice about it, and it makes every one
+feel kindly towards 'em. Every one feels kindly towards Jathrop, and
+every one feels kindly towards 'Liza Em'ly, and as for poor, dear
+Elijah--Well!"
+
+The tone was expressive enough. Mrs. Lathrop shook her head sadly. Then
+both were silent.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+The "building-over" of Susan Clegg and her friend, Mrs. Lathrop, was
+completed during the second week in December, and in less than
+twenty-four hours they were once more established in their own
+dwellings, surrounded by their own goods and chattels. For only the
+briefest space, however, did Miss Clegg remain where she was put. Then
+she hurried through the passageway afforded by the connecting pergola
+and burst excitedly into her neighbor's brand new kitchen in the very
+center of which sat Mrs. Lathrop in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker, calmly surveying her domiciliary spick-and-spanness. On her lap
+lay a just-opened letter; but for once the scrupulously observing Miss
+Clegg failed to observe. She was too full of fresh trials.
+
+"I d'n know whatever sins I committed in this world, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+began, dropping into the nearest chair and facing her friend in an
+upright, a little bent forward attitude that was clearly pugnacious,
+"that I should have these things visited upon me. The Lord knows, just
+the same as you do, as I've always been a good and pure woman, loving my
+neighbors like myself and doing all my Christian duties as I was give to
+see 'em. When I was tore up from my home by the roots and cast wilted
+and faded upon Gran'ma Mullins, where the infant memories of Hiram
+certainly wasn't calculated to do no reviving, I made the best of it. I
+made the best of Lucy and a dog with a cold nose, too; and I bore up
+with courage and no complaint under Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion.
+And I did it all to please you, Mrs. Lathrop, and your fool of a son,
+Jathrop, whose money, it's my opinion, has acted on him in a most
+injurious way. He never had much sense, as you yourself know, but now he
+ain't got no sense a _tall_."
+
+"I don't--" Mrs. Lathrop started gently to protest.
+
+"Well, I do," rejoined Susan Clegg spiritedly; "and if you don't, you
+ought to. Anyhow, I mean to tell you, if it's the last act of my life.
+Anybody as has any sense a _tall_ must have seen that building over was
+just a mite removed from building new; and what's new never did go with
+what's old, and it never will. If we was to be built over, we ought to
+have been all built over or let alone. Jathrop's built the houses over,
+but he ain't built over the furnishings, and the built-over houses and
+the not-built-over furniture and carpets and window shades and pots and
+kettles and pans and china and linen and everything else don't agree and
+just naturally can't and never can. They're fighting now like sixty, and
+they'll go on fighting the longer they're kept together. My house was
+restful and peaceful before, but now it's like a circus with all the
+wild animals let loose. And I can tell you this, Mrs. Lathrop; my things
+is getting the worst of it. Why, before they went to storage at Mr.
+Shores', they was in the best repair you ever see, and now it would make
+your heart ache to look at 'em. They've aged a century at least during
+the summer. They're wrinkled and halt and lame and blind, and the new
+paper on the walls and the new polish on the floors and the new paint on
+the woodwork is making 'em look sicker and sicker every minute. If
+there's a society for the prevention of cruelty to furniture and other
+household goods, it ought to put Jathrop Lathrop in prison. I feel so
+sorry for those poor tables and chairs and bedsteads and all the rest of
+'em as I could cry my eyes out this very minute. There's one walnut,
+haircloth sofa as Father laid on before he was took to his bed as is
+pitiful to behold. It looks sicker than Father did even in his last
+hours, and I wouldn't be surprised any minute to see it just turn over
+all of itself and give up the ghost. And everything has on such a
+reproachful look it's more than human nature can bear to face it. If I'd
+ever thought as being built over would of come to this, I'd of gone on
+my knees and worked 'em to the bare bones before I'd of put up with it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop continued to rock in silence.
+
+"Still, there's no cloud, however black, as hasn't got some silk in its
+lining, and the silk in this is the clock as Father gave Mother, which
+was supposed to be marble and wasn't. Much as I hated that clock, I
+couldn't have borne to see its agonies when set on by the new fireplace
+below, and the pink and gold wall paper behind, and the roses and cupids
+in the cornish above. It must just of shriveled in shame instead of
+going out in glorious flight, as it did when I set it flying at the end
+of the bed-slat. Lord knows, though, Mrs. Lathrop, that's a small thing
+to be thankful for; and it's the only thing. I haven't begun yet to tell
+you all. And I don't intend to. There's a limit to my temper, and if I
+once got started, there's no saying where I'd end. But there's one thing
+more as I can't hold in, and it's the thing as was marked on the plans:
+'But. Pan.' I never did understand why I should be give a separate room
+to keep butter pans in, seeing as I ain't got no cow, let alone no
+dairy. And even if I had, why I should keep my butter pans or my milk
+pans either in a little alley-way between the kitchen and the
+dining-room, just where the heat and smells could get at 'em from one
+side and the flies from both, not to mention the added footsteps put on
+me journeying from the stove to the dinner table. You can see for
+yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, there's no sense in it, whatever. But I'd never
+say a word about it, if that was all. But it ain't all. It's the
+littlest part. For Jathrop's cruelty hasn't stopped with torturing the
+furniture. It's clear he couldn't be satisfied till he fixed up a trap
+as sooner or later would hit me square in the face and break my nose. At
+both ends of his 'But. Pan.' he's had hung doors as swing, and springs
+on 'em to make 'em swing hard and deadly. What either one of those
+swinging doors might do to my features, let alone to the pudding or stew
+I might be carrying, it isn't in mortal tongue to express. If I could
+find one thing as was right in the whole house, I'd be fair and square
+enough to overlook the others; but there ain't to my mind a single
+solitary betterment. There's glass knobs on all the doors as will show
+every finger mark, and will keep me busy wiping from dawn to dark. The
+old brown knobs never showed nothing and didn't never have to be thought
+of, let alone polished. It's always been my idea as a cupboard was a
+place to shut things up in out of sight, and here if he hasn't gone and
+put glass doors on the one in the corner of the dining room, so as every
+one can see just what's meant to be hid. It's clear to be seen he's
+crazy on the subject of glass, which I ain't and never have been. And I
+don't like the way he's stinted things as is necessary and put all the
+money in things as had better been left out. Necessities before
+everything is my motto. What use, I'd like to know, is that cupid and
+rose cornish? But he puts that there just to catch dust and leaves out
+the whole of one parlor wall. If you'll believe me, Mrs. Lathrop,
+there's not a hair or hide of a wall between my entry hall and my
+parlor. Nothing but a pair of white posts as most people use on their
+piazzas. How I'm ever going to keep that parlor dark I don't see; for
+he's got glass over the front door and on both sides of it, and no
+shutters to keep the sun out. He's built in both the kitchen stove and
+the ice box, and for the life of me, I can't find no reasonable way of
+taking the ashes out of the one or the water out of the other. The
+builder says the ashes dump into a place in the cellar and the water
+from the ice drains down a pipe underneath the house. But I don't like
+neither plan. The drip from a ice box is a very cheering sound, I think,
+and with hot ashes going down cellar where you can't see 'em, I'll be in
+deadly fear of the house going up in smoke while I'm dreaming in my bed.
+The long and the short of it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I feel as I have been
+assaulted and robbed. Jathrop's took away my home and left me a house as
+isn't a home to me and never can be. And as far as I can see, he's done
+the same to you, which is ten thousand times worse, you being his
+mother."
+
+"I--" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking up the letter from her lap so that at
+last it was forced upon Susan's observance.
+
+"From him, I suppose," Miss Clegg instantly concluded, reaching for it.
+"If he's got anything to say in his defence, I'm sure I'd delight to
+read it. But no matter what he says, he can't undo to me what he's done
+to me. I'll never feel the same towards Jathrop, your son or not your
+son, Mrs. Lathrop, as long as I live."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop passed the letter to Miss Clegg. Like all of Jathrop's
+letters, it was brief and to the point. He announced that he would spend
+Christmas with his mother in her rebuilt home and would bring with him a
+friend as his guest. Susan read it over twice, turning the page each
+time, evidently in hope of finding an enlightening postscript.
+
+"Well, of all things!" she exclaimed, as she passed the letter back to
+her friend. "Coming to see his work of destruction and going to bring
+_her_ with him!"
+
+"He don't--" Mrs. Lathrop endeavored to explain.
+
+"He don't, because he don't dare; but there's no question what he means.
+He's bringing the señora. And he wouldn't bring her if it wasn't that
+he's going to marry her. Even you must see that. And if there was ever a
+insult multiplied by perjury, Jathrop's done it in that action. It's a
+good thing he didn't ask: 'How's Susan Clegg?' this time, as he did the
+time he was coming back from the Klondike. For I don't believe I could
+ever have stood that. All I can say, Mrs. Lathrop, is as I'm sorry for
+you from the soles of my feet up. You'll never in the world be able to
+get up a Christmas dinner as will please any señora, you can take my
+word on that. And not to please her will be a bad beginning with a
+señora as is to be your future daughter-in-law. Señoras don't care
+shucks for turkey and mince pie. They're not used to 'em and likely to
+get indigestion from 'em, and think what it would mean to Jathrop, let
+alone to her, if she should be carried off by a acute attack right here
+in your new, built-over house, at the dinner table. He'd blame it on
+you, and like as not she'd haunt you the rest of your living days. No,
+sir. You've got to give her Spanish omelets with lots of red peppers in
+'em, and everything else Creole style, which means all he't up with
+tabasco sauce fit to burn out your insides. It's eating like that as
+makes those Spaniards and Cubans so dark colored you can't tell 'em from
+mulattoes. The peppers and the tabasco sauce bakes 'em brown on the
+outside, after leaving 'em all scorched and parched within."
+
+For once, however, Susan Clegg was wrong in her deduction. Jathrop
+arrived in a red automobile on the day before Christmas, with a
+chauffeur in bear-skins driving, and a guest in sealskin beside him. But
+the guest was not the señora. It was one of Jathrop's millionaire
+friends who, Jathrop said, could buy and sell him twenty times over. He
+was a small man with a bald head and a red beard and old enough to be
+Jathrop's father.
+
+Miss Clegg viewed the arrival from her bedroom window and was so glad it
+wasn't the señora that she at once set about baking extra doughnuts and
+mince pie to contribute to the festivities of the morrow. This occupied
+her until supper time. Then she made a hurried meal, washed her one
+plate and cup and saucer, and loaded down with her thank offering,
+flitted through the pergola and in at Mrs. Lathrop's kitchen door. The
+kitchen was empty, but voices penetrating from the dining room told her
+that her friend and her visitors were still at table. Being a trifle
+nervous and unable to sit quietly, she began at once to put the
+disordered kitchen into some degree of order, purely for the sake of
+occupation.
+
+She had just finished washing and scouring the pots and pans and was
+flushing the waste-pipe of Mrs. Lathrop's new porcelain sink with
+lye-water so strong that her eyes ran tears from the fumes, when the
+voices growing more and more audible told her that Jathrop was leading
+his mother and his guest toward the kitchen. She just had time hurriedly
+to dry her hands on the roller towel when they appeared.
+
+"Well, well," exclaimed Jathrop, in apparent surprise, "if here ain't
+our old friend, Susan Clegg!"
+
+There is no question that Miss Clegg was slightly flustered at thus
+being taken unawares, but she recovered herself promptly, and shook
+hands cordially with Jathrop and not less cordially with the little
+millionaire, whom he introduced as Mr. Kettlewell. And Mr. Kettlewell
+was cordiality itself. Everybody sat down, right there in the kitchen
+and talked for a full hour, and in the course of the talk, Jathrop told
+Susan that he had arranged with a department store in New York to let
+her have whatever she needed for her built-over house and charge the
+same to his account. She could select the things from the firm's
+catalogue, or go to the city at his expense and pick out the actual
+articles. It was his Christmas present to his mother's and his own
+oldest friend. In conclusion, Jathrop joined with his mother in an
+invitation to Susan to take Christmas dinner with them; and Mr.
+Kettlewell smilingly begged her, for his sake, not to refuse. Altogether
+Susan had the pleasantest evening she had experienced in years, and the
+next morning, while Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell were off in the car after
+evergreens with which to decorate the two houses, she ran over with the
+express purpose of telling Mrs. Lathrop so.
+
+"Jathrop mayn't have much judgment when it comes to selecting
+architects," she began, "nor again when it comes to selecting servants,
+as was proved by his bringing that Hop Loo all the way from the
+Klondike. Nor again, neither, when it comes to wives, if it's a real
+fact that he's going to marry a brown-baked señora; but there's no
+getting away from the fact that he's a king in choosing his men friends.
+I've seen men in my life of all sorts and descriptions, from the
+minister to the blacksmith, but I ain't never see before such a
+handsome, high-minded, superior gentleman as Jathrop's friend, Mr.
+Kettlewell. I never thought much of bald-headed men before, but his head
+is so white and shiny, it's a pleasure to look at it. And I always just
+hated a red beard; but Mr. Kettlewell's beard is of a different red.
+It's a nice, warm, comforting red as makes you feel as cosy as the glow
+of a red-hot stove when the thermometer's down around zero. I can't say
+either, Mrs. Lathrop, as I wasn't more or less prejudiced against men as
+never rightly grew up, but stopped in the women's sizes. But there's a
+something about Mr. Kettlewell's proportions as gives you the idea he's
+really taller than he seems. And there's only one thing to compare his
+voice to. It's milk and honey. My lands, what a sweet, clear-rolling,
+liquid voice that Mr. Kettlewell has!"
+
+"Ja--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I heard him. But I don't put that against Mr. Kettlewell, not a
+_tall_. I'm sure he made every penny of it honestly, and if he's retired
+from business now, it don't mean he's quit work. It's no easy job
+cutting coupons off all the bonds he must have, and collecting rents is
+a occupation I don't envy nobody. It's the penalty that rich men have to
+pay for their success. They work hard to get the principal, and then
+they're made to work twice as hard to get the interest. There's no such
+thing as rest for the rich any more'n there is for the poor. I used to
+think before Father died as I'd like to roll in wealth, but it ain't no
+easy rolling, I can tell you that, Mrs. Lathrop, especially when you've
+got a tenant like Mrs. Macy, who won't buy so much as a gas-tip or do so
+much as drive a nail without charging it up to the owner."
+
+Miss Clegg's participation in the Christmas dinner at her neighbors' was
+twofold. She took part in its preparation as well as in its discussion.
+It was her soup which began it, it was her "stuffing" which added zest
+to the roast turkey, it was her cranberry sauce which sweetened
+contrastingly the high seasoning, and it was her mince pie which brought
+the repast to a fitting and enjoyable close. Seated opposite to Mr.
+Kettlewell, where she could revel in a full view of his shining pate and
+his warmly comforting whiskers, her enjoyment was ocular as well as
+gustatory; and under the caressing sweetness of his voice it was
+likewise auricular. For the occasion Jathrop had provided a fine vintage
+champagne, and though Miss Clegg, whose total-abstinence principles
+forbade her to even taste, refrained from so much as touching her lips
+to the edge of her glass, she unquestionably warmed in the stimulating
+atmosphere of the sparkling, bubbling, golden juice of the grape. To her
+it was indeed the red-letter Christmas of her life, and every incident,
+of the dinner especially, was a matter for reflection and rumination in
+the succeeding hours.
+
+In this vale of tears, however, there is apparently no great joy without
+its compensating sorrow; and in Susan Clegg's case the one followed
+swiftly on the heels of the other. In the pale gray of the dawn of the
+following day, Susan Clegg dashed wildly out of her kitchen door and
+flitted with lifted skirts across the brief intervening space that led
+to Mrs. Lathrop's back door. As pallid as the morning itself, her scant
+hair streaming, her eyes wide with mixed terror and indignation, she
+burst into her neighbor's kitchen, where to her great relief she found
+her old friend already up and occupied.
+
+One glimpse of Susan was enough for Mrs. Lathrop. Up went her hands and
+down went she on to the nearest chair with an inarticulate gasp of
+horrified yet questioning astonishment, while Miss Clegg flopped limply
+into another at the end of the kitchen table.
+
+There she must have sat for a full minute before she could get breath to
+utter a word, which, being contrary to all her habits, was in itself
+terrifying to her friend. Eventually, however, she forced herself to
+assume an upright position and simultaneously attained a somewhat
+feeble attempt at speech.
+
+"Well, of all things in this world to happen to me!" Then she paused for
+a fresh breath, which being utterly without precedent, added mightily to
+Mrs. Lathrop's alarm. "And even now at this minute I don't really know
+whether I'm more dead than alive, or more alive than dead."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, believing that the situation being extraordinary, some
+extraordinary effort on her part was demanded, stirred herself to a
+prolonged speech.
+
+"Don't tell me I'm looking--"
+
+"No, I'm not a ghost, if that's what you mean. You are looking at Susan
+Clegg in the flesh--all the flesh that ain't been scared clean off her.
+But it's the greatest miracle as ever happened in this community that
+it's my body and not my spirit as is here to tell the tale. My house was
+broken into by a burglar, Mrs. Lathrop, and I was tied up and gagged in
+one of my own chairs."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop just gasped. Susan drew herself up a little straighter,
+gaining courage from the sound of her own voice, and striking something
+like her old oral gait.
+
+"I was gagged for five hours, Mrs. Lathrop, and knowing me as you do for
+all these years and years, maybe you can feel what being gagged for five
+hours and not able to say even 'boo' meant to a active person like me.
+Every one of those hours was like a eternity in a Spanish inferno of
+torture. And everything I possess in this world, from my bonnet and
+striped silk dress to Father's deeds at the mercy of that gagger. And
+all I've got to say is this: If I hadn't of been built over, it never in
+the wide creation would have happened. And if your son Jathrop thinks he
+can ever make up to me for being gagged by inviting me to a Christmas
+dinner, most of which I cooked with my own hands, and offering to give
+me strange pieces of furniture to take the place of pieces as is old
+friends and dearer than the apples of my two eyes, he'd better do some
+more thinking. There never was nothing about the house I was born in and
+my mother and father died in to make a burglar look at it twice. No
+burglar as had any respect for himself or his calling, Mrs. Lathrop,
+would have looked at it once or knowed as it was there. But built over
+it's as different as diamon's is from pebbles. It looks money from the
+tips of its lightning rods to its cellar windows and is as inviting to
+robbers as if it had a sign on the gatepost, reading: 'Walk in!' So,
+however you look at it, there's nobody responsible for my gagging and
+for whatever is missing but one man, and that man is Jathrop Lathrop.
+It's easy to be seen as he's no more fit to have money than a crow as
+steals gold trinkets that cost fortunes and goes and hides 'em in hollow
+trees. He was born poor, and the Lord meant him to stay poor, no matter
+what Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion has to say about things as
+happens being meant to happen. The Lord hadn't nothing to do with
+Jathrop going to the Klondike and getting rich, you can be certain
+about that. If he hadn't been fool enough to take a kicking cow for a
+perfectly good debt and then let it loose to ride over a peaceful and
+long-suffering community, he'd 'a' lived and died a pauper in this here
+very town. So's far as I can see it was the devil and not the Lord as
+guided Jathrop from the first, and everything as has happened since
+shows the devil is still guiding him. Everything he turns his mind to
+goes by contraries. I'm not saying anything against the goodness of
+Jathrop's intentions, mind you, Mrs. Lathrop, but no matter how good
+they are, evil and misery certainly seems sure to follow."
+
+The tirade stirred Mrs. Lathrop to her feet, but she was not resentful.
+She knew that Susan Clegg's bitterness was confined to her tongue, and
+that even with that she could salve as well as sting.
+
+"Can't I--?" she suggested.
+
+"Indeed you can," answered Miss Clegg. "I never felt as I needed a cup
+of tea more, and if the doughnuts I brought you ain't all eat up, I'd
+relish four or five of 'em right now."
+
+"You haven't--" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking down the teapot.
+
+"No; but I'm coming to it. I begun with the cause, and the effect'll
+come trailing after like the tails of Mary's little lambs. Only the
+tails in this case was bigger than the sheep. It may have been hearing
+the noise Jathrop makes when he eats, or it may have been your turkey
+gravy or your biscuits, Mrs. Lathrop, or all of 'em put together. Not
+knowing which, I'm not foolish enough to blame one more'n the other. But
+it's a fact as is undeniable that I never slept poorer than last night.
+I was in bed by nine, but I never closed my eyes till eleven, and I
+certainly heard the clock strike midnight. I counted goats jumping over
+a stile, and I counted 'em backward as well as forward, but I heard one
+struck, and I heard two. And then I heard something as set my hair up on
+end and the gooseflesh sprouting all over me. It sounded like footsteps
+in the 'But. Pan.,' and they was too heavy for the cat's, I could tell
+that at once, though at two in the morning it's surprising how loud a
+cat's footsteps can sound, especially when it's reached the pouncing
+stage, and the rat ain't got no hole to run to. I'd forgot to put the
+turkey leg in the ice-box as I'd carried home with me, and all I could
+think of was that if it was the cat, there'd be nothing left on that
+bone by morning, unless I stopped things right then and immediately.
+You'd never believe how cold a house can be at two o'clock in the
+morning of the day after Christmas unless you'd got up in it as I did;
+and now to look back at it, I see how lucky it was as it was as cold as
+it was, for if it hadn't of been, I'd a gone down just as I was, and I
+was in no trim to meet a man burglar, I can tell you _that_. So I just
+slipped into this flannel wrapper and a old pair of slippers, which I've
+got on now under these arctics, and I picked up the candle as I'd lit,
+and down-stairs I went. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I hope you may never in your
+born days in this world or the other have such a shock as met me there
+face to face in my own new, built-over kitchen. If there wasn't the
+biggest giant of a man I ever see coming out of the shadows between the
+cookstove and the cellar door. And he with his head all wrapped around
+in one of my best plaid roller towels, so that nothing of him was to be
+seen but two fierce, staring, bloodshot eyes as gleamed like a wild
+beast's. Oh, my soul and body, Mrs. Lathrop, that minute! How I ever
+kept my senses I don't pretend to say, more especially as he was on me
+with one jump. There was no such thing as holding on to the candle, you
+can see that. It dropped, and I never knew I dropped it. For, of course,
+I shut my eyes, and when your eyes is shut, there's no knowing whether
+there's a lighted candle about or whether there isn't."
+
+In her agitation over the recital, Mrs. Lathrop, who was placing cups
+and saucers on the table, let one of the cups slide crashing to the
+floor. "Oh, Su--!" she exclaimed.
+
+"You may well say: 'Oh, Susan!'" Miss Clegg continued. "There is times
+when 'Oh, Susan' don't half express the state of affairs, and this was
+one of 'em, Mrs. Lathrop. It wasn't in nature for me not to scream, so I
+screamed, and it was that scream that did the business. It showed the
+burglar I wasn't deaf and dumb, and people as isn't deaf and dumb is
+looked on by burglars as their natural enemies. Maybe some people can
+scream without opening their mouths, but I never was one of that kind,
+and the kind as open their mouths when they scream is the kind that all
+burglars prefer. It saves 'em the trouble of forcing apart their jaws. I
+never shut my mouth after opening it; for the burglar just shoved
+something in it as quick as scat, and then he tied a bandage around back
+of my head so I couldn't spit it out. Then he picked me up and plumped
+me down hard in a chair and tied me fast to it with my own clothesline.
+And all the time he never no more opened his lips to speak than if he
+couldn't. It's my opinion he must have had a cold and lost his voice.
+Either that, or his voice was such a unpleasant voice he was ashamed to
+let anybody hear it. For it ain't in common sense as a man, even if he
+is a burglar, could keep as still as he did, if he had a speaking voice
+that's in any way fit for use. I know in the time he took there was a
+lot of things I felt to say to him, and would if I could, and common
+sense'll tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he must have felt to say a lot of
+things to me. But he didn't make so much as a peep behind his roller
+towel."
+
+"Did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, pouring the tea.
+
+"I can't say as he did or he didn't. I haven't missed nothing yet, but
+then I haven't looked. Still, if he didn't I can't say as I'd have much
+respect for him. What sort of a burglar would a burglar be to take all
+that trouble of breaking in, binding and gagging, and then go away
+without helping himself to something for his trouble. I ain't got no
+love for burglars in general or in particular. But any burglar as 'ld
+do a fool trick like that I ain't got no respect for neither."
+
+"How--?" queried her neighbor as she passed Susan her cup.
+
+"It was something of a job I can tell you, but when I sets my mind to a
+thing I sets my mind to it, and ropes and a kitchen chair ain't got the
+power to stop me. I begun wriggling as soon as I heard the burglar shut
+the door behind him, and I kept on wriggling for every minute of the
+five hours. A tramped-on worm never did more turning and wriggling than
+I did between two and seven this morning, and at last wriggling being
+its own reward, I wriggled free, first with my hands and then with my
+feet. But before I got my feet free, I undid the band and ungagged
+myself and said just a few of the things that was bottled up all that
+time. The Bible says there's a time to talk and a time to be still, but
+there's such a thing as overdoing the still time, I think, and when
+you're gagged by a burglar is one of 'em."
+
+Susan sipped her tea for a moment in silence.
+
+"Where's Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell?" she asked at length. "Ain't they
+up yet?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop nodded. "They start--" she began.
+
+"You don't mean they've both lit out already?" asked Susan in surprise.
+Then: "I was hoping to see Mr. Kettlewell again. But it's a long journey
+back to New York, so I suppose they set off before light."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop nodded once more.
+
+"Aren't--?" she questioned.
+
+"I certainly am. I'm going to report the burglary at once. I've got a
+clue, and it ought to be easy enough to run down that burglar." She drew
+from her bosom a rather damp handkerchief. "That's what he left me to
+chew on for five hours," she said, as she spread it out. "And there's
+the clue right there in the corner."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop took it to the window and inspected it through her glasses.
+The handkerchief was initialed with a "K."
+
+The New Year came and January was passing and, so far as Susan Clegg
+cared to divulge at least, there was no news of her burglar. It was
+noted, however, not only by Mrs. Lathrop, but by Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma
+Mullins, and indeed by all the ladies of the Sewing Society, that Miss
+Clegg had adopted an air of secretiveness concerning the matter that was
+quite foreign to her usual frank, unreserved communicativeness. But the
+curiosity provoked by this strangely unfamiliar attitude was swallowed
+up in the sensational tidings which spread throughout the community
+shortly after. Without so much as a hint of warning, Susan Clegg had
+vanished between dark and dawn, leaving her house locked, bolted, and
+barred, the blinds drawn, and the shutters fast closed.
+
+For once Mrs. Lathrop, thus deprived of her prop and her stay, evinced
+sufficient initiative to have the cellar door forced and a search of the
+premises made; a rumor having got abroad that the burglar had returned,
+this time more murderously inclined, and that Miss Clegg's mangled
+corpse would be found stiff and stark within her own darkened domicile.
+To every one's infinite relief the search proved the rumor utterly
+unfounded; and it proved something more, as well. It proved that Susan's
+departure was plainly premeditated--"with malice prepense," to quote
+Judge Fitch--since all her best clothes had gone with her. Whereupon
+sentiment switched to the opposite pole, and it was openly declared that
+Miss Clegg had gone after the burglar.
+
+The wonder was of a magnitude calculated to extend far beyond the
+proverbial nine days, and it probably would have greatly exceeded that
+limit, had not the heroine of the affair chosen to cut it short of her
+own volition by reappearing quite as suddenly as she had vanished, at
+the end of a single week.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, looking across from her bedroom window as she arose from
+her night's sleep on the morning of the eighth day, was joyously
+startled to see the Clegg windows unshaded, and the house otherwise
+displaying signs of rehabitation. Nor did she have long to wait for the
+explanation of the mystery, which to the exclusion of everything else
+had filled her mind ever since her friend's going. With a shawl over her
+head and shoulders, she hastened through the pergola, and the next
+moment was facing her neighbor with glad eyes across four yards of
+kitchen floor space.
+
+"Oh, Susan! Such a fri--" These were her four and a half words of
+greeting.
+
+"I knew it would," Miss Clegg caught her up, beaming as Mrs. Lathrop
+couldn't remember ever to have seen her beam before. "I knew it would
+frighten you all half to death, but when a thing's to be done, it's to
+be done, and there ain't no use shirking. I had to go, and I had to go
+quick, and I was never so glad of anything in my life, past or present,
+as that I went. Of course, it was all along of that burglary, as any
+fool might have guessed if they took the trouble. In the first place, I
+don't mind telling you now, I went straight to Mr. Weskin the morning
+after it happened, and I took him the clue and showed it to him. The way
+he spun around in his spinning chair was fit to make even a level-headed
+person like me dizzy. He examined the linen, and he examined the way the
+K was worked, and then he says, no it couldn't possibly be Mr.
+Kimball's. Now, what _do_ you think of that? Just as if I ever suspected
+it was. I guess I know Mr. Kimball well enough to know him, even if he
+has got his head wrapped up in one of my new roller towels, and I told
+Lawyer Weskin so. Mr. Kimball, indeed! But Lawyer Weskin said as he
+didn't never hear of a burglar whose name commenced with K, and he
+didn't know a soul in these parts either, burglar or no burglar, whose
+name did, except Mr. Kimball. There's only one way to ferret out the
+perpetrator of a crime, he says, and that's by deduction, and the first
+rule of deduction is to guess what the K stands for. I never thought
+much of Lawyer Weskin, I'm free to admit that, but if he don't know
+nothing else, it's as clear as shooting that he does know about
+education. For in the end it worked out just as he said, and the Lord be
+praised for it."
+
+"You don't--" began Mrs. Lathrop in astonishment.
+
+"I don't say as Mr. Kimball had a thing to do with it. I certainly
+don't. In the first place, Mr. Kimball would never dare to come to my
+house at such a hour of the morning, and in the second place Mr. Kimball
+never carried as fine a handkerchief as the one I chewed on. So that put
+it past Mr. Kimball. And the only other K I could possibly think of was
+old Mrs. Kitts over to Meadville, who could no more of got over here
+than could the king of the Sandwich Islands, whose name begins with K,
+too. There was the Kellys, of course, but the Kellys couldn't qualify
+neither, for they're too rich to need to do any burglarizing. Well, I
+can tell you, I soon come to a point where I didn't know where to turn,
+and I never would of turned neither, if it hadn't of been for a letter I
+got the day of the night I went away. You'd never guess in the world,
+Mrs. Lathrop, who that letter was from so I may as well tell you first
+as last. It was from Mr. Kettlewell."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth in astonishment, but no sound came forth.
+
+"I knew it'ld surprise you, but it's as true as we're both standing in
+this kitchen at this minute. It was a very nice letter, and it said as
+how he had admired me from the first minute he saw me, but more
+particularly after he'd sat opposite to me at the table and eat my
+cranberry sauce. He said he'd always loved cranberry sauce, but as he
+felt he'd never tasted none until he tasted mine. I certainly never see
+a more complimentary letter than that letter of Mr. Kettlewell's. But it
+was the end of the letter where he signed his name that lit me up with
+the clear light of revelation. Until I see his name spelled out there in
+black and white, I never once believed it begun with a K. I'd thought
+all along as his name was Cattlewell, with a C. Far be it from me, Mrs.
+Lathrop, to ever have suspected as Jathrop's friend would stoop to
+housebreaking and to binding and gagging a lone woman, but there's other
+ways as his handkerchief might have got to my mouth, and I felt to know
+the truth. His address was on the letter, and there was nothing as could
+have stayed me from getting to that address as fast as steam and steel
+could carry me. I left in the middle of the night, and I got to New York
+in the morning, and I didn't have that feeling for nothing. Mr.
+Kettlewell was at his hotel, and in all my born days I never see a
+person gladder to see anybody than Mr. Kettlewell was to see me. It's
+marvelous what a impression a little good cooking will make on a man,
+even if it's only in cranberry sauce. His mouth actually hadn't stopped
+watering yet. Leastwise he said it hadn't, and I'd be a fool not to
+believe him. He begun talking about it right away, and I let him talk,
+just so's I could look at his shiny bald head and his red whiskers
+without having to think of anything else except the sound of his
+milk-and-honey voice. Finally he said he supposed I'd come to the city
+to select Jathrop's Christmas present of furnishings, and if I'd like
+him to help me select 'em, he'd be glad enough to go along and lend a
+hand. Well, nothing could of been nicer than that, now, could it? But I
+told him I wasn't one as traveled all the way to New York under false
+pretences, and that if he must have the truth, I'd never give one
+thought to Jathrop's present since he mentioned it. All my thought, I
+said, had been give to finding a handkerchief with a K onto it, which
+I'd washed and ironed with my own hands and brought to him, believing I
+must of picked it up at the Christmas dinner by mistake, and not wanting
+him to feel the need of it any longer. And you can believe me or not,
+Mrs. Lathrop, just as you feel about it, if he didn't right then and
+there on seeing that clue, confess that it did belong to him, and that
+he couldn't for the life of him remember where he'd left it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, who had been standing all the while, dropped into a chair
+at this point in dumb stupefaction. But Susan, who had been caught with
+a bowl of batter in one hand and a spoon in the other, paused only to do
+a little more stirring.
+
+"Yes, sir," she went on, still apparently as pleased as punch. "The clue
+belonged to Mr. Kettlewell and no one else, which led me to suspect
+right away that the burglar must have robbed your house first. I knowed
+very well that I never carried that clue home myself, though I'd said I
+might, just for the sake of drawing Mr. Kettlewell on. And so how could
+it have got into my mouth unless the burglar got it from Mr. Kettlewell
+himself? But there is stranger things in this world than you and me ever
+dreamed of, Mrs. Lathrop, and that was one of 'em. Mr. Kettlewell is a
+very frank and open gentleman, and seeing how disturbed I was over
+something, though I'd never so much as breathed burglar or burglary, he
+made another confession. And when it comes to dreaming, there is very
+few people, he said, as has the power to dream the way he does. He
+don't just lie still in bed and picture things out in his sleep, but he
+gets up and does the things he's dreaming about. He ain't got no
+limitations in it, either. Sleepwalkers is more or less common. But
+sleepwalkers just walk, and that ends 'em. Mr. Kettlewell says he very
+seldom walks. He usually drives a automobile when he's dreaming, just as
+he does when he's wide awake. Sometimes he comes to while he's driving,
+and he's found himself often as much as a couple a hundred miles from
+home, and without a cent in his clothes, the clothes usually being just
+pajamas with nothing but a handkerchief in the pocket. Now, if you had
+any imagination a _tall_, Mrs. Lathrop, you'd see what I'm coming to,
+but as you haven't you don't, I can tell by the way you look. So you'll
+get the full benefit of the surprise when I say that on Christmas night
+Mr. Kettlewell distinctly remembers he dreamed of committing a burglary.
+He says it wasn't my mince pie as did it, because he's often eaten
+mince pie before and never dreamed nothing worse than going to the
+electric chair; and it wasn't my stuffing neither, for turkey stuffing
+when it's indigestible always makes him dream he's a monkey climbing
+trees. He says once he woke up sudden and fell and broke his arm, but
+that that was a long while ago. Now he's had more experience, he never
+wakes up till he's safe back in bed again. And he says doughnuts causes
+his dreams to run back to when he was a boy, and one time he come to,
+after a after-dinner nap, when he had doughnuts for dessert, playing
+marbles in the back alley with a lot of street urchins. I can tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, he was most interesting. He's got all his dreams sort of
+classified in that way, and can almost tell to a dot what he'll dream
+about according to what he eats. And he says soggy biscuits always makes
+him dream he's robbing a house or killing somebody. It was mighty lucky
+for me, as you can see for yourself, that this time he only dreamed of
+binding and gagging. If he'd dreamed of murder, I'd not be here now to
+tell the tale. And it's clean to be seen that your biscuits would of
+been an accessory before the fact."
+
+"Then he--"
+
+"Yes, it was him as done it, and without no moral blame attaching to him
+a _tall_. If he'd killed me, the law couldn't of touched him either, for
+the law takes no account of what a person does while they're asleep. But
+as you made the biscuits in your full senses and with your eyes wide
+open, you'd of been the only one to blame."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop groaned. "You know, Sus--" she protested.
+
+"Of course if I was alive, I'd never hold it against you, because I know
+very well you can't make biscuits no better, and ain't never had sense
+enough to learn. But if I was murdered, my ghost couldn't testify, and I
+don't see as how you could be saved from the law taking its course."
+
+At this juncture there was a sound overhead, and both ladies started,
+Mrs. Lathrop in surprise and her friend in sudden realization of
+neglected duties.
+
+"What is--?" inquired Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"It's him," answered Susan. "Mr. Kettlewell. And the coffee's boiled now
+till it's bitter, and there ain't a single cake on the griddle." She was
+turning back to the stove as Mrs. Lathrop's exclamation caught her and
+switched her around.
+
+"Why, Susan Clegg!"
+
+"Don't Susan Clegg me, Mrs. Lathrop," she commanded. "There ain't no
+Susan Clegg any more. When Susan Clegg disappeared a week ago last
+night, she disappeared for good, never to return. And if you suspect
+anything else, it's best I should introduce myself here and now,--Susan
+Kettlewell, from this time forth, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and dropped back again.
+
+"You don't--"
+
+"I do. I do mean to say I'm married at last. We was wedded with a ring
+in New York last Wednesday, and it's my husband's footsteps you hear up
+there in the new bathroom."
+
+She dropped three spreading spoonfuls of batter on the greased griddle
+and gave Mrs. Lathrop a full minute to absorb the announcement. Then, as
+she drew the coffee pot to one side, she continued:
+
+"And it was purely a love match, make no mistake about that. He's got
+money enough to buy and sell Jathrop, but he's as simple-minded and
+simple-tasted as a babe in arms. And there's nothing I can think of that
+he's not ready and willing to give me. Besides, he's frank and open
+about everything. He says his teeth is false, and he has a bullet in his
+right leg, got one time when he dreamed somebody was shooting him; but
+that otherwise he's as perfect as a man of his age can be. He says he'll
+buy a wig if I want him to, and that if I don't like the color of his
+whiskers, he'll have 'em dyed whatever color I'd like best, and the
+wig'l be made to match. But I wouldn't have him changed the least mite.
+And if there's one thing in the world I'm thankful for it is that I got
+him and not Jathrop. And I'm not thinking from the financial standpoint,
+neither."
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+          Distinctive Fiction by Anne Warner
+
+
+     The reading world owes Anne Warner a vote of thanks for her
+     contributions to the best of American humor.--_New York Times._
+
+     Anne Warner has taken her place as one of the drollest of American
+     humorists.--_Century Magazine._
+
+
+The Gay and Festive Claverhouse
+
+     A story of the desperate attempt of a supposedly dying man to lose
+     the love of a girl.
+
+
+Sunshine Jane
+
+     The joyful story of a Sunshine Nurse whose mission was not to care
+     for sick bodies but to heal sick souls.
+
+
+When Woman Proposes.
+
+     A clever and entertaining story of a woman who fell in love with an
+     army officer.
+
+
+How Leslie Loved
+
+     Not only a buoyant love story but a penetrating satire on modern
+     manners.
+
+
+Just Between Themselves
+
+     A vivacious satire on married life which is full of mirth of the
+     quieter, chuckling variety.
+
+
+The Taming of Amorette
+
+     A clever comedy telling how a man cured his attractive wife of
+     flirting.
+
+
+Susan Clegg, Her Friend, and Her Neighbors
+
+     A study of life which is most delectable for its simplicity and for
+     the quaint character creation.
+
+
+Susan Clegg and a Man in the House
+
+     The remarkable happenings at the Clegg homestead after the boarder
+     came.
+
+
+The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary.
+
+     The pranks of a scapegrace nephew who was showing his old aunt a
+     "good time."
+
+
+In a Mysterious Way
+
+     Compounded of amusing studies of human nature in a rural community.
+
+
+A Woman's Will
+
+     Describes the wooing of a young American widow on the continent by
+     a musical genius.
+
+
+Little, Brown & Co., _Publishers_, Boston
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 37289-8.txt or 37289-8.zip *****
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Susan Clegg And Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner.
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs
+
+Author: Anne Warner
+
+Illustrator: H. M. Brett
+
+Release Date: September 1, 2011 [EBook #37289]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
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+
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+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/tp.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>SUSAN CLEGG</h1>
+
+<h2>AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS</h2>
+
+<h2>BY ANNE WARNER</h2>
+
+<h3>Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," "Sunshine Jane," etc.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="center">WITH FRONTISPIECE BY<br />
+H. M. BRETT</p>
+
+<p class="center">BOSTON<br />
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY<br />
+1916</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1916,</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Published, May, 1916<br />
+Reprinted, May, 1916</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>"Nothing but the floor stopped me from falling through to
+China." <span class="smcap">Frontispiece.</span> <i>See Page 144.</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table width="50%">
+<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#I"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg's Courting</span> </a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td><a href="#II"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg and the Chinese Lady</span> </a></td><td align="right">32</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#III"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg Solves the Mystery</span> </a></td><td align="right">58</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#IV"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg and the Olive Branch</span> </a></td><td align="right">80</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#V"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg's "Improvements"</span> </a></td><td align="right">104</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#VI"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg Uprooted</span> </a></td><td align="right">129</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td><a href="#VII"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg Unsettled</span> </a></td><td align="right">153</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">VIII. </td><td><a href="#VIII"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg and the Cyclone</span> </a></td><td align="right">176</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">IX. </td><td><a href="#IX"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg's Practical Friend</span> </a></td><td align="right">216</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">X. </td><td><a href="#X"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg Develops Imagination</span> </a></td><td align="right">236</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XI. </td><td><a href="#XI"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg and the Playwright</span> </a></td><td align="right">256</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">XII. </td><td><a href="#XII"><span class="smcap">Susan Clegg's Disappearance</span> </a></td><td align="right">277</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop sat on her front piazza, and Susan Clegg sat with her. Mrs.
+Lathrop was rocking, and Susan was just back from the Sewing Society.
+Neither Mrs. Lathrop nor Susan was materially altered since we saw them
+last. Time had moved on a bit, but not a great deal, and although both
+were older, still they were not much older.</p>
+
+<p>They were not enough older for Mrs. Lathrop to have had a new rocker,
+nor for Susan to have purchased a new bonnet. Susan indeed looked almost
+absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> unaltered. She was a woman of the best wearing quality; she
+was hard and firm as ever, and if there were any plating about her, it
+was of the quadruple kind and would last.</p>
+
+<p>If the reader knows Susan Clegg at all, he will surmise that she was
+talking. And he will be right. Susan was most emphatically talking. She
+had returned from the Sewing Society full to the brim, and Mrs. Lathrop
+was already enjoying the overflow. Mrs. Lathrop liked to rock and
+listen. She never went to the Sewing Society herself&mdash;she never went
+anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"We was talking about dreams," Susan was saying; "it's a very curious
+thing about dreams. Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop," wrinkling her brow and
+regarding her friend with that look of friendship which is not blind to
+any faults, "do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, they said down there that dreams
+always go by contraries. We was discussing it for a long time, and they
+ended up by making me believe in it. You see, it all began by my saying
+how I dreamed last night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> that Jathrop was back, and he was a cat and
+your cat, too, and he did something he wasn't let to, and you made one
+jump at him, and out of the window he went. Now that was a very strange
+dream for me to have dreamed, Mrs. Lathrop, and Mrs. Lupey, who's
+staying with Mrs. Macy to-day and maybe to-morrow, too, says she's sure
+it's a sign. She says if dreams go by contraries, mine ought to be a
+sign as Jathrop is coming back, for the contraries is all there: Jathrop
+<i>wasn't</i> a cat, and he never done nothing that he shouldn't&mdash;nor that he
+should, neither&mdash;and you never jump&mdash;I don't believe you've jumped in
+years, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop reminiscently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that time don't count," said Susan, "it was just my ball of yarn,
+even if it did look like a rat; I meant a jump when you meant it; you
+didn't mean that jump. Well, an' to go back to the dream and what was
+said about it and to tell you the rest of it, there wasn't any more of
+it, but there was plenty more said about it. All of the dream<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> was that
+the cat went out of the window, and I woke up, but, oh, my, how we did
+talk! Gran'ma Mullins wanted to know in the first place how I knew that
+the cat was Jathrop. She was most interested in that, for she says she
+often dreams of animals, but it never struck her that they might be any
+one she knew. She dreamed she found a daddy-long-legs looking in her
+bureau drawer the other night, but she never gave it another thought.
+She'll be more careful after this, I guess. Well, then I begun to
+consider, and for the life of me I can't think how I knew that that cat
+was Jathrop. As I remember it was a very common looking cat, but being
+common looking wouldn't mean Jathrop. Jathrop was common looking, but
+not a common cat kind of common looking. It was a very strange dream,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the more I consider it, the more I can't see what give it
+to me. I finished up the doughnuts just before I went to bed, for I was
+afraid they'd mold in another day with this damp weather, but it don't
+seem as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> doughnuts ought to result in cats like Jathrop. If I'd
+dreamed of mice, it'd been different, for some of the doughnuts was
+gnawed in a way as showed as there'd been mice in the jar. It does beat
+all how mice get about. Maybe it was the mice made me think Jathrop was
+a cat. But even then I can't see how I did come to dream that dream.
+Unless it was a sign. Mrs. Lupey's sure it was a sign. We talked about
+signs the whole of the Sewing Society. Dreams and signs. Everybody told
+all they knew. Mrs. Macy told about her snow dream. Whenever Mrs. Macy
+has her snow dream, somebody dies. She says it's so interesting to look
+in a paper the next time she gets hold of one and see who it was. One
+time she thought it was Edgar Allen Poe, but when she read it over
+twice, she see that it was just that he'd been born. She says her snow
+dream's a wonderful sign; it's never failed once. She dreamed it the
+night before the earthquake in Italy, and she says to think how many
+died of it that time!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This started Gran'ma Mullins, and Gran'ma Mullins told about that dream
+she had the year before she met her husband. That was an awful dream. I
+wonder she met her husband a <i>tall</i> after it. She thought she was alone
+in a thick wood, and she saw a man coming, and she was scared to death.
+She says she can feel her trembling now. She didn't know what to do,
+'cause if she'd hid among the trees he couldn't have seen her, and that
+idea scared her as bad as the other. So she just stood and shook and
+watched the man coming nearer and nearer. I've heard her tell the story
+a hundred times, but my blood always sort o' runs cold to hear it. The
+man come nearer and nearer and, my, but she says he <i>was</i> a man! She was
+just a young girl, but she was old enough to be afraid, and old enough
+not to want to hide from him, neither. She says it was an awful lesson
+to her about going in woods alone, because of course you can't never
+expect any sympathy if the man does murder you or kiss you&mdash;everybody'll
+just say, 'Why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> didn't she hide in the woods?' Well, Gran'ma Mullins
+says there she stood, and she can see herself still standing there. She
+says she's never been in the woods since just on account of that
+dream&mdash;and then, too, she's one of those that the mosquitos all get on
+in the woods. And then, besides, she doesn't like woods, anyway. And
+then, besides, there ain't no thick woods around here. But, anyhow, you
+know what happened&mdash;just as he got to her she woke up, and I must say of
+all the tame stories to have to sit and listen to over and over, that
+dream of Gran'ma Mullins is the tamest. I get tired the minute she
+begins it, but my dream had started every one to telling signs, and so
+of course Gran'ma Mullins had to tell hers along with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"When she was done Mrs. Lupey told us about her mother, Mrs. Kitts, and
+a curious kind of prophetic dream she used to have and kept right on
+having up to the day she died. Mrs. Lupey said she never heard the like
+of those dreams of her mother's, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> guess nobody else ever has,
+either. No, nor never will. Well, it seems Mrs. Kitts used to dream she
+was falling out of bed, and the curious part is that she always <i>did</i>
+fall out of bed just as she dreamed it, so it never failed to come true.
+She'd dream she hit the floor <i>bang!</i> and the next second she'd hit the
+floor <i>bang!</i> Mrs. Lupey said she never saw such a dream for coming
+true; if old Mrs. Kitts dreamed she hit her head, she'd hit her head,
+and the time she dreamed she sprained her wrist, she sprained her wrist,
+and the time she had her stroke, as soon as her mind was got back in
+place she told them she'd dreamed she had a stroke in her chair just
+before she fell out of her chair with the stroke. Even the minister's
+wife didn't have a word to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lupey said her mother was a most remarkable woman. She's very
+sorry now she didn't board that painter for a portrait of her. The
+painter was so awful took with old Mrs. Kitts that he was willing to do
+her for six weeks and with the frame for two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> months. But Mrs. Lupey was
+afraid to have a painter around. She'd just read a detective story about
+a painter that killed the woman he was painting because he didn't want
+any one else to paint her. Mrs. Lupey said it was a very Frenchy
+story&mdash;there was a lot between the lines and on the lines, too&mdash;as she
+couldn't make out, but it taught her never to have painters around, for
+you never could be sure in a house with four other women that he'd kill
+the one he was painting. But she's sorry now, for she's older now and
+wiser and a match for any painter going, long-haired, short-haired or no
+hair at all. But it's too late now, and there's Mrs. Kitts dead
+unpainted, and all they've got left is a sweet memory and that cane she
+used to hit at 'em with when they weren't spry enough to suit her, and
+her hymn-book which she marked up without telling any one and left for a
+remembrance. Mrs. Lupey says such markings you never heard of.</p>
+
+<p>"When Mrs. Lupey was all done, Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Brown took her turn and told us
+some very interesting things about Amelia. Seems Amelia is so far
+advanced in learning what nobody can understand that she can see quite a
+little ways ahead now and tell just what she's going to do. She can't
+see for the rest of the family, but she can see for herself. Sometimes
+it's just a day ahead, and sometimes it's a long way ahead. The longest
+way ahead that she's seen yet is that she can't see herself ever getting
+up to breakfast again. Mrs. Brown says of course she respects Amelia's
+religious views, but it's trying when Amelia wants to go to church, but
+doesn't see herself going, so has to stay at home. She says Amelia just
+loves to sew, but she can't see herself sewing any more, so she's given
+it all up. She says Amelia's got a superior mind&mdash;anybody can tell that
+only to see the way she's took to doing her hair&mdash;but she says it's a
+little hard on young Doctor Brown and her, who haven't got superior
+minds, to live with her. Amelia don't want to kill flies any more, for
+fear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> they're going to be her blood relations a million years from now,
+and Mrs. Brown says she never was any good once a mouse was caught, but
+now she won't even hear to setting a trap; she says all things has equal
+rights, and if she feels a spider, some one has got to take it off her
+and set it gently outside on the grass. Oh, Mrs. Brown says, Amelia's
+very hard to live up to, even with the best will in the world. Mrs.&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Susan was interrupted by Brunhilde Susan, the minister's youngest
+child, who brought the evening milk and the evening paper.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a letter, so I brought that, too," said Brunhilde Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"A letter!" said Susan in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"It's for Mrs. Lathrop," said Brunhilde Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"For me!" said Mrs. Lathrop in even greater surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm," said Brunhilde Susan.</p>
+
+<p>A letter for Mrs. Lathrop was indeed a surprise, as that good lady had
+only received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> two in the last five years. As those had been of the
+least interesting variety, she looked upon the present one with but mild
+interest. The next minute she gave a scream, for, turning it over as
+some people always do turn a letter over before opening it, she read on
+the back "Return to Jathrop Lathrop..." and her fingers turning numb
+with surprise and her head dizzy for the same reason, she dropped it on
+the floor forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>Brunhilde Susan had turned and gone back down the walk. Miss Clegg, who
+had been regarding her friend's slowness to take action with
+ill-concealed impatience, now made no attempt at concealing anything,
+but leaned over abruptly and picked up the letter. As soon as she looked
+at it she came near dropping it, too. "From Jathrop!" she exclaimed, in
+a tone appalled. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop was quite speechless. Susan held the letter and began to
+regard it closely. It was quite a minute before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> another sound was made,
+then suddenly a light burst over the younger woman's face. "It's my
+dream. I told you so. It <i>was</i> a sign, just as Mrs. Lupey said. He's
+coming back!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked toward Mrs. Lathrop, but Mrs. Lathrop still sat quite limp
+and gasping for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I open it and read it to you?" Susan then suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Y&mdash;y&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop and could get no further.</p>
+
+<p>At that Susan promptly opened the letter. It was written on the paper of
+a Chicago hotel, and ran thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<i>Dear Mother</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"Years have passed by, and here I am on my way home again. I've
+been to the Klondike and am now rich and on my way home. I hope
+that you are well and safe at home. You'll be glad to see me home
+again, I know. How is everybody at home? How is Susan Clegg? I
+shall get home Saturday morning.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Your afft. son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"<span class="smcap">J. Lathrop, Esq.</span>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That was all and surely it was quite enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I declare!" Susan Clegg said, staring first at the letter and
+then at the mother. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop! Well, I declare. It <i>was</i> a
+sign. You and me'll never doubt signs after <i>this</i>, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop made an effort to rally, but only succeeded in just feebly
+shaking her head.</p>
+
+<p>Susan continued to hold the letter in her hand and contemplate it.
+Another slow minute or two passed.</p>
+
+<p>But at last the wheels of life began to turn again, and that active
+mind, which grasped so much so readily, grasped this news, too. Miss
+Clegg ceased to view the letter and began to take action regarding it.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you notice what he says here, Mrs. Lathrop? He says he's rich. I
+don't know whether you noticed or not as I read, but he says he's rich.
+I wonder how rich he means!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop opened and shut her eyes in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> a futile way that she had, but
+continued speechless.</p>
+
+<p>"Rich," repeated Miss Clegg, "and me dreaming of him last night; that's
+very curious, when you come to think of it, 'cause I'm rich, too. And I
+was dreaming of him! It doesn't make any difference my thinking he was a
+cat; I knew it was Jathrop, even if he was only a cat in a dream.
+Strange my dreaming of him that way! I can see him flying out of the
+window right now. He was one of those lanky, long cats that eat from
+dawn till dark and every time your back's turned and yet keep the
+neighbors saying you starve it. And to think it was Jathrop all the
+time! Thinking of me right that minute, probably. And he says, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And he's rich. I <i>do</i> wonder what he'd call rich!"</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop remained dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"The Klondike, that's where he went to, was it? Goodness, I wonder how
+he ever got there! Well, I'll never be surprised at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> nothing after this.
+I've had many little surprises in my life, but never nothing to equal
+this. Jathrop Lathrop come back rich! Why, the whole town will be at the
+station to meet him to-morrow. I wonder if he'll come in the parlor-car!
+Think of Jathrop being a cat overnight and coming in a parlor-car next
+day! And he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"</p>
+
+<p>The last three words seemed to make quite an impression on Susan, but
+Mrs. Lathrop appeared smashed so supremely flat that nothing could make
+any further impression on her. She continued dumb, and Susan continued
+to hold the letter and comment on it.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what he looks like now. I wonder if he's grown any better
+looking! I certainly do wonder if he's got any homelier. And he's rich!
+Why, nobody from this town has ever gone away and got rich before, not
+that I can remember. I call myself a rich woman, but I ain't rich enough
+to dream of writing it in a letter. I certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> should like to know
+what Jathrop calls being rich. He couldn't possibly have millions, or it
+would have reached here somehow. Maybe he's been digging under another
+name! I suppose three or four thousand would seem enough to make him
+call himself rich. If he comes home with three or four thousand and
+calls that being rich, I shall certainly feel very sorry for you, Mrs.
+Lathrop. He'll be very airy over his money, and he'll live on yours. If
+you've got to have any one live with you, it's better for them to have
+no money a <i>tall</i>, because if they've got ever such a little, they
+always feel so perky over it. Mrs. Brown says if Amelia didn't have that
+six dollars and seventy-five cents a month from her dead mother, she'd
+be much easier to live with. Mrs. Brown says whenever Doctor Brown trys
+to control Amelia, Amelia hops up and says she'll pay for it with her
+own money. Mrs. Brown says to hear Amelia, you'd think she had at least
+ten dollars a month of her own. Mrs. Brown's so sad over Amelia. Amelia
+sees herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> doing such outlandish things some days. Mrs. Brown says
+your son's wife is the biggest puzzle a woman ever gets. I guess Mrs.
+Brown would have liked young Doctor Brown never to marry."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth and shut it again.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're thinking where to put Jathrop when he comes," Susan
+said quickly. "I've been thinking of that, too. Where can you put him,
+anyway? He never can sleep in that little shed bedroom where he used to
+sleep, if he's really rich, and he'll have to have some place to wash
+before we can find out."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop looked distressed. "I&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that wouldn't do," said Susan, knitting her brows quickly. "Think
+of the work of changing all your things. No, I'll tell you what's the
+best thing to do; he can sleep over at my house. Father's room was all
+cleaned last week, and I'll make up the bed, and Jathrop can sleep there
+until we find out how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> to treat him. Maybe his old shed bedroom will do,
+after all, or maybe he's so awfully rich he'll enjoy sleeping in it,
+like the president liked to stack hay. Maybe he'll ask nothing better
+than to chop wood and take the ashes out of the stove just for a change.
+I do wonder how rich he is. If he's rich enough to have a private car, I
+expect this town <i>will</i> open its eyes. You'll see a great change in your
+position, Mrs. Lathrop, if Jathrop comes in a private car to-morrow
+morning. There's something about a private car as makes everybody step
+around lively. I don't say that I shan't respect him more myself if he
+comes in a private car. But he can sleep one night in father's room,
+anyway, although if he calls it being rich to come home with just two or
+three thousand, I think he'd better understand it's for just one night
+right from the start. I wouldn't want Jathrop to think that I had any
+time to waste on him if he calls just two or three thousand being rich.
+It'd be no wonder I dreamed he was a cat, if he's got the face to call
+that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> being rich. But that would be just like Jathrop. You know yourself
+that if Jathrop could ever do anything to disappoint anybody, he never
+let the chance slide. I never had no use for Jathrop Lathrop, as you
+know to your cost, Mrs. Lathrop. But, still, if he really is rich, I
+haven't got anything against him, and I'll tell you what I'll do right
+now: I'll go home and put that room in order and get my supper, and then
+after supper I'll just run down to the square and see if anybody else
+knows, and then I'll come back and tell you if they do. It's no use your
+trying to put things a little in order, because you couldn't straighten
+this place up in a month, and, besides, it isn't worth fussing till we
+know how rich he is. He may just have writ that in for a joke&mdash;to break
+it to you gently that he's coming back again to live here. Heaven help
+you if that's the case, Mrs. Lathrop, for Jathrop never will. It isn't
+in me to deceive so much as a fly on the window, and I never have
+deceived you and I never will."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With which promise Susan took her departure.</p>
+
+<p>It was all of three hours&mdash;quite nine in the evening&mdash;when Susan came
+back. She found Mrs. Lathrop transferred to her back porch and seemingly
+in a somewhat less complete state of total paralysis than when she had
+left her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop looked up as her friend approached and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knew," Susan announced as she mounted the steps, "but every one
+knows now, for I told them. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw anything
+like it. There isn't a person in town as ever expected to see Jathrop
+again, and only about three as always thought he'd come back rich. Every
+one's going to the station to-morrow morning, even Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy
+says if it's one of the mornings she can't walk, she'll hire Hiram and
+his wheelbarrow just as she does for church those Sundays. Everybody's
+so interested. I told them about the private car, and everybody hopes
+that he's got one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> and that he'll come in it. Mr. Dill says he must be
+rich if he's been to the Klondike and come back a <i>tall</i>. He says
+there's no halfway work about the Klondike. Either you come back a
+millionaire or else you eat first your dog and then your boots and
+that's the last of you. Gran'ma Mullins says she never heard of eating
+boots in the Klondike; she thought you rode on a sled there and that
+there weren't any women. She says Hiram's spoken of going there once or
+twice, and Lucy thought maybe the coasting would do him good, but
+Gran'ma Mullins says not while she's alive, no, sir. Why, it's 'way
+across America and up a ways, and so many people want to go up that they
+have to sleep three in a berth, and she says will you only think of
+Hiram, with the way she's brought him up, three in a berth. If the bed
+ain't tucked in with Gran'ma Mullins' own particular kind of tuck, Hiram
+kicks at night and don't get any proper nourishment out of his sleep.
+No, Gran'ma Mullins says she couldn't think of Hiram in the Klondike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+sleeping under a snow-pile and having to hunt up a whale whenever he was
+in need of more kerosene oil. And she says what good would millions do
+her with the bones of the only baby she ever had feeding whatever kind
+of creature they have up there. No, she says, no, and a million times
+more, no; she's been reading about it in a New York paper that came
+wrapped around her new stove lid, and she knows all there is to know on
+that subject now. She says a New York paper is so interesting. She says
+the way they print them makes it very entertaining. She was reading
+about a sea serpent, and when she turned, she turned wrong, and she read
+twelve columns about the suffragettes, looking eagerly to see when the
+sea serpent was going on again. She says she give up trying to see why
+they print them so or ever trying to finish any one subject at a time;
+she just goes regularly through the paper now and lets the subjects
+fight it out to suit themselves. She says it makes the last part very
+interesting. You read about a baby, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> after a while you find out
+whether it's the Queen of Spain's or just a race-horse. She says she
+supposes next Sunday there'll be a picture of Jathrop in the paper;
+maybe there'll be a view of this house with you and me. I think that
+that would be very interesting."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused to consider the idyllic little picture thus presented to
+her mind's eye, and Mrs. Lathrop continued to say nothing. After a while
+Susan went on again:</p>
+
+<p>"I've been thinking a good deal about that letter, Mrs. Lathrop. I don't
+know whether you noticed or not, but to my order of thinking it was very
+strange his saying, 'How's Susan Clegg?' That's a curious thing for an
+unmarried man to ask his mother about an unmarried woman. When you come
+to consider how Jathrop was wild to marry me once, it really means a
+terrible lot. I was the first woman except you he ever kissed; he wasn't
+but a year old, and I was thirteen, but those things make an impression.
+I don't mind telling you that I've often thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> about Jathrop
+nights&mdash;and days, too. And lately I've been thinking of him more and
+more. And you can see that he's been feeling the same about me, for he's
+showed that plain enough by saying in black and white, 'How's Susan
+Clegg?' Jathrop is a very silent nature, you can see that from his never
+writing even to his own mother in all these years. It means a good deal
+when a silent nature opens its mouth all of a sudden and writes, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And then my dreaming of him was so strange. He had soft
+gray fur and big bright yellow eyes, and the way he flew out of the
+window! Even in my dream I noticed how nice he jumped. He made a
+beautiful cat. And you know I always stood up for him, Mrs. Lathrop,
+I always did that. Even when I thought he needed lynching as much
+as anybody, I never said so. And now he's come back rich, and he's
+coming home to you and me, and he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'
+'How's&mdash;Susan&mdash;Clegg?'"</p>
+
+<p>Susan's voice died dreamily away. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Lathrop said nothing. After a
+minute Susan's voice went on again: "It's too bad I haven't time to sort
+of freshen up my striped silk. It's got awful creasy laying folded so
+long. I'd of put some new braid around the bottom if I'd known, and if
+this town wasn't so noticey, I'd put my hair up on rollers to-night. A
+little crimp sets my wave off so. But, laws, everybody'd be asking why I
+did it, and if Jathrop's got any idea of me in his head, it'll be very
+easy to knock it right straight out if this town gets first chance at
+him. But I don't intend that this town shall get first chance at him. I
+shall be on that platform to-morrow morning, and I'll be the nearest to
+that train, and once he gets off that train, I shall bring him right
+straight up here to you and me. It's safest, and it's his duty, too. As
+soon as you've seen him, I'll take him over to my house to wash. Then
+I'll give him his breakfast, and by the time he's done his breakfast, if
+he really means anything, I'll know it. If he really means anything,
+we'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> come over after breakfast, and it'll do your heart good to see
+how happy we'll look. He can leave his bag in father's room then, for
+we'll have so much to talk over it'll be more convenient to take him
+over there. You can see that for yourself, Mrs. Lathrop&mdash;you know how
+young people like to be alone together when they're engaged, and a woman
+of my age don't need no looking after any longer. I'm no Gran'ma Mullins
+to be worrying over woods nor yet any Mrs. Lupey as supposes every man
+you let into your house may be going to hit you over the head when
+you're thinking of something pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I ain't afraid of Jathrop Lathrop nor of any other man alive, thank
+heaven. <i>But</i>, if I find out as he don't mean anything, I shall march
+him over to you in sharp order, bag and all. If he don't mean anything,
+I'll soon know the reason why, and as soon as I know the reason why,
+I'll send Mr. Jathrop Lathrop flying. 'How's Susan Clegg?' indeed! He'll
+find it's a very dangerous joke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> to go joking about me, no matter how
+much money he's scraped out of the Klondike. A joke is a thing as I
+never stand, Mrs. Lathrop, and if you'd been one as joked, you'd have
+found that out to your deep and abiding sorrow long ago. Very few people
+have ever tried to have any fun with me, and I've got even with the most
+of them, I'm happy to remark. I shall find out yet who sent me that
+comic valentine with the man skipping over the edge of the world and me
+after him with a net, and when I do find out, I'll get even about that,
+too. Me with a net! I'd like to see myself skipping after any man that
+was skipping away from me. If he was skipping toward me, I wouldn't
+marry him&mdash;not 'nless I loved him. I know that. Love is a thing as you
+can't raise and lower just as the fancy strikes you. A woman can't love
+but once, and I've got a kind of warm bubbling all around my heart as
+tells me that I've loved that once and that it was Jathrop. It's very
+strange, Mrs. Lathrop, but I've been thinking of Jathrop a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> deal
+lately. I keep remembering more and more how much I've been thinking
+about him. I suppose he was thinking of me, and that's what started me.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' I can just seem to hear Jathrop's voice; Jathrop
+had a very strange voice. 'How's Susan Clegg?'</p>
+
+<p>"The mind is a curious thing, when you stop to consider, Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Brown says Amelia says minds can communicate if you know how. Mrs.
+Brown says if she calls to Amelia when she's in the hammock and Amelia
+don't answer, Amelia always explains afterwards as she was
+communicating.</p>
+
+<p>"It all shows that the mind is a wonderful thing. There was Jathrop and
+me communicating regularly, and me so little understanding what it all
+meant that I dreamed he was a cat. I can't get over that dream. I wonder
+if that meant that he's got whiskers now. If he's got whiskers, and he
+loves me, he's got to cut 'em right straight off. You'll have to speak
+to him about that as soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> you see him, Mrs. Lathrop, for I won't be
+able to, of course. And you can see for yourself that I couldn't have
+whiskers around. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I've had no
+experience with whiskers."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop promised to remonstrate with Jathrop if he really had
+whiskers, and after some further conversation Susan went home and to bed
+and slept soundly. In the morning she was up very promptly, and Mrs.
+Lathrop saw her off for the station.</p>
+
+<p>The whole town was at the station. But in front of them all&mdash;closest to
+the track&mdash;stood Susan Clegg.</p>
+
+<p>It was a breathless moment when Johnny ran out with the flag and the
+train stopped. Susan motioned the rest back with dignity and stood her
+ground alone. The car door opened, and a stout, homely man, with eyes
+set wide apart and a very large mouth, appeared on the platform. He was
+well dressed and carried an alligator-skin traveling-bag.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Everybody gasped. But it was not his appearance nor the alligator-skin
+bag that caused them to gasp. It was that Jathrop Lathrop, returning
+after his long absence, had brought back a lady with him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY</h3>
+
+
+<p>And not merely a lady, but a Chinese lady at that. A particularly
+chubby, solemn, Chinese lady, who descended from the train which brought
+Jathrop Lathrop back to his native town after making a fortune in the
+Klondike, and meekly trotted along in his wake, carrying the large
+valise, while Jathrop carried the small one.</p>
+
+<p>Susan walked off straightway with Jathrop and the Chinese lady, while
+the town remained stock and staring behind. The town was frankly "done
+did up." That Jathrop might return with a wife had never once entered
+the head of any one. Still less had the idea of any one of that
+community ever wedding a Chinese been entertained. It was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> peculiarly
+overwhelming sensation, and one which led Gran'ma Mullins to lean
+against Hiram, while Mrs. Macy leaned against the equally firm side-wall
+of the station itself. It was several seconds before people came to
+their senses enough to go around by the track gate and look to see how
+far the bewildering party had got on their way. They were just crossing
+the square.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," said Mr. Kimball, and his words
+seemed to break the deadlock; everybody scattered forthwith, all talking
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jathrop, arriving at his mother's gate, paused and said quite
+easily:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go in alone, Susan; mother will like the first hour or so quite
+alone with me, I know. Won't you take Hop Loo to your house for
+breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>Susan, who had by no means as yet recovered from the shock of the
+Celestial bride, opened and shut her mouth once and her eyes twice, and
+yielded. For the nonce she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> seemed as speechless as Mrs. Lathrop
+herself. Jathrop's appealing ease of manner had overawed her all the way
+up from the station, and the walk had been accomplished in stately
+silence. If the Klondike Prodigal had been surprised over the alteration
+in Susan, he had not said so, and now he quietly handed Hop Loo his
+alligator-skin traveling-bag (or hers, whichever it was), and passing in
+through his mother's gate, shut it forthwith behind him, and went on up
+the walk. Susan cast one look, which would have thrown a basilisk into
+everlasting darkness, after him; and then, turning, marched back to her
+own gate. Hop Loo followed, Susan opened her own gate and passed through
+it; Hop Loo passed through after her. Susan went up her walk; Hop kept
+close to her heels. Together they mounted the steps and then entered the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely to
+rally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> she climbed
+the steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She looked
+peculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the present
+moment that she was not pleased with the world in general.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smiling
+enough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep up
+her own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those of
+others. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew."</p>
+
+<p>This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as it
+might have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable of
+anything so subtle.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's no
+use taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already set
+about doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathrop
+never come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of being
+poisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> has
+learned too many little tricks for that."</p>
+
+<p>Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous striped
+silk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dipping
+it (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen that
+the vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herself
+and looking eagerly in her friend's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular under
+the severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em,
+or did he just buy her for beads?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don't
+know a <i>tall</i>. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man does
+about a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to have
+seen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> walked straight to my rack of
+pans and took down just whatever she fancied. I <i>never</i> saw the beat!
+No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and the
+North Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop has
+picked up. He never said a word walking up&mdash;nothing but 'Ah' once. I
+don't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked your
+cradle and might have married you, too&mdash;if she'd wanted to. For I could
+have married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever know
+what passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say what
+prevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regret
+it, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks of
+the treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken&mdash;he
+means me."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused and shook her head angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt but what he's sorry," said Mrs. Macy; "maybe he married a
+Chinese<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> for fear any other kind would remind him of you."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg rejected this possible poetic view of Jathrop's action with a
+look of great disgust accompanied by another shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it's very often that a man ever marries some other
+woman on account of any other woman. That's very pretty in books, but
+books ain't life. Life's life, and if Jathrop Lathrop's married that
+heathen Chinese, he's got very strange notions of life, and that's all I
+can say. Why, if she didn't lug that heavy bag along and walk a little
+back, and he never bothered to speak to her. She's very different from
+what I'd have been, I can tell you. You can maybe fancy me carrying
+Jathrop Lathrop's bag a little behind Jathrop Lathrop! I think I see
+myself. 'How's Susan Clegg?' He'll soon find out how Susan Clegg is.
+What do you think, Mrs. Macy, what <i>do</i> you think? When we came to his
+mother's gate, he just stopped, said he thought she'd like him alone
+best,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> said to me, 'Give Hop Loo some breakfast, will you?'&mdash;and then if
+my gentleman didn't walk through the gate and shut it after him! Well, I
+<i>never</i> did. There was me and his wife carefully shut out on the other
+side of the fence like we was pigs. And then I had to bring her over
+here and give her father's room. What would my dead and gone father say
+to a Chinese woman having his room, I wonder! Father had very fine
+feelings for a man as got about so little, and if he was alive, I don't
+believe no Jathrop Lathrop would have gone sending no heathen Chinese
+wife to live with <i>me</i>. She won't live with me long, I can tell you that
+to your face, Mrs. Macy. I took her because I was too dumb did up over
+having a gate shut in my face by Jathrop Lathrop to do anything else,
+but I ain't intending to have her long. I've always been for shutting
+the Chinese out, and I ain't going back on my principles at my time of
+life. No, indeed. 'How's Susan Clegg?'"</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused angrily. Her repetition of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> the deceptive phrase in
+Jathrop's letter seemed to turn her boiling wrath into one of still,
+white menace. She sat perfectly still, snapping her eyelids up and down,
+and breathing hard.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't blame you one mite, Susan," said Mrs. Macy warmly; "I wish Mrs.
+Lupey was here. She wanted to come, too, but she's got her bag to pack
+to go home. She only come for one night, and to-night'll make two, so
+she wants to get packed. But she knows all about the Chinese. Her
+husband's got a cousin who is a missionary in China, and she could have
+felt for you. The cousin's got eleven Chinese servants besides a Bible
+class of two as she's training to be missionaries after they're trained.
+Mrs. Lupey says she'd have known what to do when that Chinese lady got
+off the train this morning. They don't let 'em ride in the same cars in
+China."</p>
+
+<p>Just here Jathrop came out of his mother's front door and walked down
+the path. Both ladies were freshly shocked by the sight. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> the gate he
+turned in the opposite direction. Both ladies stared after him. Soon he
+was out of sight. Then they stared at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is he up to now?" Mrs. Macy finally ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Susan in a tone of complete despair as to ever
+again gaining any insight into the motives which moved Jathrop, "I d'n
+know, Mrs. Macy. Don't ask me anything about Jathrop Lathrop after he's
+gone home to see his mother and has handed me over a Chinese wife to
+board. He may be gone up to Mrs. Brown's to run off with Amelia for all
+I know. Nothing is ever going to surprise me any more after this day. I
+only know one thing, if he does run off with Amelia, that Chinee'll find
+herself and his valises dumped off of my premises pretty quick. I never
+was one for false feelings, and I should see no call for Christian
+charity toward a heathen who comes to me with two black bags on her legs
+and a dressing-sack for an overcoat."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Jathrop likes her wearing such clothes," said Mrs. Macy.
+"Everybody is wondering."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Miss Clegg, "men are very queer. There's no telling
+what they are going to fancy till they get out of the train married to
+it. Think of his having the face to write 'How's Susan Clegg?' and him
+married to that puzzle-blocks thing all the time. I wonder what his
+mother said when he told her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go over and see Mrs. Lathrop!" suggested Mrs. Macy, "she's over
+there alone now."</p>
+
+<p>This idea immediately found favor with Susan. "But I'll have to go in
+and see what <i>she's</i> up to first," she said. "If she's caught a rat and
+is making soup in my teapot with it, I shan't feel to enjoy leaving her
+alone with my teapot."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Macy could but feel the extreme justice of this view, and Susan,
+whose countenance indicated that she was sorely beset by misgivings,
+went into the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When she came out, her face wore a relieved expression.</p>
+
+<p>"She's all safe," she said. "She's asleep on the floor. I must say it's
+changed my feelings toward her. It shows she knows her place."</p>
+
+<p>They walked sedately to Mrs. Lathrop's. They climbed the back steps, and
+they knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop was busy making preparations for dinner. She came to the
+door with a promptitude which, in view of her well-known habit of
+deliberation, was little short of miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>"We came to see how you were," said Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," said Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>They walked in and seated themselves on two of the wooden-bottomed
+kitchen chairs. Mrs. Lathrop went on with her work. She was uncommonly
+active, and her face wore a broad, unusual smile. "Jathrop's gone up to
+the cemetery," she said. "He's going to have a monument put up to his
+father."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of&mdash;?" interrupted Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we come to&mdash;" began Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going," continued Mrs. Lathrop, taking down a plate and blowing
+the thick dust from its surface, "to have an awful handsome monument put
+up. Not a animal like you put up to your father, Susan, but a angel
+hanging to a pillar with both hands and feeling for a cloud with its
+feet. He showed me the picture. And he's going to have the parlor
+papered and give the town a watering-trough for horses, with a tin cup
+on a chain for people, and he's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but&mdash;" interrupted Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, of course&mdash;" began Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop swept off the top of the rolling-pin with the stove-brush.
+"And he's going to build me on a bedroom right off the hall," she
+continued, "and put a furnace under the whole house. And one of those
+lamps that haul up and down, and a new set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> of kitchen things, and he'll
+come here every year and see if I want anything else, and if I do, I'm
+to have it. I'm to have a pew in church, even if I never do go to
+church, and a paper every day, and his baby picture done big, and be
+fitted for new glasses."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mrs. Lathrop&mdash;" Susan interrupted, seeing that Mrs. Lathrop was
+surely still in ignorance as to her Mongolian daughter-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you&mdash;" began Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Liza Em'ly is to do all the sewing I want," went on Mrs. Lathrop,
+proceeding with her baking preparations at a great rate, "and Jathrop'll
+pay the bill. And any things I want, I'm just to send for, and
+Jathrop'll pay the bill; and anything I can think of what I want done,
+I'm just to say so, and Jathrop'll pay the bill."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if Susan Clegg would burst at this. It was plain now that
+Jathrop really was rich, and here was his mother supposing the rose was
+utterly thornless.</p>
+
+<p>"But did he tell you about his wife?" she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> broke in desperately. "That's
+what I want to know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop, who was mixing butter and sugar together in a yellow bowl,
+stopped suddenly and stared.</p>
+
+<p>"His wife!" she said blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, his wife," repeated Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"The wife he brought back with him," explained Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"The wife he&mdash;" Mrs. Lathrop pushed the yellow bowl a little back on the
+table and rested her hands on the edge. They trembled visibly; "the wife
+he&mdash;" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you know that he brought his wife back with him?" said Mrs.
+Macy. "Surely he's told you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop&mdash;turned her usual dumb self again&mdash;looked at Mrs. Macy with
+almost unseeing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;" she ejaculated faintly, "no, he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you see," exclaimed Susan, half to the friend and half to the
+stricken mother, "it don't make any difference what a man turns into
+outside, he stays just the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> inside. What have I always said to you,
+Mrs. Lathrop? You can't make no kind of a purse out of ears like
+Jathrop's. Jathrop Lathrop could turn into fifty millionaires, and he'd
+still be Jathrop Lathrop. He can hang all the angels he pleases and
+water all the horses from here to Meadville, and still he never could be
+any other man but just himself. And being himself, he never by no manner
+of means could be frank and open. He was always one that held things
+back. You thought it was because he didn't have no brains, but you was
+his mother and naturally looked on the best side of him. But he never
+deceived me, Mrs. Lathrop; I saw through Jathrop right from the start.
+There was a foxiness about Jathrop as nobody never fully saw into but
+me. That was my reason for never marrying him&mdash;one of my many reasons,
+for his foxiness hasn't been the only thing about Jathrop that I've seen
+through. I never was one to soften the blows to a tempered lamb, so I
+will say that so many reasons for not loving a man as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> I've seen in
+Jathrop I never see in any other man yet. But none of my reasons for not
+marrying him has ever equalled this new reason as has cropped up now in
+his bringing home a wife. When a man comes home with a wife, then you do
+see through him for good and all, and when Jathrop come scrambling out
+from between those two cars this morning with a heathen Chinee at his
+heels&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop screamed loudly. "A&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Heathen Chinee," repeated Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what a Chinee is, don't you?" interposed Mrs. Macy; "they're
+from China, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop retreated to her rocker with a totter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's a heathen Chinee," said Susan, with unfailing firmness, "the
+kindest heart in the world couldn't mistake her for anything even as
+high up as a nigger. Her eyes cross just under her nose, and she's got
+her hair wound round her head with a piece of black tape to hold it on.
+She wears<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> divided skirts as is most plainly divided, and not a gore has
+she got to her name or her figure. She <i>is</i> a Chinese and no mistake,
+and you may believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but
+Jathrop without a so much as by-your-leave dumped her onto me for
+breakfast, and she's asleep on father's floor now."</p>
+
+<p>"On your&mdash;" gasped Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"No, on father's," said Susan, "and now, Mrs. Lathrop, you see what he
+is at last. He not only marries a Chinese when if he'd been patient he
+might have got a white one, but he brings her home, and don't even tell
+you he's brought her home, or even that he's got her, or even that he's
+married her, or anything. A man might line my house with furnaces and
+have his baby picture done big in every room, and I'd never forgive his
+acting in such a way. I never hear the beat. It throws all the other
+calamities as ever come upon anybody in this community clean out of the
+shade. What will be the use of your having a pew in church; you won't
+even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> be able to face the minister now with your son's marrying one of
+them as we have to give our good money to teach to wear clothes. What
+good will your having the parlor papered be with everybody ashamed to go
+to see a woman who has got a Chinese daughter. To my order of thinking,
+you was better off poor. Why, they eat the hen's nests, the Chinese do,
+and prefer 'em to the eggs. It's small wonder I dreamed Jathrop was a
+cat, with him descending on us like the wrath of heaven married to a
+China woman. Jathrop's no fool though, and if you'd seen that humble
+heathen going along back of him with his big valise, you'd have to see
+as the man as picks out a wife like that never could have been a fool. I
+felt for her, I really did, only she was watching me with the wrong eye
+all the time, and it made me dizzy to try and look at her kindly. I'll
+tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, when Jathrop comes back, you'll just go for
+him and give it to him good. Men must learn as they can't bring their
+Chinese wives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> into this community. There's a principle as we'd ought to
+live up to whether we enjoy it or not, and it's all against marrying
+Chinese. The Chinese are all right, I hope and trust, but nothing as
+feeds itself with a toothpick had ever ought to be held pressed to the
+bosom of families like you and me, Mrs. Lathrop. It isn't the way we're
+brought up to look at them, and it's a well-known fact as no matter what
+the leopard does to the Ethiopian, he sticks to his spot just the same
+as before&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" broke in Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop,&mdash;we've been friends
+too long for me not to feel kindly to you,&mdash;but Mrs. Macy is a witness
+to his bringing her, even if I wasn't well known to be one as never
+lies. Mrs. Macy is a witness, too, to how he's got her dressed, and a
+more burning disgrace than this keeping your chosen wife in loose
+overalls and a jacket as any monkey on a hand-organ would weep to see
+the fit of, I never see. It may be the custom in the Klondike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> and may
+be convenient for sliding, but this is no sliding community, and, to my
+order of thinking, Jathrop would have showed you more affection and us
+more respect if he'd bought his wife a bonnet and a shawl before he
+brought her here."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused for breath. Mrs. Lathrop continued speechless. Mrs. Macy
+tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking, "Lands, she's got a
+pigtail, too."</p>
+
+<p>Susan picked up the cudgels afresh at that. "Wound twice around her
+head," she said bitterly; "oh, she <i>is</i> a figure of fun and no mistake.
+I d'n know, I'm sure, what Jathrop was ever thinking of the day he
+picked her out, but this I do know, and that is, that he'd better pick
+her off of me pretty quick. You know, Mrs. Lathrop, as a friend is a
+friend and I've always been a good friend to you, but I never was one to
+stand any nonsense&mdash;not now and not never&mdash;and when a man writes, 'I'm
+rich' and 'How's Susan Clegg?' he gets me where no Chinese wife ain't
+going to please me in a hurry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> I'm glad Jathrop is rich, on your
+account, Mrs. Lathrop, but his being rich don't alter my views of him a
+mite. I look upon him as a gray deceiver, that's what I look upon him
+as, and if he's brought a piece of carnelian or anything back to me, you
+can tell him to give it to his lawfully wedded wife, for I don't want to
+have nothing more to do with him."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Susan&mdash;" broke in poor Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Lathrop; I'm in no mood to listen to no
+one just now. I ain't mad, but I'm hurt. It's no wonder I dreamed he
+was a cat, for of all the sly, back-door things a cat is the
+meanest. And there was always something very cat-like about Jathrop
+Lathrop&mdash;something soft and slow and creepy&mdash;nothing bold and
+out-spoken. I might have known as even if he did come home rich, he'd
+find a way to even it up. And now look how he has evened it up. Think of
+your grandchildren; there won't be one of 'em able to ever look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> anybody
+straight in more'n one eye at once. Marrying Chinese is terrible,
+anyway&mdash;in some States it's forbidden. It's to be hoped Jathrop'll keep
+out of those States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."</p>
+
+<p>Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling,
+"Where are you, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen.
+Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to a
+sudden halt.</p>
+
+<p>"We've been telling your&mdash;" began Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;mother about your wife," finished up Susan.</p>
+
+<p>Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my <i>wife</i>!" he
+repeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have been
+kinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've done
+it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> poor Mrs. Lathrop in
+heart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.</p>
+
+<p>"But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do you
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who
+said I had one?"</p>
+
+<p>Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at
+Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much
+longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as
+has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to
+be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."</p>
+
+<p>"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely
+bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> faltered. "Maybe it was all
+right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"To buy her with beads."</p>
+
+<p>"To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming
+exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>"Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as
+you brought with you and gave me to board."</p>
+
+<p>Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy&mdash;my boy,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Your boy!" said Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity,
+and hopeless resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I <i>did</i> suppose you had some sense even in
+the view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to give
+up. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe your
+wife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> you believe that that is
+your boy&mdash;well!"</p>
+
+<p>Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macy
+wobbling in her wake.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Susan Clegg and Mrs. Macy walked down to Mrs. Lathrop's gate, and out of
+her gate and to Miss Clegg's gate; the whole in a silence deadly and
+impressive. Mrs. Macy paused there.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I'll come in," she said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't blame you," said Susan, "I wouldn't if it was me. Jathrop's
+boy, indeed! What kind of a man is it as'll have a Chinese family and go
+forcing them onto the true and long-tried friends of his one and only
+mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see why he didn't leave the boy in the Klondike," said Mrs.
+Macy slowly and reflectively. "I thought men always left their Chinese
+families just where they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> found 'em. It's strange Jathrop brought him
+home with him."</p>
+
+<p>"You see now what my dream meant," said Susan darkly, "a cat, indeed.
+It's small wonder I knew the cat was Jathrop Lathrop. Of all the mean,
+sly, creeping creatures that ever come up against the back of your legs
+sudden a cat is the worst. A snake is open and aboveboard beside a cat.
+You can see a snake. You don't see 'em often around here, thank heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we haven't seen Jathrop often around here for a long time," said
+Mrs. Macy, whose mind was as given to easy logical deduction as many of
+her mental caliber, "and we do see a lot of cats&mdash;you know that, Susan."</p>
+
+<p>"'How's Susan Clegg?'" quoted Susan in a tone of reflective wrath. "I
+don't know whether you know it or not, Mrs. Macy, but Jathrop asked
+after me in his letter to his mother, and him with a Chinese wife.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' What did he write that for if he was married, I'd
+like to know."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he wanted to know how you were," suggested Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>The look she received in recognition of this offered explanation led to
+her immediately proposing to go on home. "You've got the Chinaman to
+look after, anyhow," she added.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better come in while I go up and look at him again," said Susan
+shortly. "It's a very strange sensation to be alone in your house with
+what you fully and freely take to your dead father's bed and board,
+supposing it's a wife, and then find out as it's her son instead. Come
+on in."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Macy was easily persuaded, and they thereupon went up the walk. "I
+guess I'll go see if he's still asleep," Susan said when they reached
+the piazza, and Mrs. Macy forthwith sat down to await what might come of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Susan was absent but a few minutes; she returned with a fresh layer of
+disapproval upon her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he still sleeping?" Mrs. Macy asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's still sleeping," Miss Clegg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> replied, jerking a chair forward
+for herself. "You'd know he was Jathrop Lathrop's child just by the way
+he sleeps. You remember what a one Jathrop always was for sleeping. I
+don't know as I remember Jathrop's ever being awake till he was fairly
+grown. Whatever you set him at always just made him more sleepy. You
+know yourself, Mrs. Macy, as he wouldn't be no grasshopper with Mrs.
+Lathrop for his mother, but a cocoon is a comet beside what Jathrop
+Lathrop always was. I don't know whether he's rich or not, but I do know
+that heathen Chinee is his son, and I know it just by the way he
+sleeps."</p>
+
+<p>"And so Jathrop's rich," said Mrs. Macy, rocking agreeably to and fro,
+and evidently striving toward more pleasant conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Susan darkly, "rich and with a Chinese wife somewhere. Just
+as often as I think of Jathrop Lathrop writing, 'How's Susan Clegg,'
+with a Chinese wife I feel more and more tempered, and I can't conceal
+my feelings. I never was one to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> conceal anything; if I had a Chinese
+wife the whole world might know it."</p>
+
+<p>Just here Gran'ma Mullins hove in sight, coming slowly and laboriously
+up the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there's Gran'ma Mullins!" Mrs. Macy exclaimed. "She's surely
+coming to see you, too."</p>
+
+<p>Both ladies remained silent, watching the progress of Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>Gran'ma Mullins arrived a good deal out of breath. Susan brought a chair
+out of the house for her.</p>
+
+<p>"I come to&mdash;tell you," panted the new visitor as soon as she had
+attained unto the chair, "that Jathrop's&mdash;things is&mdash;coming."</p>
+
+<p>"What things?" asked Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"They all come on&mdash;the ten o'clock&mdash;from the junction; Hiram is helping
+unload."</p>
+
+<p>"What's he brought?" Susan asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's brought an automobile," said Gran'ma Mullins, "and a lot of
+other trunks and boxes."</p>
+
+<p>"An automobile!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy, "well, he <i>is</i> rich then!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Susan, "some very poor folks is
+riding that way nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"And he brought three trunks and seventeen big wooden boxes," continued
+Gran'ma Mullins, "big boxes."</p>
+
+<p>"Three trunks and sev-en-teen&mdash;Three trunks and sev-en&mdash;" Susan's voice
+faded into nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness knows what's in them," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Hiram was
+getting so hot unloading that I wanted him to stop and let me fan him,
+but he wouldn't hear to it. Hiram's so brave. If he said he'd unload
+something, he'd unload it if he dropped dead under it and was smashed to
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause of unlimited bewilderment while Mrs. Macy and Susan
+raised Jathrop upon the pedestal erected by his three trunks, seventeen
+boxes and the automobile.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think of his having a Chinese wife," Susan exclaimed, the keen
+edge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> sorrow cutting crossways through all her words.</p>
+
+<p>It was just here that Mrs. Lupey now appeared, approaching at a good
+pace. Mrs. Lupey was a large, imposing woman and wore a silk dolman with
+fringe. It was immediately necessary for the party to adjourn to the
+sitting-room, as the piazza was strictly limited.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mrs. Lupey who without loss of time did away with the Lathrop
+parentage of the young Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he's his servant, of course," she said in a lofty scorn. "I'm
+surprised you didn't know that by his age."</p>
+
+<p>"I did think of his age," Susan said, "but I read once in some paper as
+the women in China get married when they're four years old, so you'd
+never be able to tell nothing by the age of no one there. Well, well,
+and so she isn't his wife, nor yet his son. Well, I'm glad&mdash;for Mrs.
+Lathrop's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"But if Jathrop's really got a automobile and seventeen trunks, he
+<i>must</i> be awful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> rich," said Mrs. Macy. "It'll be a great thing for this
+town if Jathrop's rich. He'd ought to be very grateful to the place
+where his happy childhood memories run around barefoot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins, "it's easy to remember when
+you've got the money to do it. But I hope to heaven he won't set Hiram
+off on that track again. Hiram does so want to go away and make a
+fortune; I'm worried for fear he will all the time. And Lucy wants him
+to, too. I can't understand a woman as wants a fortune worse than she
+wants Hiram. Lucy doesn't seem to want Hiram 'round at all any more. If
+he's asleep, she starts right in making the bed the same as if he wasn't
+in it, and if she's sewing, he don't dare go within the length of her
+thread.</p>
+
+<p>"Life has come to a pretty pass when a wife'll run a needle into a
+husband just for the simple pleasure of feeling him go away when she
+sticks him." Gran'ma Mullins sighed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what they're doing now!" Mrs. Macy said.</p>
+
+<p>All four turned at this and looked toward the Lathrop house together. It
+was quiet as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know as it changes my opinion of Jathrop much, that being his
+servant," said Miss Clegg suddenly. "It's kind of different, his handing
+his wife or his son over to me; but his heathen Chinee servant! I don't
+know as I'm very pleased."</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased!" said Mrs. Lupey. "Why, in San Francisco they make 'em live
+underground like rats."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe that was why you dreamed he was a cat, Susan?" suggested Mrs.
+Macy, whose brain seemed to grasp at the subject under consideration
+with special illumination.</p>
+
+<p>Susan rose. "I think you'd better go," she said abruptly, "I've got to
+get dinner. My mind's in no state to deal with all these sides of
+Jathrop and his Chinaman just now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What the day brought up the street and in and around Mrs. Lathrop's
+house would take too long to catalogue. Suffice it to say that poor Mrs.
+Lathrop, who had been for long years the veriest zero in the life of the
+community, became suddenly its center and apex.</p>
+
+<p>When Jathrop went to New York at the end of the week, he left his mother
+not only sitting, but rocking in the lap of luxury, with her head
+leaning back against more luxury and her feet braced firmly on yet more
+luxury. Even her friend over the way was rendered utterly content.</p>
+
+<p>And the pleasantest part of it all was the way that it affected Susan
+Clegg. As Susan sat by Mrs. Lathrop and turned upon her that tender gaze
+which one old friend may turn on another old friend when the latter's
+son has suddenly bloomed forth golden, her full heart found utterance
+thus:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mrs. Lathrop&mdash;well, Mrs. Lathrop, I guess no one will ever doubt
+anything again. Talk about dreams, <i>now</i>! I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> dreamed Jathrop was a cat,
+and the reason was that it's a well-known fact that cats <i>always</i> come
+back. Why, Mrs. Macy told me once how she chloroformed a cat, and put it
+in a flour sack with a stone, and put the sack in a hogshead of water,
+and put the cover on the hogshead, and put a stone&mdash;another stone&mdash;on
+that, and went to church to hear the minister preach on 'Do unto others
+as you do unto others,' and when she came back, the cat was asleep on
+top of the hogshead, and Mrs. Macy got the worst shock she ever got. So
+you can easy see why I dreamed Jathrop was a cat; and he <i>did</i> come
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare that'll always be the pleasantest recollection of my life,
+how I met him at the station and how we came chatting up the street
+together. How he has improved, Mrs. Lathrop&mdash;not but what he was always
+handsome! There was always something noble about Jathrop. Gran'ma
+Mullins said yesterday as he made her think of a man she saw in a play
+once as stood on his crossed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> legs in front of a fire and smoked. So
+careless.</p>
+
+<p>"And then his bringing Mrs. Macy that polar-bear skin! Mrs. Macy says if
+there was one spot in the whole wide world where she never expected to
+set foot it was on top of a polar bear, and now she can stand on her
+head on one if the fancy takes her. I saw the minister when I was down
+in the square to-night, and he told me not to speak of it, but he
+thought a service of prayer for any stocks and mines as Jathrop has
+would be the only fitting form of gratitude which a reverent and
+affectionate congregation might offer to the great and glorious
+generosity of him who is going to give us a steeple after all these
+years of finishing flat at the top. Mr. Kimball came out to tell me to
+ask you if you'd like some one to come regularly for your order, and he
+says he'll keep caviare from now on, just on the chance of Jathrop's
+being here to eat it; he says why he didn't keep it before was he
+thought it was a kind of chamois skin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's beautiful to see the faces down-town, Mrs. Lathrop; you never saw
+nothing like it. Everybody's just so happy. Hiram is grinning from ear
+to ear over being took to the Klondike, and everybody is swore to not
+let Gran'ma Mullins know he's going. He's going to climb out of the
+window at night and get away that way, and Gran'ma Mullins won't mind
+what she feels when he really does come back a millionaire, too. She'll
+be just like you, Mrs. Lathrop; no one minds anything once it's over.
+Little misunderstandings are easy forgot.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think there's been a blue automobile puffing at these very
+kitchen steps! To think you and me was over to Meadville and back
+between dinner and supper one day! I guess Mrs. Lupey never got such a
+start. She'd been all the morning getting home on the train and was only
+just putting her bonnet away in its box when we rolled up. I never
+enjoyed nothing like that roll up in all my life! I never see
+automobiles from the automobile's side before, but now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> I can. When a
+automobile goes over a duck it makes all the difference in the world
+whether it's your automobile or your duck.</p>
+
+<p>"And then Jathrop's generosity! Not but what he was always generous.
+Deacon White says he will say that for Jathrop, he was always generous.
+And look what he brought home. Every child in town is just about out of
+their senses. Felicia Hemans is crazy about the earrings, and 'Liza
+Em'ly won't never take off the bracelet. Mr. Shores can't keep the tears
+back when he looks at his watch charm. I think it was so kind of
+Jathrop. But Jathrop was always kind; you know yourself that a kinder
+creature never lived than Jathrop. I always said that for him.</p>
+
+<p>"And then his having a new fence built around the cemetery. It was
+thoughtful, and Judge Fitch says nobody can't say more. But Judge Fitch
+says Jathrop was always thoughtful; he says he's been interested in him
+always just for that very reason.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Judge Fitch says Jathrop's nature was
+always that deep kind that's easy overlooked. He says he'll have to
+confess to his shame that some of the time he overlooked him himself. He
+says it's very difficult to understand a deep nature, because if a deep
+nature don't make money, there's hardly any way of ever knowing that it
+really was deep; people just think you're a fool then&mdash;like we always
+thought Jathrop was. You know, nobody ever thought he ever could amount
+to nothing. You know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop. But making money lets
+you see just what a person's got in 'em and see it plain.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure for all I've loved Jathrop as if he was going to be my own,
+for years and years and years, still I never credited him with being the
+man he is. I supposed he was a tramp somewhere&mdash;yes, I really did, Mrs.
+Lathrop, you may believe me or not, but that's just what I thought when
+I thought anything at all about him&mdash;which wasn't often.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Everybody in the whole place is busy remembering pleasant things about
+him now. The minister's wife remembers his coming to a Christmas tree
+once a long time ago when they both was little; she says she hasn't
+thought of it in thirty years, but she remembers it as plain as day
+now,&mdash;he had on a coat and a little tie.</p>
+
+<p>"And Gran'ma Mullins says she never will forget the day before he was
+born, for she went to town and dropped her little bead bag, and you know
+how much she thinks of her little bead bag now when the beads is all
+worn off, so you can think what store she set by it when the beads were
+still on, and so she was all back and forth along the road hunting for
+it the whole blessed afternoon, and when she found it and went home, she
+<i>was</i> tired, and she slept late next morning because her husband was out
+very late the night before, and when he slept late she always slept
+late, 'cause she said sleeping late was almost the only treat he ever
+give her, and, anyhow, when they did wake up and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> get up and get out,
+there was Jathrop, and she says she shall never forget her joy over
+having found the bead bag again.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Macy says she remembers the day he hid, and you thought he was in
+the cistern, and you was kneeling down looking in when he jumped out
+from behind the stove and give you such a start you went in head first.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember that day myself, too&mdash;father was insisting he was paralyzed
+then, and mother and me wouldn't take his word for it, and we fully
+expected he'd race over and help haul you out, but all he said was,
+'She'll have to manage the best she can&mdash;I'm paralyzed,' and we really
+began to believe him from then on.</p>
+
+<p>"The minister says he shall always remember how well he looked when he
+put on long trousers; the minister's preparing a little paper on Jathrop
+to read at the Sunday-school annual, and he says he shall begin with the
+day he put on long trousers and then mark his rise step by step. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+minister's so pleased over Jathrop's patting Brunhilde Susan on the
+head; he says there are pats and pats, but that pat that Jathrop give
+Brunhilde Susan was what he calls, in pure and Biblical simplicity, <i>a</i>
+pat."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused. Mrs. Lathrop just felt her diamond solitaires, glanced at
+the new kitchen range, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, Mrs. Lathrop, that dear blessed little Chinese angel&mdash;I tell
+you I shall never forget that boy. I liked his face when I first laid
+eyes on him, and when I thought he was Jathrop's lawful wife, I loved
+him as I'd loved even a Chinaman if he was your daughter; but when I saw
+him cleaning up my sink, polishing my pans, washing out my cupboards and
+all that, just the same as yours, <i>then</i> was when I see that a heathen
+Chinee has just the same right to go to heaven that anybody else has,
+and from then on I just trusted him completely and let him do every bit
+of the work till he left.</p>
+
+<p>"I see now why everybody's so happy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> being a missionary if you can just
+get away and live with the Chinee. I'd have kept that boy if Jathrop
+hadn't wanted him&mdash;I'd have been very glad to; and it's awful to think
+we're keeping quiet, lovable natures like his from settling here. A girl
+might do much worse than marry that Chinese&mdash;<i>very</i> much worse. A very
+great deal worse. Though I suppose many would hesitate."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop rose, went to the cupboard, took out a bottle of homemade
+gooseberry wine, poured out a little, and took a sip. She did not offer
+any to Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll do you good," said Susan encouragingly. "I don't like the taste
+myself, but it'll do you good. Besides, Mrs. Lathrop, you must begin to
+get used to it. When you go around with Jathrop in his private car,
+you'll have to drink wine, and if I was you, I'd stop tying a stocking
+around your neck nights, for you'll have to wear a very different cut of
+gowns soon. If Jathrop buys that yacht he's gone to look at, you'll have
+to wear a sailor blouse."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop faintly, "oh, Susan, I&mdash;" Miss Clegg put her
+hastily back into her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind if it does make your head go 'round a little, Mrs. Lathrop;
+you must learn how. It may be hard, but it'll make Jathrop happy, and
+now he's come back rich, that's what everybody wants to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Brown says next time he comes she's going to make him a jet-black
+pound-cake, and Mrs. Allen says she's going to work him a pincushion.
+She says it'll be a plain, simple token of affection, but those whom
+Fortune smiles on soon learn to know the true worth of a simple gift of
+purest love. She says no one has ever known how she loved Jathrop,
+'cause she kept it to herself for fear you'd think she was after him for
+Polly."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop rocked dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>Susan rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't&mdash;" said Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I must," said Susan. "Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, think of his giving me those
+fifty shares<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> of stock just on account of my long-suffering friendship
+for you. I declare he's a great character&mdash;that's all I can say.</p>
+
+<p>"I always had a feeling he'd end in some unusual way; when they started
+to lynch him, I thought that was the way, but now I see that this was
+the way, and I thank heaven that I wasn't right the other time and am
+right this time. For human nature is human nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+people are always kinder to a woman whose son comes home from the
+Klondike a millionaire than they are if they had the bother of lynching
+him, no matter how much he may have deserved it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop continued to finger her solitaire earrings in happy
+silence. Miss Clegg, who never exhibited any tenderness toward anything,
+went over and arranged the fold-over of her friend's gold-embroidered,
+silk-quilted kimono.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be glad when your new hair gets here, Mrs. Lathrop," she said
+tenderly, "it'll make a different woman of you. It's astonishing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> what a
+little extra hair can do; I always feel that when I put on my wave.</p>
+
+<p>"You and me will have to be getting used to all kinds of new things now.
+And that beautiful dream of mine letting us know he was coming. Mrs.
+Brown says Amelia says the Egyptians worshipped cats and used to pickle
+them when they died.</p>
+
+<p>"It's astonishing how, if you know enough, you can see how any dream is
+full of meaning. There's Jathrop so fond of pickles, and you and me
+worshipping him. And he writing in every letter he has time to get
+somebody to write for him, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop lapsed into beatific slumber. Susan Clegg went quietly
+home.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was not in reason to suppose that the return of Jathrop Lathrop
+should continue to occupy wholly the attention of the community. Each
+week&mdash;even each day&mdash;brought its fresh interests. Not the least exciting
+of the provocative elements was borne back from the metropolis to which
+'Liza Em'ly, that hitherto negatively regarded olive branch of the
+ministerial family, had but recently emigrated. 'Liza Em'ly, it was
+whispered one day, had written a book.</p>
+
+<p>The Sewing Society, at its next meeting, discussed it, as a matter of
+course; and Susan Clegg, equally as a matter of course, promptly
+reported the proceedings to her friend and neighbor, Mrs. Lathrop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," she began, sitting down with the heavy thump of one who is
+completely and utterly overcome, "I give up. It's beyond me. I was to
+the Sewing Society, and it's beyond them all, too. The idea of 'Liza
+Em'ly's writing a book! No one can see how she ever come to think as she
+could write a book. No one can see where she got any ideas to put in a
+book. I don't know what any one thought she <i>would</i> do when she set out
+for the city to earn her own living, but there wasn't a soul in town as
+expected her to do it, let alone writing a book, too. I can't see
+whatever gives any one the idea of earning their living by writing
+books. Books always seem so sort of unnecessary to me, anyway&mdash;I ain't
+read one myself in years. No one in this community ever does read, and
+that's what makes everybody so surprised over 'Liza Em'ly, after living
+among us so long and so steady, starting up all of a sudden and doing
+anything like this. And what makes it all the more surprising is she
+never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> said a word about it either&mdash;never wrote home to the family or
+told a living soul. And so you can maybe imagine the shock to the
+minister when he got word as his own flesh and blood daughter had not
+only written a book but got it all printed without consulting him. His
+wife says he was completely done up and could hardly speak for quite a
+little while, and later when the newspaper clippings begin to come, he
+had to go to bed and have a salt-water cloth over his eyes. I tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the minister is a very sensitive nature; it's no light
+thing to a sensitive nature to get a shock like a daughter's writing a
+book."</p>
+
+<p>"Is&mdash;" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should say that it was," said Miss Clegg. "I should say that it
+was. And not only is it being advertised, but people are buying it just
+like mad, the papers say. The minister is still more upset over that;
+seems the responsibilities of even being connected with books nowadays
+is no light thing. There was that man as was shot for what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> he wrote in
+a book the other day, you know, and the minister's wife says as the
+minister is most nervous over what may be in the book; she says he says
+very few books as everybody is reading ought to be read, and he knows
+what he's talking about, for he's a great reader himself. Why, his wife
+says he's got books hid all over the house, and she says&mdash;speaking
+confidentially&mdash;as he says most of 'em he's really very sorry he's
+read&mdash;after he's finished 'em. She says&mdash;he says he'll know no peace
+night or day now until he's read 'Liza Em'ly's book. I guess it's no
+wonder that he's nervous. 'Liza Em'ly's been a handful for years, and
+since she fell in love with Elijah, there's been just no managing her a
+<i>tall</i>. If Elijah'd loved her, of course it would have been different,
+but Elijah wasn't a energetic nature, and 'Liza Em'ly was, and when a
+energetic nature loves a man like Elijah, there's just no knowing where
+they will end up. I never see why Elijah didn't love 'Liza Em'ly, but
+her grandmother's nose has always been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> against her, and he told me
+himself as it was all he could think of when he sat quietly down to
+think about her. But all that's neither here nor there, for it's a far
+cry from a girl's nose to her brains nowadays, thank heavens, and 'Liza
+Em'ly's got something to balance her now. Polly White has sent for one
+of the books. She says she'll lend it around, no matter what's in it.
+Polly says there's one good thing in getting married, and that is it
+makes you a married woman, and being a married woman lets you read all
+kinds of books. I guess Polly's been a great reader since she was
+married. She's meant to get some good out of that situation, and she's
+done it. The deacon isn't so badly off, either. I wouldn't say that he's
+glad he's married all the time, but I guess some of the time he don't
+mind, and it's about all married people ask if only some of the time
+they can feel to not be sorry. A little let-up is a great relief."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;" said Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Miss Clegg, "but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> pick up a good deal from others,
+and there's a feeling as married women have when they talk to a woman as
+they suppose can't possibly know anything just 'cause she never got into
+any of their troubles, as makes them show forth the truth very plainly.
+I won't say as married women strike me more and more as fools, for it
+wouldn't be kindly, but I will say as the way they revel in being
+married and saying how hard it is, kind of strikes me as amusing. <i>I</i>
+wouldn't go into a store and buy a dress and then, when every one knew
+as I picked it out myself, keep running around telling how it didn't fit
+and was tearing out in all the seams&mdash;but that's about what most of this
+marriage talk comes to. I do wonder what 'Liza Em'ly has said about
+marriage in <i>Deacon Tooker Talks</i>. That's a very funny name for a book,
+I think myself, but that's what she's named it. And as it seems to be
+about most everything, I suppose it must be about marriage, too. Of
+course 'Liza Em'ly's so wild to marry Elijah that everybody knows that
+that was what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> took her up to town. She didn't want to earn her living
+any more than any girl does. Nobody ever really aches to earn their
+living. But some has to, and some wants to be around with men, and there
+ain't no better way to be around with men nowadays than to go to work
+with 'em. You have 'em all day long then, and pretty soon you have 'em
+all the time. 'Liza Em'ly wants to have Elijah all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she says she thinks they're so congenial; she told me herself as
+Elijah 'understood.' It seems to be a great thing to understand
+nowadays. It's another of those things we used to take for granted but
+which is now got new and uncommon and most remarkable. She told me when
+she and Elijah watched the sun setting together, they both understood,
+and she seemed to feel that that was a safe basis on which to set out
+for town and start in to earn her own living. The minister didn't want
+her to go. He was very much against it. It cost such a lot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> too. The
+minister's wife said it would have been ever so much cheaper to fix a
+girl to get married. You can get married with six pairs of new
+stockings, the minister's wife says, and it takes a whole dozen with the
+heels run to earn your living. The minister's wife was very confidential
+with me about it all, and 'Liza Em'ly confided considerably in me, too.
+They both knew I'd never tell. Every one always confides in me because
+they know I never tell. Why, the things folks in this community have
+told me! Well!&mdash;But I <i>never</i> tell. The real reason I never tell is
+because they always tell every one themselves before I can get around,
+but then a confiding nature is always telling its affairs, and so you
+can't really blame 'em. I never tell my own affairs, because I've
+learned as affairs is like love letters, and if they're interesting
+enough, it is very risky. But really, Mrs. Lathrop, I must be going now,
+and as soon as I get hold of that book, I'll be over with my opinion.
+<i>Deacon Tooker Talks!</i> My, but that is a funny<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> name for a book! I can't
+see myself what kind of a book it can possibly be with that title&mdash;but
+anyway, we shall soon know now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," said Susan, and the seance broke up for that day.</p>
+
+<p>It was resumed the day after, and the day after that, but no further
+progress having been made in the development of 'Liza Em'ly's affairs,
+that interesting topic remained in abeyance until after the next meeting
+of the Sewing Society, when the subject was put forward with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"You never hear the beat," said the lady who nearly always went to the
+Sewing Society to the lady who hadn't been there for years; "this book
+of 'Liza Em'ly's seems to be something just beyond belief. Polly read it
+all aloud to us to-day, and I must say it's a <i>most</i> astonishing book. I
+will tell you in confidence, Mrs. Lathrop, as I ain't surprised that the
+minister hid his copy and that the newspapers is all printing things
+about it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Seems it's a man in bed talking to his wife who is asleep
+most of the time, only he don't pay the slightest attention to her not
+paying the slightest attention. Polly had the name right, it is <i>Deacon
+Tooker Talks</i> (which is a <i>most</i> singular name to my order of thinking).
+The cover has got a picture of the deacon's head on a pillow talking,
+and you can think how the minister would feel over his daughter's book's
+cover having a pillow on it! I walked home with Mrs. Fisher, and she
+will have it that 'Liza Em'ly's put her father into the book, soul and
+body. There's a man called Mr. Lexicon as is a lawyer in the book, and
+Mrs. Fisher says it's the minister. I wouldn't swear as it wasn't the
+minister myself, but I hate to believe it, for a girl as'll put her
+father in a book would be equal to most anything, I should suppose. But
+Mrs. Fisher's sure it's the minister; she says she knew him right off by
+his ear-muffs. Only 'Liza Em'ly has disguised the ear-muffs by calling
+them overshoes. Mr. Lexicon has always got on his overshoes. Mrs.
+Fisher<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> waited until we got away from all the rest, and then she showed
+me a review from a New York paper that just took my breath away. It says
+no such book has appeared before a welcoming public in two hundred and
+fifty years, and she's going to write the paper and ask what the book
+two hundred and fifty years ago was about. Mrs. Fisher says she's
+thinking very seriously of writing a book herself. She says she's always
+wanted to write a book, and now she thinks she'll go up to town and see
+'Liza Em'ly and ask her about their writing a book together. She says
+she'll furnish all the story, and 'Liza Em'ly can write the book. Then
+they'll divide the money even. And there'll be money to divide, too, for
+'Liza Em'ly's book is surely selling. Mrs. Macy come up after Mrs.
+Fisher went home, and she had a piece out of another newspaper that Mrs.
+Lupey sent her, saying the book was in its ninth edition already. She
+had it with her at the Sewing Society, but she didn't bring it out, out
+of consideration for the feelings of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> minister's wife. Mrs. Macy
+says she thinks she'll write a book, too. She's got the same idea as
+Mrs. Fisher about writing it with 'Liza Em'ly, only she says she'll let
+'Liza Em'ly use some of her own ideas mixed in with Mrs. Macy's ideas,
+and she can have two thirds of the money. She says it can't be hard to
+write a book, or 'Liza Em'ly couldn't never have done it, but she says
+'Liza Em'ly has got the Fishers in her book, and she's surprised Mrs.
+Fisher didn't recognize 'em at the Sewing Society. 'Liza Em'ly calls 'em
+the Hunters. Fishers, hunters&mdash;you see! An' John Bunyan she calls Martin
+Luther, an' in place of being a genius, she covered that all up by
+making him a painter. Laws, Mrs. Macy says writing a book's easy. She
+says that book of 'Liza Em'ly's is really too flat for words, and what
+makes people buy it, she can't see. Well, I shan't buy a copy, I know
+<i>that</i>. I ain't knowed 'Liza Em'ly all my life to go doing things like
+that now."</p>
+
+<p>With which very common view as to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> works produced by our intimate
+friends, Miss Clegg rose to take her departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Did&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, when they next met.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I asked, but not a soul knew. We haven't got <i>any</i> man in town as
+it could <i>possibly</i> be. They was all discussing it, too. Mrs. Macy and
+Mrs. Fisher is really going to town to see 'Liza Em'ly and take up their
+ideas to talk over. Mrs. Macy is putting her ideas down on a piece of
+paper, so as to be sure she has 'em with her. Mrs. Fisher's keeping hers
+in her head, for she says if she lost them, anybody might write her
+book. They think they'll go Tuesday. I hope they will, 'cause if they
+do, they'll come straight from the train and tell me, and then I'll come
+straight over and tell you."</p>
+
+<p>With which amicable arrangement Miss Clegg again took her departure.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite two weeks before affairs shaped themselves for Mrs. Macy
+and Mrs. Fisher to go to the city on their literary errand, but they
+managed it at last, and you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> may be very sure that Mrs. Lathrop peeked
+eagerly and earnestly out of her window many times the afternoon after
+their journey. They came up to call upon Miss Clegg and narrate their
+adventures quite according to their usual friendly ideals, and directly
+they took their leave that good lady hied herself rapidly to Mrs.
+Lathrop to tell the tale.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop met her at the door and both sank into chairs immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what&mdash;" said the older lady then, and her younger friend rejoined
+promptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly dumfounding; nothing like it was ever knowed before or ever
+will be again."</p>
+
+<p>"Wha&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"They're both completely paralyzed. Mrs. Fisher can't say a word, and
+Mrs. Macy can't keep still."</p>
+
+<p>"Wha&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop again.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg drew a sharp breath. "They went to see 'Liza Em'ly, an' they
+saw her. My goodness heavens, I should think they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> did see her. Mrs.
+Macy says if any one ever supposed as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was
+any wonder, they'd ought to go to the city an' see 'Liza Em'ly, and the
+Hanging Gardens would keep their mouths shut forever after."</p>
+
+<p>"Wha&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Clegg was now quite ready to discharge her full duty. "Seems
+'Liza Em'ly's book went into the twentieth edition yesterday," she said,
+opening her eyes and mouth with great expressiveness. "They knew that
+before they got there, for you can believe Mrs. Macy or not, just as you
+please, Mrs. Lathrop, but there were actually signboards saying so stuck
+up all along in the fields as the train went by. The train-boy had the
+books for sale on the train, too, and kept dropping 'em on top of 'em
+all the way, but they didn't mind that, for Mrs. Fisher read her book as
+fast as she could until he picked it up again, and she read to good
+purpose, for this afternoon she asked for a glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of water, and while I
+was out with her in the kitchen getting it, she told me there isn't a
+mite of doubt but Mrs. Macy is in the book, and Doctor Carter of
+Meadville is in right along with her. Mrs. Fisher says 'Liza Em'ly has
+called her Miss Grace and him Doctor Wagner of Lemonadetown, but she
+says she knew 'em instantly by the description of how they was in love;
+she says you'd recognize how they was in love right off. I must say,
+Mrs. Lathrop, as I think 'Liza Em'ly ought to be very careful what she
+writes about real people if you can tell 'em as quick as that; but
+anyway, they got to town and took a street car, and then, lo and behold,
+if their first little surprise wasn't the finding as 'Liza Em'ly has
+stopped living where she lives and gone to live in a hotel, so they had
+to go to the hotel, too, and when they got there, what do you think?&mdash;If
+'Liza Em'ly wasn't giving a reception to celebrate the twentieth
+edition!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wh&mdash;?" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> "certainly&mdash;yes, I should say so,
+too. If they didn't get a fine shock over 'Liza Em'ly and her hotel and
+her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she'll never know what
+a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a
+elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before
+they'd caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room
+with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in
+the middle, passing cups of tea which a lady, with her muff on her head,
+was pouring out, while 'Liza Em'ly sat on a table swinging her feet in
+shoes she never bought in <i>this</i> town, Mrs. Macy'll take her Bible oath,
+and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that isn't anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs.
+Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two
+perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a
+kind of a party! One man and one girl was under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> the piano playing cat's
+cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a
+hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn't have been surprised at nothing after
+that, you'd think, but she says when it comes to 'Liza Em'ly nowadays,
+you don't know even what you're thinkin', for you'd suppose 'Liza Em'ly
+would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of
+that, she just clapped her hands and said, 'Hello, home-folks,' which
+nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and <i>he</i>
+had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn't look anywhere
+near as used up as in Mrs. Macy's opinion a man away from business with
+his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought
+to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young
+lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully
+powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then
+there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they'd
+both jumped and Mrs. Macy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> come near dislocating her hip, they see that
+a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says <i>such</i>
+piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared
+hereafter; she says he'd skitter up the piano with both hands, and then
+he'd bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the
+very bottom, he'd give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair
+over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose
+hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more
+till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and
+then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and
+folded his arms and was done."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on&mdash;!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody
+clapped like mad, and then 'Liza Em'ly come to earth and went and threw
+her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy's order of thinking, didn't
+look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they
+could shake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a
+lot of telegrams on a tray, and while 'Liza Em'ly was fixing half a
+spectacle in one eye to read 'em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins,
+and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their
+two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin
+about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs.
+Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed 'em to the
+door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all
+three and 'Liza Em'ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till
+somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then
+till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they
+looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak,
+and then they came home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wha&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it's <i>awful</i>! And the worst of it is for
+her to be the minister's daughter. Think of it! They bought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> a paper as
+had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they'd just been
+at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now,
+and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they
+ain't much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they
+see posters of <i>Deacon Tooker Talks</i>, and people in the cars was all
+discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text
+to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds
+with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wha&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Miss Clegg. "The book's made right out of this
+community, and since I've read it myself, I can see who every one is
+<i>except</i> Deacon Tooker. I can't see who Deacon Tooker is, for we haven't
+got anybody like him. He's talking the whole time; in fact, the book is
+all what he says about everything, and all his wife ever does is to wake
+up when he shakes her and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> then go to sleep again. The idea's very
+remarkable of a man laying awake chattering to himself all night long,
+but I never heard of any such person here. Our only deacon is Deacon
+White, and he never talks a <i>tall</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if the min&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't believe so," said Miss Clegg. "My goodness, suppose he did
+and hit something like they did! No, I hope he won't ever think of it,
+and as for 'Liza Em'ly, I hope she'll remember her married father and
+mother soon and remember her quiet and loving home, too, before she gets
+in the habit of having parties like that very often. My gracious, think
+of going to call on a girl as you see christened and having a snake-lady
+gartering her way up your leg while you were trying to say good-by and
+get away alive. Mrs. Macy says the creature was diving here and
+wriggling there and slipping under tables and over chairs in a way as
+made your flesh go creeping right after her. Well, it's clear 'Liza
+Em'ly's started on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> most singular career. Mrs. Macy says first they
+give her a sandwich with a bow of ribbon on it, and she swallowed the
+ribbon; and then they give her a piece out of a cake that they said had
+a lucky quarter in it, and she's almost sure she swallowed the quarter,
+so maybe she was prejudiced."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"They felt the same way," said Miss Clegg; "they've come home very much
+used up. Mrs. Macy says you can talk to her about the days of ancient
+Rome and the way folks act underground in Paris, but she says she knows
+positively as what she and Mrs. Fisher saw with their own eyes in 'Liza
+Em'ly's sitting-room beat all those kind of little circuses hollow. Mrs.
+Macy says she's seen enough of what they call high life now to last her
+till she dies of shame. She says the only bright spot in the whole thing
+is as 'Liza Em'ly's nose isn't anywhere near as prominent as you'd think
+any more, and she's got a automobile and is going to Europe when the
+book goes into its fiftieth edition."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I&mdash;" mused Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I will, too," said Miss Clegg. "I'll go straight home and do
+it. I'm awful tired. And it bothers me more than I like to own not
+knowing who Deacon Tooker is. You know my nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+although I was never one to try to find out things nor to talk about 'em
+after I've managed to find 'em out, still I never was one to like not to
+know things, and I must say I do want to know who Deacon Tooker is.
+Well, they say all things comes to him who waits, so I think I won't
+stop here any longer. Good-by, and when I do find out, you can count on
+my coming right over to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Goo&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Clegg had shut the door after her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was nothing small or mean or economical about Jathrop Lathrop, now
+that he had turned out rich. He was the soul of generosity, the epitome
+of liberality, the concentrated essence of filial devotion as expressed
+in checks and carte-blanche orders directed at his mother.</p>
+
+<p>One of his earliest kind thoughts was to have Mrs. Lathrop's home
+completely modernized, and as Susan Clegg lived next door and was his
+mother's best and dearest friend, he decided to build her house over,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>To that end he hunted up the highest-priced architect of whom he could
+hear and asked to have designs submitted forthwith. The highest-priced
+architect readily undertook the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> reconstruction of the Lathrop and Clegg
+domiciles, but being too occupied to go down into the country and look
+over the field personally, he delegated one of his youngest and most
+promising assistants to accomplish the task, and the young and promising
+assistant forthwith packed his dress-suit case and set off.</p>
+
+<p>He was an assistant of most extraordinary youth and almost unbelievable
+promise, and he saw a chance to plan colleges (endowed by J. Lathrop,
+Esq.), palaces (to be built for Lathrop, the millionaire), possibly to
+be commissioned with the overseeing of the artistic development of some
+new, up-springing city (Lathropville, Alaska, or something of that
+sort), if he should only succeed in at once accomplishing a close union
+of feeling with the golden offspring of our old friend. His first really
+rich client is to a young débutant in bricks just what a well-hung
+picture is to the budding artist, or a song before royalty is to a
+singer. Such being the well-known facts of life the young and promising
+assistant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> fully intended to do himself proud in the reconstruction of
+the two houses consigned by Jathrop's benevolence to his tender mercies.</p>
+
+<p>The young architect came to town and went to the hotel (at Jathrop's
+expense). He spent the next ten days in going twice each day to study
+his task, sketch its realities and idealities, and also make the
+acquaintance of Mrs. Lathrop and Susan Clegg, for he was a young man of
+new and novel ideas, and one of his newest and most novel ideas was to
+build a house which would really suit those who were to live in it. He
+was so young that he had no conception as to how this was to be done,
+nor the faintest inkling as to what a Titanic-crossed-with-Promethean
+undertaking it would be to do, if even he did know how; but he felt&mdash;and
+most truly&mdash;that it was a new view of the relation between house and
+builder, and he felt proud over having thought it out for himself as
+well as for all time to come. Then he had another novel idea&mdash;not so
+altogether his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> own, however&mdash;which was that a house should "express its
+dweller." This latter idea was quite beyond the grasp of his present
+audience and just a little beyond his own grasp, too, but he was brave
+and conscientious and didn't see it that way at all.</p>
+
+<p>It has taken some time to lay out all these premises, but if there is
+any one with whom one can desire close acquaintance it is surely the man
+who comes to build over a comfortable and in-most-ways-satisfactory home
+of long years' standing, so I trust that the minutes have not been
+altogether wasted.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Clegg received the young man and his mission in
+such states of mind as were entirely compatible with their individual
+outlook over life.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say I'm far from altogether liking him," Susan said to her
+friend, a very real note of disapproval in her voice, one day toward the
+end of the week. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking in her new old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker and listened as usual with interest. "He's on the
+woodpile now, drawing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> a three-quarter profile of the woodshed. The way
+he perches anywhere and then goes to work and draws anything would
+surely make an English snail pull his castle right into his house along
+with him, for I've got a feeling as there's nothing about me as he
+hasn't got in his book by this time, and there's many things he's drawn
+as I never would choose to have the world in general looking over. I'm
+sure I don't want no view of my woodshed going down to posterity for one
+thing. I've had to have a woodshed, but I've never admired it, and the
+way I've nailed anything handy over holes in it is far from my usual way
+of mending. You've always mended 'hit or miss,' Mrs. Lathrop, and after
+years of such doings as was more worthy a poorhouse than a Christian,
+heaven has seen fit to reward your patching with a son fresh from the
+Klondike, but I've always darned blue with blue and brown with brown,
+and the only spot in my whole life that I haven't carefully and neatly
+matched the stripes in is my woodshed, and now to-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> when I was
+thinking very seriously of using it up for the kitchen-stove next
+winter, if there isn't a young man from New York out drawing it in black
+and white, and ten to one he'll print it in some unexpected Sunday paper
+marked 'Jathrop Lathrop's mother's friend Susan Clegg's woodshed!'
+That'll be a pretty kettle of fish, and you needn't tell me that there
+won't be somebody to perk up and say, 'No smoke without some fire,'
+which will be as good as throwing it in my teeth that I'm one of those
+as use a safety pin when a button's off, when it's a thing as I've never
+done and never would do even if there is a proverb that a pin's a pin
+for all that."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused here and looked upon her friend in serious question. Mrs.
+Lathrop, however, merely continued to rock pleasantly. A change had come
+over the spirit of her rocking since the return of Jathrop. She had
+rocked for years with a more or less apologetic air, as if she knew that
+there were those who might criticize her action and yet she couldn't
+personally feel that she really<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> ought to give it up. But now she rocked
+with a wide, free swing as if life was life and if she liked to rock,
+she was going to rock, and if there were those who objected, they could
+object&mdash;she didn't care. There is nothing that so quickly develops an
+independent standpoint as the possession of money; there is nothing that
+so fully produces a conviction that one is thoroughly justified in doing
+just exactly what one pleases; there is nothing that leads to quite the
+same lofty indifference as to whether what pleases one pleases or
+displeases all the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>We have but to look at Jathrop to see that this is true. Of all the
+tame, mild-eyed, listless young individuals, Jathrop was the worst,
+falling asleep on an average of three times an afternoon in school, and
+never keeping conscious a whole evening. Whether a sudden change in
+Jathrop's character was the cause of making him a financial power or
+whether his Klondike-acquired bank account was the cause of his
+awakening, it still is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> fact that now in his quiet way he was a very
+live person.</p>
+
+<p>Jathrop was indifferent to a degree, also, as witness his appearance
+with his Chinese boy whom everybody took to be his wife with his great
+baggy trousers and pigtail that no respectable boy, Chinese or
+otherwise, should wear. Of course, it must be acceded that Jathrop was
+indifferent in that case from ignorance. He did not know what the world
+was saying.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps that accounts for the lofty attitude, one might say lofty
+altitude, of so many of our millionaires. They are so far removed from
+the world that their ears cannot hear what is being said. People talk in
+whispers about the "very rich," which makes it doubly hard for them to
+hear, or hearing, to think that it matters very much, else people would
+shout. However, when all is said, money does make a difference.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop had been a silent, sat-upon, unaggressively-rocking person
+for years; now Jathrop had come back from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> Klondike and altered all
+that; it was not that she had turned talkative, it was not that she had
+so far altered the very foundations of her being as to presume ever to
+try to contradict any other body's opinions, but the return of Jathrop
+and the wealth of Jathrop had found expression in his mother through the
+one medium of almost all expression with her. Mrs. Lathrop had ceased to
+concern herself as to the length or the vigor of her rocking. It was
+beautiful to see the energy of independence with which she went back and
+forth, bringing her feet down with an audible clap whenever she desired
+fresh impetus.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Clegg did not seem to sympathize. Instead, sitting on her straight
+chair opposite, she shook her head severely, further discontent making
+itself visible in the manner of her shake.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Lathrop was proof against all manifestations of disapproval
+now. She flew back and forth in the old-gold-plush stationary rocker
+like the happy pendulum of some beatific clock. Jathrop was home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+Jathrop was rich. Jathrop would buy her anything she wanted.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop," Susan went on, the discontent
+ringing somewhat more distinctly in her tone, "as I'm much taken with
+this idea of building us over, even if Jathrop does mean it kindly. I
+know there's a many as would nigh to go out of their senses at the very
+idea of being made over new for nothing, but I was never one to go out
+of my senses easy, and that young man on the woodpile doesn't give me
+any kind of secure feeling as to what he'll make out of my house. He
+looks to me like the kind of young man as will open doors square across
+windows where the knob'll smash the glass sure if you're trying to carry
+a bureau out at the time of the house-cleaning. The kind of cravats he's
+got looks to me like his chimneys would be very likely not to draw, and
+their color gives me a feeling that doughnuts in his house will smell in
+shut-up closets a week after the frying. You know what shut-up fryings
+is like after they've had no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> fresh air for a week, but I wasn't raised
+that way. When I have fish I have fish and done with it, and when I have
+onions I have onions, and I ain't very wild over maybe boarding my fish
+and my onions in my best bonnet henceforth and forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Brown was telling me yesterday as she heard of some city woman as
+had a system of ventilation put into her house, and the rats and mice
+used it so freely that you couldn't sleep nights. They nested in it, and
+they fought in it, and they died in it, all as happy and gay as you
+please, and the family had to have it picked out of the walls in the end
+and all new paper put on. That's the kind of ideas young men call modern
+improvements, and that young man on the woodpile is about as modern and
+improving as they make 'em, I take it.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say what it is about that young man that I don't like, but,
+being as I'm always frank and open with you, I will remark that so far I
+ain't found one thing about him as I <i>do</i> like. He's been down cellar
+hammering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> on the wall wherever the wind blew him to listeth to hammer,
+and I had to sit up-stairs and listen without no chance to blow myself.
+I caught him down on all fours this morning peeking under my front
+porch, and he didn't even have the manners to blush. As to the way he
+makes free with the outside of <i>your</i> house, I wouldn't waste breath
+with trying to tell you, but my own feeling is that an architect learns
+his trade on a tight-rope to judge from that young man's manner, and
+from what I've seen while he was swinging by one arm from your premises,
+I wouldn't feel safe to take a bath even on top of a chimney, myself."</p>
+
+<p>Susan rose at this and went to the window and looked out; from her
+expression as she turned, it was plain to be seen that the artist was
+still at his task.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Mrs. Lathrop," she said, coming back to her seat, "I d'n
+know, I'm sure, as I'm took with this idea a <i>tall</i>. I never was one for
+favors either given or asked, and although I know this isn't no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> favor,
+but just a evidence of what I've been through with you first and last,
+still it's done in spite of me and I've got no feeling that I'm going to
+enjoy it. There's something about kindness as is always most trying to
+the people who've got no choice but to stand up and be tried. People who
+get freely given to is in the habit of getting what they don't want and
+can't use, but I ain't. I'm very far from it. There's nothing in me
+that's going to be pleased with getting a green hat when I needed a pink
+coat&mdash;no, sir.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't need nothing. Or if I do, I can buy it. I know Jathrop
+means it kindly, but Jathrop can't enter into my ways of thinking.
+Jathrop is looking into life from the Klondike gold-fields and I'm
+looking at it from my back stoop. That young man was out swishing his
+pocket handkerchief about and sucking his thumb and holding it up all
+yesterday afternoon, and about the time I'd made up my mind to bolt him
+out of the kitchen for a lunatic, he come in and told me he really
+thought there was wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> enough in your back yard and my back yard
+together to run a windmill, in which case a water system could be easy
+inaugurated. I told him I didn't know you could inaugurate anything but
+a president, but he said anything as you hadn't had before and thought
+was going to work fine and be a great improvement could be inaugurated.
+I told him I supposed I could stand a windmill if you could.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think&mdash;what <i>do</i> you think, Mrs. Lathrop, if that young man
+didn't ask if he might go and look up the parlor fireplace! Well, I told
+him he could, and I give him a newspaper to shake his head on after he
+was done looking, too. He's been in my garret until I bet he knows every
+trunk label by heart, and I must say I feel as if I'd have very little
+of my own affairs to tell on Judgment Day if he gets dressed and out of
+his grave quicker than I get dressed and out of mine. But that isn't
+all, whatever you may think. There's a many other things about him as I
+don't like and don't like a <i>tall</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, he's got a way of looking around as if it was my house
+that was the main thing and I was the last and smallest piece of
+cross-paper tied in the kite's tail. To my order of thinking, that's a
+far from polite way for a young man as Jathrop's hiring and boarding to
+look on a woman whose house he may thank his lucky stars if he may get
+the chance to build over. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says architects is
+all like that, but I'm far from seeing why. I don't consider that young
+man superior a <i>tall</i>. I consider his brains as very far from being
+equal to my own. When he asks me to hold the other end of his tape-line
+and does it just as if a pin would do as well, only I was handier at the
+moment, I'm very far from feeling flattered. I never saw just such a
+young man before, and when I think of being delivered up to him&mdash;house
+and all&mdash;for the summer, I'm also very far from feeling easy. I d'n
+know, I'm sure, what will be the end of this, but I do know that it
+looks to me like a pretty bad business."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Susan paused again and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop just
+rocked onward. Life had widened so tremendously for her that she
+couldn't possibly be perturbed in any way or by anything. If the roof
+fell in, Jathrop would buy her another, and if she were smashed by it,
+Jathrop would have her put together again. Why worry?</p>
+
+<p>The young man remained ten days in all, and when his visit of
+investigation was completed, he returned to New York. Jathrop took him
+to the Lotus Club to wash and to the Yacht Club to lunch and to
+Claremont in the afternoon (in his motor), and they talked it all over.
+The young man had his sketches, ideas, ideals, and plans all tied into a
+neat patent cover with cost-estimates lightly glued in the back. Jathrop
+was deeply interested, and the young man expounded the inmost soul of
+all his measurements and proposed altitudes and alterations. The young
+man reminded Jathrop of his pertinent hypothesis that a house should
+express its owner. Jathrop's own view of "express"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> was that if you
+could pay the bill, it beat freighting all out of sight, but he felt
+that perhaps the young man meant something different, so he merely gave
+him a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>The young man took the cigar and proceeded to elucidate his hypothesis
+by explaining that, having carefully studied both Mrs. Lathrop and Miss
+Clegg, he should suggest that Miss Clegg's house express her by being
+severely Doric and that Mrs. Lathrop's should be rambling and Queen Anne
+with wide, free floor spaces. He further suggested a hyena-headed
+door-knocker for Miss Clegg and an electric button to press, so that the
+door opened of itself for Mrs. Lathrop. Also a roofless pergola to
+connect the two houses. Jathrop liked all his ideas and sketches very
+much, but as he was really good-hearted and had not the least desire to
+present green hats to those who wanted pink coats, he had the whole book
+sent down to his mother and begged her to carefully inspect it in
+company with Susan Clegg. They inspected it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Susan, "all I can say is I'll have to carry this book home
+and sit down and try and make out what he <i>does</i> mean. He's done it very
+neat, that I will say, but between crosses and dotted lines and your
+house behind mine like two Roman emperors on a cameo pin, I can't make
+head or tail of what's going to be done to either of us. I can't even
+find my own house in this plan on some pages, and as for this bird-cage
+walk that I'm supposed to run back and forth in like a polar bear in a
+circus all day long, my own opinion is that if it's got no roof, it's
+going to be very hard indeed about the snow in winter, for I'll have to
+carry every single solitary shovelful to one end or the other so as to
+throw it out of either your kitchen window or mine. That's all the good
+that will do us."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop swung to and fro, totally unconcerned. No sort of
+proposition could disconcert her now. If the house when built over
+proved a failure, Jathrop would build her another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Susan took the prettily-bound portfolio home with her and spent the
+evening over it. She studied it profoundly and to some purpose, for the
+next morning when she brought it back to Mrs. Lathrop, it held but few
+secrets, other than those of a purely technical character, for her.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been all through it," she said to her friend, "and now I can't
+really tell what I think a <i>tall</i>. But this I <i>do</i> know, if we ever
+really get these houses, I will be running back and forth from dawn to
+dark through that wire tunnel in a way as'll make the liveliest polar
+bear that ever kept taking a fresh turn look like a petrified tree
+beside me. Why, only to keep the conveniences he's got put in scoured
+bright would take me all of every morning in my house, to say nothing of
+wiping up the floors, for Jathrop isn't intending to buy us no carpets
+ever. We're to sit around on cherry when we ain't on Georgia pine, and
+he's got every mantelpiece marked with the kind of wood we're to burn in
+it, and he's been kind enough to tell us what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> colored china we're to
+use in each bedroom. We're to shoot our clothes into the cellar through
+a hole from up-stairs and wash 'em there in those two square boxes as we
+couldn't make out. That thing I read 'angle-hook' is a 'inglenook,' and
+so far from sitting in it to fish we're to set in it to look at the
+fire, if we can get any mahogany to burn in that particular fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"Those fans are stairs, we're to go up 'em the way the arrow points, and
+heaven knows where or how we're to get down again. What we thought was
+beds is closets, and what we thought was closets is beds, and it's
+evident with all his hopping and hanging he didn't really charge his
+mind with us a <i>tall</i>, for he's got a bedroom in your house marked 'Mr.
+Lathrop,' when the last bit of real thought would have made him just
+<i>have</i> to remember as you're a widow. He's give me a sewing-room when he
+must have seen that I always do my mending in the kitchen, and he's give
+us each enough places to wash to keep the whole community clean. I must
+say he's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> tried to be fair, for he's give both houses the same number of
+rooms and the same names to each room. We've each got a summer kitchen,
+but he left the spring and autumn to scratch along anyhow; we've each
+got a bathtub, and we've each got a china-closet as well as a pantry,
+which shows he had very little observation of the way <i>you</i> keep things
+in order."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop absorbed all this with the happy calm of a contented (and
+rocking) sponge.</p>
+
+<p>"But what takes me is the way he's not only got a finger, but has just
+smashed both hands, into every pie on the place," Susan continued. "He's
+moved the chicken-house and give us each a horse and give the cow a calf
+without even so much as 'by your leave.' I don't know which will be the
+most surprised if this plan comes true&mdash;me with my horse, or the cow
+finding herself with a calf in the fall as well as the spring this year.
+Then it beats me where he's going to get all his trees, for both houses
+is a blooming bower, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> the way tree-toads will sing me to sleep shows
+he's had no close friends in the country. Trees brushing your window
+mean mosquitos at night and spiders whenever they feel so disposed. And
+that ain't all, whatever you may think, for you haven't got a
+window-pane over four inches square and, as every window has fifty-six
+of them, I see your windows going dirty till out of very shame I get 'em
+washed for your funeral. And that ain't all, whatever you may think,
+either, for the snow is going to lodge all around all those little
+gables and inglenooks he's trimmed your roof with, and you'll leak
+before six months goes by, or I'll lose my guess."</p>
+
+<p>But it was impossible to impress Mrs. Lathrop. If things leaked, Jathrop
+would have them mended. She just rocked and rocked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to write Jathrop about these plans," Susan Clegg said
+slowly. "Of course, I've got to write him something, and I declare I
+don't know what to say. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> means it kindly, and there's nothing in the
+wide world that makes things so hard as when people mean kindly. You can
+do all sorts of things when people is enemies, but when any one means
+anything kindly, you've got to eat it if it kills you. Mrs. Allen was
+telling me the other day that since she's took a vow to do one good
+action daily, she's lost most all of her friends.</p>
+
+<p>"That just shows how people feel about being grabbed by the neck and
+held under till you feel you've done enough good to 'em. Jathrop means
+this well, but I've got a feeling as we'll go through a great deal of
+misery being built over, and I really don't think we'll be so much
+better off after we've survived. You'll have to be torn right down, and
+the day that that young man was up on my porch post, he said he couldn't
+be positive that I'd keep even my north wall. He pounded it all over in
+the dining-room until the paper was a sight, and then when he saw how
+very far from pleased I was, he tried to get out of it by saying the
+wall would have to come down,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> anyhow. I think he saw toward the last
+that he'd gone too far in a many little ways. I didn't like his taking
+the hens off their nests to measure how wide the henhouse was. I
+consider a hen is one woman when she's seated at work and had ought not
+to be called off by any man alive. But, laws, that young man wasn't any
+respecter of work or hens or anything else! He called himself an artist,
+and since I've been studying these plans, I've begun to think as he was
+really telling the truth, for artists is all crazy, and anything crazier
+than these plans I never did see. Not content with having us wash in the
+sink and the cellar, we're to wash under the front stairs, too, not to
+speak of all but swimming up-stairs."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop just smiled and rocked more.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not in favor of it," said Miss Clegg, rising to go. "I don't
+believe it'll be any real advantage. We'll be like the Indians that die
+as soon as you civilize 'em&mdash;that's what we'll be. The windmill will
+keep us awake nights, and you don't use any water to speak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> of, anyhow.
+So I don't see why I should be kept awake. As for that laughing tiger
+he's give me on my front door, I just won't have it, and that's all
+there is about it. A laughing tiger's no kind of a welcome to people you
+want, and when people come that I don't want, I don't need no tiger to
+let 'em know it. No, I never took to that young man, and I don't take to
+his plans. I don't like those four pillars across my front any more than
+I do that mouse-hole without a roof that he's give me to go to you in. I
+consider it a very poor compliment to you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he's fixed
+it so if I once start to go to see you, I've got to keep on, for I can't
+possibly get out so to go nowhere else."</p>
+
+<p>Susan Clegg paused. Mrs. Lathrop rocked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Miss Clegg, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Lathrop just rocked. If Susan didn't like it, she needn't like
+it. Jathrop would pay the bill.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Clegg went home, her mind still unconvinced.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Many things against which we protest bitterly at first we eventually
+come to accept and possibly even to enjoy. It was that way, to a degree
+at least, with the reconstruction of the houses of Susan Clegg and her
+friend Mrs. Lathrop, neither lady being particularly charmed with the
+idea when it was originally presented, and Miss Clegg being even frankly
+displeased with the plans that were sent down for approval. But the
+plans were accepted, nevertheless, after some alterations, and by easy
+stages Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop arrived at that degree of philosophy
+which enabled them to face with commendable composure the fact that they
+must vacate their dwellings for an indefinitely extended period.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was not that Miss Clegg had ceased to entertain doubts as to the
+advisability of "being renovated," nor was it that Mrs. Lathrop looked
+forward gladly to a temporary transplanting of herself and her rocker.
+But Jathrop's glory as a millionaire was now so strongly to the fore in
+their minds that both bowed, more or less resignedly, to his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say I d'n know how this thing is going to work out in the end,"
+Susan observed to Mrs. Lathrop, as the date set for the beginning of the
+work drew nearer. "I'm against it myself, but I ain't against Jathrop,
+so I'm giving up my views just to see what will happen. My own opinion
+is as it's all very well to build over most anything, but if your house
+is to be built over, you've got to get out of it, and I must say as I
+don't just see as yet when we get out of our houses what we're going to
+get into. Jathrop says we can go to the hotel, and that he'll pay the
+bill. Well, I must say it's good he'd pay the bill, for I'd never go to
+any hotel if somebody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> else didn't pay the bill&mdash;I know that. But even
+if I haven't got the bill to pay, I don't feel so raving, raring mad to
+go to the hotel. It wouldn't matter to you, Mrs. Lathrop, for nothing
+ever does matter to you, and anyway, even if anything had mattered to
+you before, you'd not mind it now that Jathrop's come back. But just the
+same a hotel does matter to me. They take very little interest in their
+housekeeping in hotels, and no matter who's eat off of what, if they can
+use it again&mdash;and they generally can&mdash;they always do. Why, they churn up
+the melted odds and ends of ice-cream and serve 'em out as fresh-made
+with that cheerful countenance as loveth no giver. And what we'd throw
+to the cat they scrape right back into the soup pot, and glad enough to
+get it. I don't suppose you'd mind what you ate, nor what kind of a
+cloth had dusted your plate, but I was brought up to be clean, and I
+don't want to sleep with spiders swinging themselves down to see how I
+do it. No, Mrs. Lathrop, I can't consider no hotel, not even in common
+affection for Jathrop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> I'd go down a well on my hands and knees to dig
+coal for him if necessary, or I'd do any other thing as a woman as
+respects Jathrop might do if she didn't respect herself more. But live
+in a hotel I will not, and you can write and tell him so, for <i>I</i> don't
+want to hurt his feelings. But all kindness has its limits, and if I let
+a boy architect run through the heart of my house, I consider as I've
+done enough to prove my Christian spirit for one year."</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;?" ventured Mrs. Lathrop, but Susan Clegg went right on.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see where we're ever going to put our things while they haul
+our walls down and rock our foundations. That young man says there won't
+be a room as won't have to have something done to it, and I don't want
+my furniture spoiled, even if I do have to have my house built over
+against my will. My furniture is very good furniture, Mrs. Lathrop. It's
+been oiled, and rubbed, and polished ever since it was bought, and none
+of the chairs has ever had their middles stepped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> on, and nothing of
+mine has got a sunk hole from sitting,&mdash;no, sir! My mattresses is all
+slept even, from side to side, and there ain't a bottle-mark in the
+whole house. It's a sin to take and wreck a happy home like mine. I
+shall have untold convenience hereafter, but I shall never take any more
+real comfort. That's what I see a-coming. And where under the sun we are
+going to put our things the Lord only knows."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop was one of those who rarely take a question as a personal
+matter. She made no suggestion; she just rocked.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see what I've got to be doing," said Susan, a clearer light
+breaking. "I've got to be getting up and seeing where you and me can go,
+and where we can put our goods. I don't want to live under the same roof
+with you if I can possibly help it. And not to do it's going to be hard,
+for knowing we're such friends, folks is going to naturally plan to take
+us together. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop, and yet I
+can't in Christian courtesy deny that to live with you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> would drive me
+distracted, and so I shan't consider it for a minute. Not for one single
+minute. Still, I can't live far from you, for we are old friends, and
+the brother that leaveth all else to cleave to his brother wasn't more
+close when he done it than I am to you. Besides, if they're building our
+houses over, I shall naturally be pretty lively in watching them do it,
+and as one of the houses is yours, you'll like to be where I can easy
+tell you how it's being done. And so it goes without saying we've got to
+be close together. But not too close together."</p>
+
+<p>All these premises were so undeniably true that the passive Mrs. Lathrop
+could not have gainsaid them even had she been so disposed; which she
+wasn't.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, upon the very next day, Susan began her search for an
+abiding place, and the right abiding place was&mdash;as she had
+predicted&mdash;not to be easily found.</p>
+
+<p>"There's plenty of places," said Susan, when she returned from her task,
+"but they don't any of them suit my views. You're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> easily suited, Mrs.
+Lathrop, but I'm not and never will be. I'm of a nature that never is to
+be lightly took in vain, nor yet to be just lightly took either. And no
+one isn't going to put me in a room that'll be sunny in July, nor yet in
+one that will be shady in September. No room as is pleasant in September
+can help being most hot in summer; and although I'm willing to be hot in
+my own house, I will not be hot in any place where I pay board. You'll
+do very well almost anywhere, Mrs. Lathrop, for Lord knows whatever
+other virtues you may have, being particular could never be left at your
+door in no orphaned basket. But I'm different. Mrs. Brown would take us
+until young Doctor Brown and Amelia gets back, and Mrs. Allen would be
+glad of the very dust of our feet; but I couldn't go to either of those
+two places. Mrs. Brown would have to have both of us, for there's no one
+else to take you, and Mrs. Allen would want to read us her poetry. It's
+all right to write if you ain't got brains or time for nothing better,
+but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> have, and I ain't going to knowingly board myself with no one as
+hasn't."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop made no comment. She merely rocked and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"As for our things," Susan continued, "I've found where we can put
+<i>them</i>. It wasn't easy, but I never give up, and Mr. Shores says he's
+willing we should have all the back of his upper part. I told him as I
+should want to be able to go to 'em any time, and he said far be it from
+him to desire to prevent no woman from visiting what was her own. I
+could see from his tone as he was thinking of his wife as run off with
+his clerk, and it does beat all how you can even make a misery out of a
+woman's visiting her furniture if you feel so inclined. So the goods is
+off our minds, and now it's just us as has got to be put somewheres till
+our own doors is opened to us again. I must say I'd like to know where
+we'll end."</p>
+
+<p>On the very next day the solution was effected.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got it all fixed," said Susan, returning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> dovelike, with the
+evening shadows. "Mrs. Macy'll take one of us and Gran'ma Mullins the
+other. Gran'ma Mullins says with Hiram gone to the Klondike and Lucy
+gone to her father, either you or me can have their room; only for the
+love of heaven we mustn't look like Hiram in bed; for her heart is
+aching and breaking, and the car-wheels of his train ain't grinding on
+any track half as much as they're grinding in her tenderest spot. Now
+the question is, Mrs. Lathrop, which'll go which, and it's a thing as I
+must consider very carefully, for Lord knows I don't want to be no more
+miserable than I've got to be. And it goes without saying I wouldn't
+choose to live with Gran'ma Mullins, nor Mrs. Macy, nor nobody else if I
+had my choice. I'm too much give to liking to live alone with myself. Of
+course, Mrs. Macy is a pleasanter disposition than Gran'ma Mullins, for
+she ain't got Hiram to wear my bones into skin over; but I feel as
+living with Mrs. Macy all summer will surely lead to her trying to make
+it come out even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> for the rent up to next January, so I would have to
+worry over that. Then, too, even if Gran'ma Mullins is wearing, she's
+soothing too, and I shall need soothing this summer. I declare, Mrs.
+Lathrop, I can't well see how I'm ever going to pack up my things. I
+can't see what's to keep 'em from getting scratched and the corners
+knocked. How can I fix a toilet set smooth together? A toilet set don't
+never fit smooth together; the handles always stick out. And the
+frying-pan's got a handle too, and a clothesbar ain't any ways adaptable
+to nothing. Chair legs is very bad and table legs is worse, and there's
+Mother's wedding-present clock as found its level years ago and ain't
+been stirred since. Father give it to her, and it's so heavy I couldn't
+stir it if I wanted to, anyhow. But I don't want to stir it. It's my
+dead mother's last wish, and as such is sacred. I wasn't to stir Father
+nor the clock. It's a French clock, and it's marble. It's a handsome
+clock. It was Father's one handsome present to Mother. And now I've got
+to put it in storage. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> then there's our hens. I don't know but what
+it'd be wisest to set right to eating them. I know one thing&mdash;I'll never
+board chickens. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, this is going to be an awful business!
+Think of the carpets! Think of the window shades, and my dead mother's
+lamberquins! Think of the things in the garret! And the things in the
+cellar! And the things in the closets! I don't know, I'm sure, how we'll
+ever get moved."</p>
+
+<p>As the days went on, the slow trend of life brought the problem still
+more pressingly to the front. Susan decided to lodge herself with
+Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins, whose heart was still very heavy over
+Hiram's escape from the home nest, would have preferred Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Lathrop's capacity for listening would have meant much to Gran'ma
+Mullins in these hours of bitter loneliness; but Mrs. Macy wanted Mrs.
+Lathrop, and Susan didn't want Mrs. Macy, so the outcome of that
+question was a fore-gone conclusion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When all was settled, Jathrop dispatched emissaries who, with a deftness
+and dexterity possessed only by the hirelings of millionaires, descended
+on Mrs. Lathrop, and in the course of a single afternoon transferred
+her, her rocker, and the whole contents of her bedroom to Mrs. Macy's.
+The emissaries offered to do the same thing for Susan Clegg, but she
+rejected their aid. Alone and unassisted Susan wrestled with her
+packing, and no one ever knew just how she accomplished it. It took her
+several days, and it introduced a new order of things into not only her
+life but her speech. Her struggle was valiant, but towards the end she
+had to call on Felicia Hemans and Sam Durny for help. When, on Saturday
+night, Susan arrived at Gran'ma Mullins's, her first observation was
+that when the Lord got through with the creation it was small wonder He
+arranged to rest on the seventh day.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know as I shall ever get up again," she said to Gran'ma Mullins,
+who was watching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> her take off her bonnet. "A apron as has been used to
+carry things in for six days is bright and starched beside me. Oh,
+Gran'ma Mullins, pray on your folded knees as Hiram won't come back rich
+and want to build you over! Anything but that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if he'll only come back, it's all I'll ask!" returned Gran'ma
+Mullins sadly. "To think he can't get there for four weeks yet. And
+think of Hiram in a boat! Why Hiram can't even see a mirror tipped back
+and forth without having to go right where he'll be the only company.
+And then to be in a boat! A boat is such a tippy thing. I read about one
+man being drowned in one last week. They're hooking for him with
+dynamite to see if they can even get a piece of him back for his wife.
+His wife isn't much like Lucy, I guess. Oh, Susan, you'll never know
+what I've stood from Lucy! Nobody will."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg shook her head and looked about her quarters with an eye that
+was dubious.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've got some eggs for supper," said Gran'ma Mullins, "one for you and
+one for me, and one for either of us as can eat two."</p>
+
+<p>"I can eat two," said Susan, who thought best to declare herself at the
+outset.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your things all out of the house?" Gran'ma Mullins asked, as they
+seated themselves at the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," answered Susan, "everything is out! Towards the last we acted
+more like hens being fed than anything else, but we got everything
+finished."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get the clock out safe?"</p>
+
+<p>Susan's expression altered suddenly. "The clock! Oh, the clock! What
+<i>do</i> you think happened to that clock? And I didn't feel to mind it,
+either."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan, you didn't break it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did. And in sixty thousand flinders. And I'm glad, too. Very glad.
+It's a sad thing as how we may be found out, no matter how careful we
+sweep up our trackings. And I don't mind telling you as the bitterest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+pill in my cup of clearing out has been that very same clock."</p>
+
+<p>"It was such a handsome clock," said Gran'ma Mullins, opening her
+naturally open countenance still wider. "Oh, Susan! What did happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought it was a handsome clock," said Susan, "and so did I. It was
+such a handsome clock that we weren't allowed to pick it up and look at
+it. Father screwed it down with big screws, so we couldn't, and he wet
+'em so they rusted in. I had a awful time getting those screws out
+to-day, I can tell you. You get a very different light on a dead and
+gone father when you're trying to get out screws that he wet thirty-five
+years ago. Me on a stepladder digging under the claws of a clock for two
+mortal hours! And when I got the last one out, I had to climb down and
+wake my foot up before I could do the next thing. Then I got a block and
+a bed-slat, and I proceeded very carefully to try how heavy that
+handsome clock&mdash;that handsome marble clock&mdash;might be. I put the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> block
+beside it, and I put the bed-slat over the block and under the clock.
+Then I climbed my ladder again, and then I bore down on the bed-slat.
+Well, Gran'ma Mullins, you can believe me or not, just as you please,
+but it's a solemn fact that nothing but the ceiling stopped that clock
+from going sky-high. And nothing but the floor stopped me from falling
+through to China. I come down to earth with such a bang as brought
+Felicia Hemans running. And the stepladder shut up on me with such
+another bang as brought Sam Durny."</p>
+
+<p>"The saints preserve us!" ejaculated Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't a marble clock a <i>tall</i>," confessed Susan. "It was painted
+wood. That was why Father screwed it down. Oh, men are such deceivers!
+And the best wife in the world can't develop 'em above their natural
+natures. I expect it was always a real pleasure to Father to think as
+Mother and me didn't know that marble clock was wood. I don't know what
+there is about a man as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> makes his everyday character liking to deceive
+and his Sunday sense of righteousness satisfied with just calling it
+fooling. Well, he's gone now, and the Bible says 'to him as hath shall
+be given,' so I guess he's settling up accounts somewheres. Give me the
+other egg!"</p>
+
+<p>After supper they stepped over to Mrs. Macy's, which was next door, and
+the four sat on the piazza in the pleasant spring twilight. Mrs. Macy
+was so happy over having Mrs. Lathrop instead of Susan Clegg that she
+smiled perpetually. Mrs. Lathrop sat and rocked in her old-gold-plush
+rocker. Gran'ma Mullins and Susan Clegg occupied the step at the feet of
+the other two.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Susan," Mrs. Macy remarked meditatively, "I never looked to see
+you leave your house any way except feet first. Well, well, this
+certainly is a funny world."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned Susan, brief for once, "it certainly is."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a very sad world, I think," contributed Gran'ma Mullins with a
+heavy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> heavy sigh. "My goodness, to think this time last spring Hiram
+was spading up the potato patch! And now where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows," answered Susan. "See how many years it was till Jathrop
+come back. But I do hope for your sake, Gran'ma Mullins, that when Hiram
+does come back he won't take it into his head to buy this house and
+build it over for you."</p>
+
+<p>Gran'ma Mullins looked at Mrs. Macy, and Mrs. Macy looked back at
+Gran'ma Mullins, and a message flashed and was answered in the glances.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins with neighborly interest, "you do
+see that the house needs fixing up, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Susan was the owner and Mrs. Macy only the tenant, and the implication
+was not at all pleasing to her. She turned with the air of the weariest
+worm that had ever done so and gave Gran'ma Mullins a look that could
+only be translated as an admonition to mind her own business. Whereupon
+Gran'ma<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> Mullins promptly subsided, and the subject did not come up
+again.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a Monday&mdash;the very next Monday&mdash;that the workmen arrived and
+set to work to demolish the outer casing of the homes of Susan and Mrs.
+Lathrop. Susan went up and stood about for an hour, viewing the way they
+did it with great but resigned scorn. She went every day thereafter, and
+her heart was rent at the sight of the sacrilege. Then, to add to her
+woe, Gran'ma Mullins proved less soothing than had been expected, and
+Susan suffered keenly at her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she said one morning, when the exigencies of
+shopping left the two old friends full freedom of intercourse, "if I'm
+going to live in that house for this whole summer, the first thing that
+I'll have to do is either to change Gran'ma Mullins or change me! I can
+see that. Why, I never heard anything like Gran'ma Mullins' views on
+Hiram. You've heard Mrs. Macy, and I've told you what Lucy's told me
+whenever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> I've met her, but I never had no idea it was anything like
+what it is. I'm stark, raving crazy hearing about Hiram. Gran'ma Mullins
+says no child was ever like Hiram, and I begin to wonder if it ain't so.
+No child ever made such an impression on his mother before,&mdash;I can take
+my Bible oath on that, for she's talking about him from the time I wake
+till long after I'm asleep,&mdash;and she remembers things in the stillness
+of the night and wakes me up to hear 'em for fear she'll forget 'em
+before morning. Last night she was up at two to tell me how Hiram used
+to shut his eyes before he went to sleep when he was a baby. She said he
+had a different way of doing it from any other child that's ever been
+born. He picked it all up by himself. She couldn't possibly tell me just
+how he did it, but it was most remarkable. He had it in May and well
+into June the year he was born, but along in July he began to lose it,
+and by October he opened and shut just like other people's babies.
+That's what I was woke up to hear, Mrs. Lathrop, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Herod was a sweet
+and good-tempered mother of ten compared to me as I listened. And then
+at daybreak if she didn't come in again to explain as Hiram was so
+different from all other babies that he crept before he walked, and the
+first of his trying to walk he climbed up a chair leg."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jathrop&mdash;" volunteered Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. They all do. But I must say I don't see how I'm going to
+stand it till my house is ready to receive me back with open bosom if
+this is the way she's going on straight along. I wouldn't stay with Mrs.
+Macy because I was tired of hearing what she said Gran'ma Mullins said
+about Hiram, but it never once struck me that if I stayed with Gran'ma
+Mullins I'd have it all to hear straight from the fountain mouth. My
+lands alive, Mrs. Lathrop, you never hear the beat! Hiram used to
+wrinkle up his face when she washed it, and he never wanted to have a
+bath. And he used to bring mud turtles into the house; and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> she
+thinks of that and how now he's off for the Klondike, she says she feels
+like going straight after him. She says she could be very useful in the
+Klondike. She could polish his pick and his sled-runners, and hang up
+his snowy things, and wash out his gold and his clothes. She says she
+can't just see how they wash out gold, but she knows how to polish
+silver, and she says mother-love like hers can pick up anything. She
+goes on and on till I feel like going to the Klondike myself. I'm
+getting a great deal of sympathy for Lucy. Lucy always said she could
+have been happy with Hiram&mdash;maybe&mdash;if it hadn't been for his mother.
+Lucy's got no kind of tender feeling for Gran'ma Mullins, and I
+certainly don't feel to blame her none."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, striving towards pleasanter paths.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it ain't burnt up yet," answered Susan. "I stopped at Mr. Shores'
+coming back and took a look at it, and I was far from pleased to find
+the door as opens into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the next room to the room as my furniture is
+locked up in a little open. Goodness knows who'd opened it, but it
+looked very much like some one had been trying my door, to me. I asked
+Mr. Shores, and I saw at a glance as it was news to him, which shows
+just how much interest he's taking in looking out for my things. He said
+maybe the cat had pushed it open. The cat! I unlocked my door and went
+in. The furniture's all safe enough, but it's enough to put any
+housekeeper's heart through the clothes wringer only to see how it's
+piled. The beds is smashed flat along the wall, and wherever they could
+turn a table or a chair upside down and plant something on the wrong
+side of it, they've done it. As for the way the dishes is combined, I
+can only say that the Lord fits the back to the burden, so the
+wash-bowls is bearing everything. They've put Mother's picture in a
+coal-hod for safety, and the coal-hod is sitting on the bookcase. It's a
+far from cheering sight, Mrs. Lathrop, but you know I was against being
+built<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> over from the start. When I see the walls of my happy home being
+smashed flat and then picked over like they was raisins to see what'll
+do to use again, and then when I see my furniture put together in a way
+as no one living can make head or tail of, and when I see myself woke up
+at three in the night to be told that sometimes when Hiram was a baby he
+would go to sleep and sometimes he wouldn't, why I feel as if that Roman
+as they rolled down hill in a barrel because he wouldn't stay anywhere
+else where they put him was sitting smoking cross-legged compared to me.
+I d'n know what I'm going to do this summer. It would just drive an
+ordinary woman crazy. But I presume I'll survive."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop looked slightly saddened. "Well, Susan,&mdash;" she began to
+murmur sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Susan. "Of course, if it gets where I
+can't stand it, we'll just have to change houses, that's all."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Life under the roof of Gran'ma Mullins eventually&mdash;and eventually was a
+matter of days rather than weeks&mdash;became unbearable for Susan Clegg. At
+least, she so decided, and finding opportunity in the fact that both
+Gran'ma Mullins and Mrs. Macy had gone to market, Susan hastened to her
+old friend, Mrs. Lathrop, and laid open her fresh burden of woes.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stand it, Mrs. Lathrop," she declared with strongest emphasis,
+"I can't stand it. No matter what the Bible says, a saint on a gridiron
+would smile all over and wriggle for nothing but joy only to think as
+where he was and wasn't boarding with Gran'ma Mullins. It's awful.
+That's what it is&mdash;awful. I never had no idea that nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> could be so
+awful. I've got to where I'm thinking very seriously of leaving my
+property to Lucy. I'm becoming very sorry for Lucy. Lucy isn't properly
+appreciated. Why, Hiram was stung by a bee once,&mdash;no ordinary bee, but a
+bee a third bigger than the usual bee,&mdash;and it swelled up all different
+from common, and Gran'ma Mullins thought he was surely going to die
+right there before her streaming eyes. But Hiram was so bright he
+remembered about putting mud on bee-bites, and he did it. Only there
+wasn't no mud, and nobody knew what they could do about it. But Hiram's
+mind wasn't like the mind of a ordinary person. Hiram's mind is all
+different, and Hiram said, just as quick as scat, to mix water and earth
+and make some mud. So they did, and the water and earth, Gran'ma Mullins
+says, made the finest mud she ever saw. They covered up Hiram's bee-bite
+with it, and it didn't leave so much as a scar. And now there's Hiram in
+the Klondike, knowing just what to do when bit by a bee,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> but without a
+notion what to put on if a seal catches him unawares. And all this going
+on hour after hour, Mrs. Lathrop, and me sitting there waiting for my
+dinner, half mad anyway over the way my dead-and-gone father's home is
+being torn limb from limb, and in no mood to listen to anything. Oh,
+laws, no! It's no use. I can't stand it, and I won't either."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused expressively.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop gasped. "What will&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to find another place to live right away," Susan went on.
+"I've too much consideration for you to ask you to go there, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and besides, I feel it would be exchanging the fire for the
+stew-pan for me to come here. I'm going this town over this very
+afternoon, and I think I'll find some place where I can sleep part of
+the night, at any rate. I guess I got about three quarters of a hour's
+sleep last night. Gran'ma Mullins woke me up weeping on the foot of my
+bed before daylight. Just before daylight is her special time for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+recollecting how Hiram used to drink milk out of a cup when he was a
+baby, and how he used to eat candy if anybody gave him any, and other
+remarkable doings that he did. My lands, I wish Job could have met
+Gran'ma Mullins! His friends and his boils would have just been pleasant
+things to amuse him, then. I'm going first to Mrs. Allen, and then I'm
+going to every one. I shan't make no bones about my errand, for
+everybody knows Gran'ma Mullins. I'll have the sympathy of the whole
+community. I need sympathy, and I feel I can soak up a good lot of it if
+I'm let to."</p>
+
+<p>"How's the&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"They're still pulling 'em down," said Susan gloomily. "It's a awful
+sight, and one that doesn't give me more strength for Gran'ma Mullins. I
+shall never have another house that will suit me as mine did, Mrs.
+Lathrop. I know that Jathrop means it kindly, and I'm far from being one
+to hold any gift-horse by the tail, but the truth is the truth, and I
+must say nothing teaches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> you to really prize your cupboards like seeing
+men going through 'em with pick-axes. There was many little conveniences
+in my house as I never really thought much of until now I see 'em gone
+forever. But it's a poor cat that lives on spilt milk, so I'll say no
+more of that, but go back and get ready to hunt up a place to live. For
+live I must, Mrs. Lathrop, and live I will. And I won't live by eating
+and drinking and breathing Hiram Mullins the twenty-four hours round,
+neither."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg's round of visits ended, curiously enough, in her
+establishing herself with Lucy Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Which I don't doubt is a very great surprise to you, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+confessed to her friend that evening. "But Lucy ran across me in the
+street, and when she saw me, those two women who met in the Bible and
+knew all each other's business directly was strangers passing on express
+trains beside Lucy and me. I took one look at Lucy, and I see she knowed
+it all. Judge Fitch is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> going to be away a lot this month, seeing where
+he can hire his witnesses for a big lawsuit, and Lucy says she and me'll
+be alone and able to be silent from dawn to dark and on through the
+night. She don't want to have to listen to no manner of talk, she says,
+and I can have the second floor all alone to myself, for her and her
+father sleep in the wings down-stairs."</p>
+
+<p>"So you&mdash;" said Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I didn't look no more. I was suited, so I didn't see no use in
+further fussing. I shall tell Gran'ma Mullins to-night and go there
+to-morrow. And I may in confidence remark as no howling oasis in a
+desert ever howled for joy the way I'll feel like howling when I get my
+trunk on a wheelbarrow again. I've spoke for the wheelbarrow at eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning, so I'll be over at Lucy's and settled before
+you wake up, Mrs. Lathrop."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Susan went, and, surprising as it may seem, Gran'ma Mullins
+was singularly content over her going.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to make no trouble between friends," said Gran'ma Mullins,
+clambering up Mrs. Macy's steps to sit with Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Lathrop.
+"But really, Susan is become most changed since her house is begun to be
+built over. I wouldn't hardly have known her. I wouldn't say stuck-up
+and I wouldn't say airy, but I will say as she's most changed. I
+wouldn't say rude, neither, but I didn't consider it exactly friendly to
+always either pull her breath in long and loud or else let it out short
+and sharp whenever I mentioned Hiram. Hiram is my only legal and natural
+child, and with him in the Klondike, and my heart aching and quaking and
+breaking for fear the ice'll thaw and let him through into some
+unexpected volcano all of a sudden, how can I but mention him? You know
+what Hiram is to me, Mrs. Macy. We haven't lived in these two houses for
+forty years without your knowing what Hiram is to me. You remember him
+as a baby, Mrs. Macy, but you don't, Mrs. Lathrop, so I'll tell you what
+Hiram was as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> a baby. Hiram was a most remarkable&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Lathrop saw Susan Clegg again, Miss Clegg was looking far from
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you&mdash;?" enquired Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I d'n know," came the answer more than a little dubiously. Then:
+"Seeing that I am always frank and open with you, Mrs. Lathrop, I may as
+well say plainly as I ain't. Very far from it. I never knew when I went
+to live with Lucy as Judge Fitch has got a dog as barks. He ain't no
+ordinary dog&mdash;he's a most uncommon dog. He only barks when it's
+moonlight, or when he hears something, and I must say he's got the
+sharpest ears I ever see. But it isn't his barking that's so bad, as it
+is that whenever he barks, Lucy gets right up to see whether it's Hiram
+come back. It seems the reason Lucy took me to board is she hates to go
+around the house alone nights with the dog and a candle. That's a pretty
+thing for me to never mistrust till I got there with my trunk. I must
+say I don't blame Lucy for not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> liking to go around alone, for the dog
+smells your heels all the time, and if he was in the Klondike with Hiram
+his nose couldn't be colder. But all the same I think she ought to of
+told me. For whatever it may be to others, a cold nose is certainly most
+new to my heels. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, we was out hunting with our dog
+three times last night, and Lucy says often enough he gets her up nine
+and ten times. Lucy's so nervous for fear Hiram'll come back that she
+can't possibly sleep if she thinks there's a chance of it. She says if
+Hiram's come back, she wants to know it right off. She says that's her
+nature. If she's got to have a tooth out, she wants it out at once. She
+says she never was one to shrink from nothing. And the dog's prompt,
+too. He's quite of the same mind as Lucy. He gives one bark, and then he
+don't dilly-dally none. He gets right up, and by the time he's got to
+Lucy, Lucy's got up too, and they both come racing up-stairs for me to
+join 'em. My door don't lock, so the dog's licking my face before I
+know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> where I am. And then, before I know much more where I am, we're
+all three capering down-stairs together again. Then we take the whole
+house carefully around and listen at every door and window, with the dog
+smelling while we listen. Then, when we know for sure as it ain't Hiram,
+the dog scrambles back into his basket, and Lucy tucks him up, and she
+and I go back to bed alone and untucked. That's a pretty kettle of fish.
+And you can believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I
+never had no notion of having my heels smelled by a cold dog's nose
+three times, and maybe nine, a night when I went to live at Judge
+Fitch's, and if it keeps on, I shall just leave. Lucy's got no lease on
+me, and although I'm sorry for her, I ain't anywhere near sorry enough
+for her to be woke up to pussy-cornering all over the premises with a
+dog the livelong night through. As between having Gran'ma Mullins
+sitting on my feet wailing over Hiram, and Lucy's dog smelling of my
+heels while we hunt for Hiram, I think I'd rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> have Gran'ma Mullins.
+I was warm and comfortable and laid out flat at Gran'ma Mullins, but I'm
+goodness knows what at Lucy's. And I do hate having my face licked. I
+don't like it. I never was used to such things, and I can't begin now."</p>
+
+<p>"What will&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall look up another nice place to live," said Miss Clegg, "and I
+shall take a leaf out of the dog's book and be prompt about it, too.
+I've spoke for the wheelbarrow to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I shall
+move then, whether or no."</p>
+
+<p>Susan, again on the lookout for a new abiding place, discovered a most
+attractive proposition in Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Allen and her husband lived
+alone, were neat and well-fed, and kept no dog.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never go where there's a dog again, I know that," said Susan.
+"Why, Mrs. Lathrop, if I was in a blizzard in Switzerland and fifty of
+those little beer-keg dogs they've got there came scurrying up to rescue
+me, I wouldn't get up and let 'em have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> the joy of seeing me obliged. I
+won't ever get up for no dog again in my life, I know that. And I know
+it for keeps. And there's a bolt on my side of my door at Mrs. Allen's.
+I've looked to that, too; and no one is to wake me nights; I've looked
+to that. I told Mrs. Allen all the story of what I'd suffered, and she
+said she'd see as I had peace in her house. She told me that I'd
+suffered because I needed to suffer, but now I was to have peace, and
+I'd have it with her. I didn't bother to ask what she meant, for I guess
+if she's got any secret thorn, I'll find it out quick enough, anyhow.
+And if it's anything that wakes me up nights, my present feeling is as I
+won't be well able to bear it. Well, the wheelbarrow is set for ten
+o'clock, and so I must go, and when I see you, I'll know what's wrong
+with Mrs. Allen, and the Lord help me if it's something as makes me have
+to move again. That's all I can say."</p>
+
+<p>Susan did not visit her old friend directly after her third change of
+residence. Two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> whole days passed by, and Mrs. Lathrop was openly
+troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry," said Gran'ma Mullins soothingly. "There's nothing the
+matter with her, because I see her in the square this very morning. But
+she looked at me odd and went down a side street. I'm sure I hope
+Susan's not losing her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wouldn't that be awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy with real sympathy.
+"We'd have to appoint a commission to catch her and sit on her, and then
+if she was put in the insane asylum, I guess Susan Clegg would be mad."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan wouldn't like that a bit," said Gran'ma Mullins meditatively.
+"They make little cups and saucers out of beads. I know, because Hiram
+had one once. And they read books with the letters all punched out at
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're thinking of the Home for the Blind," corrected Mrs. Macy. "I was
+there once, too. I don't think Susan would mind going there so much,
+because of course she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> can see, which would give her a great advantage
+over the others, and Susan does like to have an advantage over anybody
+else. But I don't believe she'd like going to the Insane Asylum much.
+The Insane Asylum's so limited. My husband's sister went to the Insane
+Asylum once, but it didn't help her none, so she came home. It wouldn't
+ever suit Susan."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe not," said Gran'ma Mullins amicably. "And I don't think she
+could go there, anyway, for she isn't crazy, and she's got her own
+money. So why should she be a charge on the county?"</p>
+
+<p>The very next day Susan came wearily in to see her old friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I d'n know what I've ever done to have this kind of a summer,"
+she began, seating herself sadly. "Why didn't I stay in my own house and
+just simply take you to board while they laid violent hands on your
+house? I was against being built over all along, Mrs. Lathrop, you know
+that. And now the fox has his cheese and the cow has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> her corn, just as
+the Scripture says, but Susan Clegg's absolutely forced to live with
+Mrs. Allen. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, you don't know what living with Mrs. Allen
+is, and you can't imagine, either. I never dreamed of such a thing
+before I went there. I was a little afraid she'd want to read me her
+poetry, but her poetry would have been paradise to what is. Seems as if
+Mrs. Allen has got a new kind of religion, and heaven help the present
+run of mankind if any more new religions is sprung on us, and heaven
+help me if I've got to live long with Mrs. Allen's new one. Mrs. Allen's
+new religion is most peculiar. I never see nothing like it. It's
+Persian, and it's very singular just to look at. But it's most awful to
+live with. Lucy and her dog is simple beside it, and as to Gran'ma
+Mullins, she's nothing but a baby dabbing a ball in comparison.
+According to Mrs. Allen's new religion, you mustn't find fault with
+nothing or nobody&mdash;never. Everything's all right, no matter how wrong it
+is; and if you lose your purse, you was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> meant to lose it, so why
+complain? You was give your purse for just a little while, and in place
+of wildly running here and there trying to find it, you must just thank
+heaven for kindly letting you have it so long, and think no more about
+it. If you're meant to see any more of that purse, it'll kindly look you
+up itself. But it's no manner of use your looking for it, because if
+heaven takes back a purse deliberately, never intending to return it, it
+never does return it, and that's all there is to be said on the subject.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you think perhaps you can see what it would be to
+live with any one that feels to see life in that way; but you don't
+really know what you think a good deal of the time, and never less than
+now. Mrs. Allen's things is mostly back in heaven's hands again, and her
+biscuits is mostly burnt, and not one bit does she care, seeing as she
+don't consider as she has the least thing to do with any of it. She's
+happy and singing and forgetting from dawn to dark. She says the day'll
+soon be that the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> earth will see the truth and be singing with
+her. She says the toiling millions will cease to toil then, and life'll
+be all Adams and Eves and no manner of misery. In the meantime, I don't
+get nothing to eat, and when I feel to holler down-stairs, she says
+dinner was meant to be late that day, or it couldn't possibly have been
+late. Not by no manner of means."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I&mdash;" commented Mrs. Lathrop blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my way of seeing it," said Susan, "and she aggravates me still
+more with pointing her moral, from dawn to dark. She says it's beautiful
+to see how beautiful life comes along. You and me needed quiet, and we
+got quiet. And now we need our houses built over, and we're getting 'em
+built over. I told her I didn't need my house built over a <i>tall</i>, and
+she said as I just thought so, but that I really did, or it wouldn't be
+being done. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, what I will run up
+against next. But I don't believe I can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> stay at Mrs. Allen's. I really
+don't. There's one thing&mdash;it'll be mighty easy to leave her, for I
+shan't have to say nothing. I shall say I was meant to leave and then
+and there leave. It's a poor religion as don't fit others as easy as its
+own selves; and I ain't washed in the Allens' dirty rain water full of
+dead and drowned bugs for two days because I was meant to wash and they
+was meant to drown, without learning how to turn even a drowned bug to
+my advantage. No, sir, I'm going out this afternoon and see what I can
+get, and if I can't do no better, I'll buy a bolt for my door and come
+back to Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins has her good points. I always
+said that, Mrs. Lathrop, Gran'ma Mullins certainly has her good points.
+And I must learn to bear Hiram if I must. There's one thing certain: I
+can hear about Hiram in bed, and I don't have to get up and out of bed
+to hunt for him. And whatever else Gran'ma Mullins does, she don't burn
+her bread and blame it on the Almighty. Mrs. Allen's got the Bible so
+pat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> that you don't need to do nothing, according to her&mdash;nothing a
+<i>tall</i>, but just sit still and let the world turn you around with its
+turning. She says Solomon said the little lilies didn't spin, and so why
+should she? Well, if we're to quit doing everything that lilies don't
+have a hand in, I must say we'll soon be in a pretty state. I never was
+one to admire Solomon like some people, and as for David, I think he was
+a fool&mdash;dancing around the ark like he'd just got it for Christmas!"</p>
+
+<p>Susan searched long and wearily for a fourth abiding place that
+afternoon, but in the end she had to speak for the wheelbarrow for the
+next morning and move back to Gran'ma Mullins's.</p>
+
+<p>And Gran'ma Mullins was very glad to see her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Your bed's all made up with the same sheets for you, Susan," she said
+cordially, "and I ain't even swept so as to spoil the homelike look.
+You'll see your own last burnt matches and all, just as you left 'em."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've bought a bolt for my door," said Susan, "and I'll beg to borrow a
+screwdriver and something sharp to put it on with."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get 'em," agreed Gran'ma Mullins happily, "and I won't wake you no
+more nights, Susan. I suppose it's only natural that you, never having
+been married, can't possibly know the feelings of a mother. But I meant
+it kindly, Susan. When Lucy speaks of Hiram, she means it unkindly. But
+when I speak of Hiram, I always mean it kindly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Susan, "and if I believed like Mrs. Allen does, I'd
+know I was meant to listen and wouldn't mind. But I don't take no stock
+in that religion of Mrs. Allen's, and I won't be woke up. And although I
+don't want to hurt your feelings, I do want that understood right from
+the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins submissively. "And now I'll fetch
+the screwdriver."</p>
+
+<p>That evening the four friends sat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> pleasantly once again on Mrs. Macy's
+piazza.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Lathrop had a letter from Jathrop to-day. Did you know that,
+Susan?" asked Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't," returned Susan Clegg. "What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's going sailing to the West Indies in his new boat," Mrs. Macy
+informed her. "He's going for his health, and he's going to take three
+other millionaires and their own doctor."</p>
+
+<p>Susan appeared unimpressed.</p>
+
+<p>"He sent his mother a book about the place where he's going," said Mrs.
+Macy. "Do you want to see it?" She went in and brought it out.</p>
+
+<p>Susan took the volume and viewed the title with an indifferent eye.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stark's Guide to the Bahamas</i>," she read aloud. "What are
+they&mdash;something to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're thinking of bananas," suggested Mrs. Macy. "It's islands. It's
+where Columbus hit first. Nobody knows just where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> he hit, but he hit
+there; everybody knows that."</p>
+
+<p>Susan placed the book under her arm. "I'll read it," she said briefly.
+"But I must say as to my order of thinking Jathrop's setting off just
+now is very much like a hen getting up from her eggs. Here's you and
+me&mdash;" addressing Mrs. Lathrop directly&mdash;"with our houses done away with,
+and him as has engineered the wreck skipping away with a parcel of men."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't skipping," interposed Mrs. Macy. "He's sailing&mdash;sailing in his
+own private boat, like the tea-man with the cup."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't care what he's doing," said Susan, rising. "I'm about beat
+out, and I'm going home and going to bed. Such a week! The Bible says
+'Whom the Lord loveth He chaseth,' and heaven knows I've been chased
+this week till my legs is about wore off. Such a week! I've had all the
+chasing I want for one while. And I never was great on being loved, so
+I'm going home and going to bed."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, with the <i>Guide to the Bahamas</i> under her arm and a heavy
+fold between her brows, Susan Clegg stalked over to her temporary
+domicile.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Susan's very well," said Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe she's worried over Jathrop," suggested Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. She just rocked.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I d'n know, I'm sure, what star this town could ever have been laid out
+under," said Susan Clegg, one exceptionally hot night as the four
+friends sat out on Mrs. Macy's steps, "but my own opinion is as it must
+have been a comet, for we're always skiting along into some sort of hot
+water. When it ain't all of us, it's some of us, and when it ain't some
+of us, it's one of us, and now the walls of my house is up I'd be
+willing to bet a nickel as a calamity'll happen along just because
+something's always happening here and my walls is the youngest and
+tenderest thing in the community now."</p>
+
+<p>"Your roof ain't&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course not; how could it be, when my walls is only just up? I don't
+wish to be casting no stones at him as is the least among us, but I will
+say, Mrs. Lathrop, as Jathrop's orders seem to be taking you up under
+the loving protection of their wings, while I'm running around like I
+was a viper without no warm bosom to hatch me. <i>Your</i> walls have been up
+and a-doing for a week, but my walls have been sitting around waiting
+until I was nigh to put out. To see your laths going in and your plaster
+going on, while I stay lumber and nails, is a lesson in yielding to the
+will of heaven as I never calculated on. There's few things more
+aggravating than to see some other house speeding along while your own
+house sits silently, patiently waiting. Of course I can't say nothing,
+as even the boy as carries water knows my house is going to be a present
+to me in the end. It's all right, and likely enough the Lord has seen
+fit to send this summer to me as a chastisement; but I will say that if
+I'd known how this summer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> was going, the Lord would most certainly have
+had to plan some other way to punish me. I don't say as it wasn't
+natural that your walls should go up first, Jathrop being your son, and,
+now that he's rich, no more to me than a benefactor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan!" expostulated Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he is, Mrs. Macy; he's my benefactor, and I can't escape if
+I want to. You may tend a man's mother ten years, day and night, house
+cleanings and cistern cleanings, moths and the well froze up, and if the
+man comes back rich, he's your benefactor."</p>
+
+<p>"Susan!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, "you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't deny it, Mrs. Lathrop; it's the truth. It's one of those truths
+that the wiser they are, the sadder you get. It's one of those truths as
+is the whole truth and a little left over; and I'm learning that I'm to
+be what's left over, more every day. After a life of being independent
+and living on my own money, I'm now going down on my knees learning the
+lesson of being humbly grateful for what I don't want. I may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> sound
+bitter, but if I do it isn't surprising, for I feel bitter; and Gran'ma
+Mullins knows I'm always frank and open, so she'll excuse my saying that
+there's nothing in living with <i>her</i> as tends to calm me much. A woman
+as sleeps in a bed as Hiram must have played leap-frog over all his life
+from the feel of the springs, and pours out of a pitcher as has got a
+chip out of its nose, ain't in no mood to mince nothing. I never was one
+to mince, and I never will be&mdash;not now and not never. Mincing is for
+them as ain't got it in them to speak their minds freely; and my mind is
+a thing that's made to be free and not a slave."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really, Susan," expostulated Mrs. Macy, "what ever&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Macy. I'm full of goodness knows what, but
+whatever it is, I'm too full of it for comfort. There's nothing in the
+life I'm leading this summer to make me expect comfort, and very little
+to make me feel full, but there's things as would make a man dying of
+starvation bust<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> if he experienced them. And I'm full of such things. I
+never had no idea of being out of my house all summer, and now, when my
+walls is up at last, and it looks like maybe I'd get back a home feeling
+some day soon, I must up and get quite another kind of feeling&mdash;a
+feeling that something is going to happen. It's a very strange feeling,
+and at first I thought it was just some more of Gran'ma Mullins'
+cooking; but it kept getting stronger, and when I was in the square, I
+spoke to Mr. Kimball about it; and he says this is cyclone weather, and
+maybe a cyclone is going to happen. He says a man was in town yesterday
+wanting to insure everybody against fire and cyclones. Most everybody
+did it. Mr. Kimball says after the young man got through, you pretty
+much had to do it. Them as had policies with the company could get the
+word 'cyclone' writ in for a dollar. I guess the young man did a very
+good day's work. Mr. Kimball says if it's true as there's any cyclones
+coming nosing about here, he wants his dried-apple machine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> insured
+anyhow. It's a fine machine, and every kind of fruit as is left over
+each night comes out jam next day, while all the vegetables make
+breakfast food. He says it's a wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes him think we're going to have a cyclone?" inquired Mrs. Macy
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"He says the weather is cyclony. And he says if I feel queer that's a
+sign, for I'm a sensitive nature."</p>
+
+<p>"I never&mdash;" said Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nor me, neither. But Mr. Kimball seemed to feel there wasn't no
+doubt. He says I'm just the kind of sensitive nature as could feel a
+cyclone. Why, he says cyclones take the roofs off the houses!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ow!" cried Gran'ma Mullins in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"If one's coming, I'm glad to know, for I never see one near to," said
+Mrs. Macy pensively.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't see it a <i>tall</i>," said Susan, "for Mr. Kimball says the only
+safe place in a cyclone is the cellar; and to pull a kitchen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> table over
+you to keep the house from squashing you flat when it caves in."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he said. But he says not to worry, for the young man told
+him as they're getting so common no one notices them any more. He says
+they're always going hop, skip, and jump over Kansas and everywhere, and
+no one pays no attention to 'em. He knows all about it. But he wanted it
+clear as he was only insuring for <i>cyclones</i>; he says his firm wouldn't
+have nothing to do with tornadoes. You can get as much on a cyclone as
+on a fire, but you can't get a penny on a tornado&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the diff&mdash;" asked Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the trouble; nobody can just tell. A cyclone is wind and
+lightning mixed by combustion and drove forward by expulsion, the young
+man told Mr. Kimball. He said they'd got cyclones all worked out, and
+they can average 'em up same as everything else, but he says a tornado
+is something as no man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> can get hold of, and no man will ever be able to
+study. Tornadoes drive nails through fences&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Where do they get the nails?" asked Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know. Pick 'em out of the fences first, I guess. And they strip
+the feathers off chickens and scoop up haystacks and carry them up in
+the air for good and all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kimball said the young man told him that a tornado dug up a
+complete marsh once in Minnesota and spread it out upside down on top of
+a wood a little ways off; and when there's a tornado anywhere near, the
+sewing-machines all tick like they was telegraphing."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the young man said so."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you believe him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why not. I wouldn't believe Mr. Kimball because he's
+always fixing up his stories to sound better than they really are, which
+makes me have very little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> faith in him; but Judge Fitch says he'd make
+a splendid witness for any one just on that very account. Judge Fitch
+says with a little well-advised help Mr. Kimball would carry convictions
+to any man,&mdash;he don't except none,&mdash;but I see no reason why the young
+man wasn't telling the truth. Young men do tell the truth sometimes;
+most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries 'em
+miles and pulls up trees by the roots. I don't wonder they won't insure
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>"The pigs?" asked Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"No, the tornadoes."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the signs of a tornado?" asked Gran'ma Mullins uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the signs is alike for both. The signs is weather like to-day and
+a kind of breathlessness like to-night. Mr. Kimball says a funnel-shaped
+cloud is a great sign; and when you see it, in three minutes it's on
+you, and off goes your roof if it's a cyclone, and off you go yourself
+if it's a tornado."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> clutching the arms of her
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker.</p>
+
+<p>"Do people ever come down again?" Gran'ma Mullins inquired; she was very
+pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Elijah didn't, Mr. Kimball says."</p>
+
+<p>"Elijah Doxey?" cried Mrs. Macy. "Why, is he off on a cyclone? No one
+ever told me."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Elijah in the Bible, you know. The Elijah as was caught up in a
+chariot of fire. Mr. Kimball says there ain't a mite of doubt in his
+mind but that it was a tornado. I guess Mr. Kimball told the truth that
+time, for it's all in the Bible."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I remember Elijah myself. He kept
+a tame raven, seems to me, or some such thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan!" Mrs. Lathrop cried out suddenly. "There's a fun&mdash;" Her
+voice failed her; she raised her hand and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>Susan turned quickly, and her face became suddenly gray-white. "It can't
+be a cy&mdash;" she faltered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With that all four women jumped different ways at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Where shall we go?" shrieked Mrs. Macy. "Oh, saints and sinners
+preserve us! Oh, Susan, where shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>But Susan Clegg stood as if paralyzed, staring straight at the
+funnel-shaped cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Gran'ma Mullins started for her own house; Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and
+clasped the piazza post nearest; Mrs. Macy grabbed her skirts up at both
+sides and faced the cyclone just as she had once faced the cow.</p>
+
+<p>The funnel-shaped cloud came sweeping towards them. The town was
+between, and a darkness and a mighty roar arose. Buildings seemed
+falling; the din was terrible.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it," said Susan grimly. "It <i>is</i> a cyclone!" She faced the
+worst&mdash;standing erect.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant the storm was on them all. It lifted Mrs. Lathrop's
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker and hurled it at that good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> lady,
+smashing her hard against the post. It raised the roof of Mrs. Macy's
+house and dropped it like an extinguisher over the fleeing form of
+Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gran'ma Mullins, it <i>is</i> a cyclone!" Susan shrieked. But Gran'ma
+Mullins answered not.</p>
+
+<p>A second mighty burst of fury blew down two trees, and it blew Susan
+herself back against the side wall of the house which shook and swayed
+like a bit of cardboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it's a cyclone," Susan screamed over and over. "Oh, Mrs.
+Lathrop, it's a real cyclone! It isn't a tornado; you can see the
+difference now. It's a cyclone; look at the roof; it's a cyclone!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop could see nothing. She and the old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker were all piled together under the piazza post.</p>
+
+<p>And now came the third and worst burst of fury. It crashed on the
+blacksmith's shop; it carried the sails of the windmill swooping down
+the road, and then "without halting, without rest" lifted Mrs. Macy
+with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> her outspread skirts and carried her straight up in the air. "Oh!
+Oh!" she shrieked and sailed forth.</p>
+
+<p>Susan gave a piercing yell. "Oh, Mrs. Macy, it's a tornado, it's a
+tornado!" But Mrs. Macy answered not.</p>
+
+<p>Tipping, swaying, ducking to the right or left, she flew majestically
+away over her own roof first and then over that of Gran'ma Mullins'
+woodshed.</p>
+
+<p>"Help! Help!" cried Gran'ma Mullins from under the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop was oblivious to all, smashed by her own old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Clegg stood as one fascinated, staring after the trail which was
+all that was left of Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a tornado!" she said over and over. "Mrs. Macy'll always believe
+in the Bible now, I guess. It was a tornado! It <i>was</i> a tornado!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"No, they ain't found her yet," Susan said, coming into the hotel room
+where Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins had found a pleasant and
+comfortable refuge and were occupied in recuperating together at
+Jathrop's expense. Neither lady was seriously injured. Gran'ma Mullins
+had been preserved from even a wetting through the neat capping of her
+climax by Mrs. Macy's roof; while Mrs. Lathrop's squeeze between the
+piazza post and her well beloved old-gold-plush stationary rocker had
+not&mdash;as Gran'ma Mullins put it&mdash;so much as turned a hair of even the
+rocker.</p>
+
+<p>"No one's heard anything from her yet," continued Susan, "but that ain't
+so surprising as it would be if anybody had time to want to know. But
+nobody's got time for nothing to-day. The town's in a awful taking, and
+I d'n know as I ever see a worse situation. You two want to be very
+grateful as you're so nicely and neatly laid aside, for what has
+descended on the community now is worse'n any cyclone, and if you could
+get out and see what the cyclone's done, you'd know what <i>that</i> means."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Was you to my house, Susan?" asked Gran'ma Mullins anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I was; but the insurance men was before me, or anyhow, we met there."</p>
+
+<p>"The insurance men!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said,&mdash;the insurance men. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, we all know
+one side of what it is to insure ourselves, but now the Lord in his
+infinite wrath has mercifully seen fit to show us the other side. The
+Assyrian pouncing down on the wolf in his fold is a young mother
+wrapping up her first baby to look out the window compared to those
+insurance men. They descended on us bright and shining to-day, and if we
+was murderers with our families buried under the kitchen floor, we
+couldn't be looked on with more suspicion. I was far from pleased when I
+first laid eyes on 'em, for there's a foxiness in any city man as comes
+to settle things in the country as is far from being either soothing or
+syrupy to him as lives in the country; but you can maybe imagine my
+feelings when they very plainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> informed me as I couldn't put the roof
+back on Mrs. Macy's house till it was settled whether it was a cyclone
+or a tornado&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Settled&mdash;whether&mdash;" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Cyclone or tornado," repeated Susan. "The first thing isn't to get to
+rights, but it is to settle whether we've got any rights to get. I never
+dreamed what it was to be injured&mdash;no, or no one else neither. Seems if
+it's a tornado, we don't get a cent of our insurance. And to think it
+all depends on Mrs. Macy."</p>
+
+<p>"On Mrs.&mdash;" cried Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, because she's the only one as really knows whether she was carried
+off or not. Well, all I can say is, if she don't come back pretty quick,
+we're going to have a little John Brown raid right here in town; we&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm telling you. It'll be the town rising up against the insurance men,
+and the insurance men will soon find that when it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> comes to
+dilly-dallying with folks newly cycloned upside down, it's life and
+death if you don't deal fair. What with chimneys down and roofs turned
+up at the corner like the inquiring angels didn't have time to take the
+cover all off but just pried up a little to see what was inside,&mdash;I say
+with all this and everything wet and Mrs. Macy gone, this community was
+in no mood to be sealed up&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sealed up!" cried Mrs. Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins together.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what it is. Sealed up we are, and sealed up we've got to stay
+until Mrs. Macy gets back&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" cried Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody's just as mad as you are. Charging bulls is setting hens
+beside this town to-night. Even Mr. Kimball's mad for once in his life;
+he's losing money most awful, for he can't sell so much as a paper of
+tacks. They've got both his doors and all his windows sealed, and he's
+standing out in front with nothing to do except to keep a sharp eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> out
+for Mrs. Macy. He says it ain't in reason to expect as she'll fly back,
+but she's got to come from somewhere, and he means to prevent her
+getting away again on the sly. He says his opinion is as she'd have
+stood a better chance before airships was so common. He says ten years
+ago folks would have took steps for hooking at her just as quick as they
+saw her coming along, but nowadays it'd be a pretty brave man as would
+try to stop anything he saw flying overhead. I guess he's about right
+there. It's a hard question to know what to do with things that fly,
+even if Mrs. Macy hadn't took to it, too. My view is that we advance
+faster than we can learn how to manage our new inventions. I d'n know,
+I'm sure, though, what Mrs. Macy is going to do about this trip of hers.
+She went without even the moment's notice as folks in a hurry always has
+had up to now. She's been gone most twenty-four hours. She's skipped
+three meals already, not to speak of her night and her nap; and you know
+as well as I do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> how Mrs. Macy was give to her nights and her napping."</p>
+
+<p>Susan shook her head, and Mrs. Lathrop looked wide-eyed and alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"But now&mdash;" Gran'ma Mullins asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been all over the place," Susan continued. "I didn't understand
+fully what was up when I scurried off to try and get those men to put
+the roof back on Mrs. Macy's house, but I know it all now. It's no use
+trying to get anybody to do nothing now; the whole town's upside down
+and inside out. I never see nothing like it. And the insurance men has
+got it laid down flat as nobody can't touch nothing till it's settled
+whether it's a cyclone or a tornado. Seems a good many was insured for
+cyclones right in with their fires without knowing it; but there ain't a
+soul in the place insured against a tornado, because you can't get any
+insurance against tornadoes&mdash;no one will insure them. The insurance men
+say if it's a tornado, we won't have nothing to do except to do the best
+we can; but if it's a cyclone, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> mus'n't touch anything till they can
+get some one to judge what's worth saving and how much it's worth and
+deduct that from our insurance. That's how it is."</p>
+
+<p>"But what has&mdash;?" began Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"How long&mdash;?" demanded Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows," said Susan. "The whole town is asking, and nobody knows.
+The insurance company won't let anybody go home or get anything unless
+they'll sign a paper giving up their insurance and swearing that it was
+a tornado. Mr. Dill just had to sign the paper because he was taking a
+bath and had nothing except the table cover to wear. He signed the paper
+and said he'd swear anything if only for his shoes alone; and it seems
+that his house isn't hurt a mite, and he didn't have no insurance
+anyhow. A good many is blaming him, but he says he really couldn't think
+of anything in the excitement and the table cloth. It's a awful state of
+things. The cyclone has tore everything to pieces, and the insurance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+men has put their seal on the chips. People is being drove to all
+lengths. The minister and his family is camping in the henhouse. Our
+walls is fell in so goodness knows what will happen to you and me next,
+Mrs. Lathrop. The wires is all down, so we can't hear nothing about the
+storm. The rails is all up, so there's no trains. The church is stove
+in, so we can't pray. But I must say as to my order of thinking, it
+looks as if no one feels like praying. The insurance men is running all
+over, like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more
+windows every minute and getting more signatures as it was a tornado
+before they'll unstick them. Nothing can't be really settled till Mrs.
+Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation."</p>
+
+<p>"But why&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"The Jilkins is in from Cherry Pond, and all it did there was to rain.
+The Sperrits was in, too, and the storm was most singular with them. It
+hailed in the sunshine till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> they see four rainbows&mdash;they never see the
+beat. Mr. Weskins is advising everybody to go into their houses and make
+a test case of it. Judge Fitch is advising everybody not to. It's plain
+as he's on the side of the insurance men. He says just as they do, that
+we'd better wait till Mrs. Macy comes back and hear her story. He says
+in the very nature of things her view'll be a most general one. He says
+all there is to know she'll know; she'll know the area affected and be
+able to tell whether it was electricity or just wind. Mr. Kimball said
+if she went far enough, she'd be a star witness; but no one thinks that
+jokes about Mrs. Macy ought to be told now. The situation is too
+serious. It may be <i>very</i> serious for Mrs. Macy. If the storm stopped
+sudden, it may be very serious indeed for Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy isn't as
+young as she was, and she hadn't the least idea of leaving town; she
+wasn't a bit prepared, that we can all swear to. She was just carried
+away by a sudden impulse&mdash;as you might say&mdash;and the main question is
+how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> far did she get on her impulse, and where is she now? To my order
+of thinking, it all depends on how she come down. Cycloning along like
+she was, if she come down on a pond or a peak, she'll be far from
+finding it funny. I was thinking about her all the way here, and I can't
+think of any way as'll be easy for her to come to earth, no matter how
+she comes. And if she hits hard, she isn't going to like it. Mrs. Macy
+was never one as took a joke pleasant; she never made light of nothing.
+She took life very solemn-like&mdash;a owl was a laughing hyena compared to
+Mrs. Macy. It's too bad she was that way. My own view is as she never
+got over not getting married again. Some women don't. She always took it
+as a reflection. There's no reflection to not getting married; my
+opinion is as there's a deal of things more important and most thing's
+more comfortable. If Mrs. Macy was married, she'd be much worse off than
+she is right now, for instead of being able to give her whole time and
+attention to whatever she's doing and looking over, she'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> be wondering
+what he was giving his time and attention to doing and prying into. When
+a man's out of your sight, you've always got to wonder, and most of the
+time that's all in the world you can do about a man. Now Mrs. Macy's
+perfectly independent, she can go where she pleases and come down when
+she pleases, and she hasn't got to tell what she saw unless she wants
+to. Mrs. Brown says she ain't never been nowhere. It's plain to be seen
+as Mrs. Brown's envying Mrs. Macy her trip."</p>
+
+<p>"But why&mdash;?" began Gran'ma Mullins with great determination.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it," replied Susan promptly. "I declare, I can't but wonder
+what'll happen next. I'm in that state that nothing will surprise me.
+Everything's so upset and off the track there's no use even trying to
+think. My walls is fell into my cistern, and Mrs. Macy's roof is sitting
+on the ground beside her house yet. The insurance men has sealed up
+Gran'ma Mullins' house, and they wouldn't leave the henhouse open till I
+signed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> a affidavit on behalf of the hens and released 'em from all
+claims for feed. Mr. Dill said they tried to seal up his cow. They've
+got Mr. Kimball's dried-apple machine tied with a rope. It's awful."</p>
+
+<p>"But Susan&mdash;" interrupted Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Weskins says the great difficulty is the insurance men say they
+don't see how anything is going to be settled or decided until we hear
+from Mrs. Macy. The point's right here. If she comes back, it's evidence
+as it was a tornado, because if she comes back it proves as she was
+carried off, in which case the insurance men won't have to pay nothing
+anyhow, and we'll all be unsealed and allowed to go to work putting our
+roofs back on our heads and clearing up as fast as we can. But Mr.
+Weskins says if Mrs. Macy don't come back, there'll be no way to prove
+as she was even carried off by the storm for you, Mrs. Lathrop, had your
+back turned; and you, Gran'ma Mullins, was under the roof; and I'm only
+one, and it takes two witnesses to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> prove anything as is contrary to law
+and nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they doubt&mdash;?" cried Mrs. Lathrop, quite excited&mdash;for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men don't take nothing
+for granted. They've decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy,
+and there's Mrs. Macy gone away to, heaven knows where."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins, "we must look on the bright side.
+Mrs. Macy'll have something to talk about as'll always interest
+everybody if she does come back, and if she don't come back, we'll
+always have her to remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and if we don't get our houses unstuck pretty soon, we'll remember
+her a long while," said Susan darkly.</p>
+
+<p>Three days passed by and no word was heard from Mrs. Macy. As soon as
+the telegraph assumed its usual route, messages were sent all about in
+the direction whither she had flown, but not a trace of her was
+discovered by any one. The town was very much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> wrought up, for although
+its members were given to having strange experiences, no experience so
+strange as this had ever happened there before. The exasperation of
+being barred out of house and home until Mrs. Macy should be found,
+naturally heightened the interest. Everybody had had just time to add
+the magic word "cyclone" to their policies before the cyclone came
+"damaging along"&mdash;as Susan Clegg expressed it. Susan was much perturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mrs. Lathrop,"&mdash;she said on the afternoon of the third day, as
+she came into the hotel room where the mother of the millionaire was now
+equal to her usual vigorous exercise in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you may well be grateful as Jathrop has got
+money enough for us to be living here, for the living of the community
+is getting to be no living a <i>tall</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Gran'ma Mullins, still in bed, turned herself about and manifested a
+vivid interest, "Well, Susan," she said, "it's three days now; how long
+is this going to keep up?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It can't keep up very much longer, or we'll have a new French
+Revolution, that's what we'll have," said Susan. "Why, the community is
+getting where it won't stand even being said good morning to pleasantly.
+The children is running all over, pulling each other's hair, and Deacon
+White says he's going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pass
+when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol, for he's just as afraid of one
+end as the other. But it's a straw as shows which way the cyclone blew
+his house."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't something&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the
+door of the insurance men's room this morning, and they fell in a heap
+when they started out; and some one as nobody can locate poured a
+pitcher of ice water through the ventilator as is over their bed. Seeing
+that public feeling is on the rise, they sent right after breakfast for
+the appraisers, and they're going to begin appraising and un-sealing
+to-morrow morning. They've entirely give up the idea of waiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> for
+Mrs. Macy. The town just won't stand for any more hanging around waiting
+for nothing. I never see us so before. Every one is so upset and divided
+in their feelings that some think we'd ought to horsewhip the insurance
+men, and some think we'd ought to hold a burial service for Mrs. Macy."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't see any good in holding a service for Mrs. Macy," said
+Gran'ma Mullins. "She wouldn't have been buried here if she was dead;
+she was always planning to go to Meadville when she was dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Susan, "I know. Because Mrs. Lupey's got that nice lot with
+that nice mausoleum as she bought from the Pennybackers when they got
+rich and moved even their great-grandfather to the city."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember the Pennybackers," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Old man
+Pennybacker used to drive a cart for rags. It was a great day for the
+Pennybackers when Joe went into the pawnbroker business."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Susan, "it's wonderful how rich men manage to get on when
+they're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> young. Seems as if there's just no way to crowd a millionaire
+out of business or kill him off. I'm always reading what they went
+through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a
+thing as when it's going to be is going to be, and you've just got to
+let 'em do it once they get started."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a nice mausoleum," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Mrs. Macy has told me
+about it a hundred times. It's so big, Mrs. Lupey says, she can live up
+to her hospitable nature at last, for there's room for all and to spare.
+Mrs. Macy was the first person she asked. Mrs. Macy thought that was
+very kind of just a cousin. There's only Mrs. Kitts there, now, and Mrs.
+Lupey's aunt, Mrs. Cogetts."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Macy didn't know she had a aunt," said Susan. "Mrs. Cogetts came
+way from Jacoma just on account of the mausoleum. That's a long ways to
+come just to save paying for a lot where you are, seems to me; but some
+natures'll go to any lengths to save money."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now," said Gran'ma Mullins, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows. A good many is decided that it's surely a clear case of
+Elijah, only nobody pretends to believe in the Bible so much as to think
+that she can go up and stay there. Mrs. Macy'd have to come down, and
+the higher she went the more heaven help her when she does come down.
+Mrs. Macy was very solid, as we all know who've heard her sit down or
+seen her get up, and I can't see no happy ending ahead, even though we
+all wish her well. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming
+back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure; but even insurance men
+can't have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view
+is as it's no use worrying. Spilt milk's a poor thing to cook with. If
+you're in the fire, you ain't in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is
+this community, as is all locked out of their houses. The Browns is
+living in the cellar to the cowshed, with two lengths of sidewalk laid
+over them. Mrs. Brown says she feels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> like a Pilgrim Father, and she
+sees why they got killed off so fast by the Indians,&mdash;it was so much
+easier to be scalped than to do your hair. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes
+turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change
+regular, for whoever turns over spills out, and the other one is sitting
+looking at the moon and waiting all ready to get in."</p>
+
+<p>"I declare, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins warmly, "I think it's most
+shocking. I won't say outrageous, but I will say shocking."</p>
+
+<p>"But what are you going to do about it?" said Susan. "That's the rub in
+this country. There's plenty as is shocking, but here we sit at the
+mercy of any cyclone or Congress as comes along. Here we was, peaceful,
+happy, and loving, and a cyclone swishes through. Down comes half a
+dozen men from the city and seals up everything in town. I tell you you
+ought to have heard me when they was sealing up your house and Mrs.
+Macy's. I give it to 'em, and I didn't mince matters none. I spoke my
+whole mind, and it was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> great satisfaction, but they went right on and
+sealed up the houses."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan," began Mrs. Lathrop, "how are&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"All in ruins," replied Susan promptly. "I don't believe you and me is
+ever going to live in happy homes any more. Fate seems dead set against
+the idea. And nobody can get ahead of Fate. They may talk all they
+please about overcoming, and when I was young I was always charging
+along with my horns down and my tail waving same as every other young
+thing; but I'm older now, and I see as resignation is the only thing as
+really pays in the end. I get as mad as ever, but I stay meek. I wanted
+to lam those insurance men with a stick of wood as was lying most handy,
+but all I did was to walk home. Mr. Shores says he's just the same way.
+We was talking it over this morning. He says when his wife first run off
+with his clerk, he was nigh to crazy; he says he thought getting along
+without a wife was going to just drive him out of his senses, and he
+said her taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> the clerk just seemed to add insult to perjury, but he
+says now, as he gets older, he finds having no wife a great comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Jathrop would&mdash;" sighed Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he will, likely enough," said Susan. "Now he's rich, some girl
+will snap him up, and he won't find how he's been fooled till three or
+four months after the wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Jathrop could marry just any one he pleased now," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, sighing in her turn. "Hiram didn't have no choice;
+Jathrop'll have a choice."</p>
+
+<p>"He may be none the better for that," said Susan darkly. "If Jathrop
+Lathrop is wise, he'll not go routing wildly around like a president
+after a elephant; he'll stick to what's tried and true. But I have my
+doubt as to Jathrop's being wise; very few men with money have any
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Who do <i>you</i> think&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop, looking intently at Susan.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know," said Susan, looking hard at Mrs. Lathrop; "far be it from
+me to judge."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They do say, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins wisely, "as he'll end up by
+marrying you. Everybody says so."</p>
+
+<p>Susan shook her head hard. "It's not for me to say. Affairs has been
+going on and off between Jathrop and me for too many years now for me to
+begin to discuss them. What is to be will be, and what isn't to be can't
+possibly be brought about."</p>
+
+<p>Gran'ma Mullins sighed again, and Mrs. Lathrop went on rocking. As she
+rocked, she viewed Susan Clegg from time to time in a speculative
+manner. It was many, many years since she had suggested to Susan the
+idea of marrying Jathrop.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It was the next morning that Mrs. Macy re-appeared on the scene. The
+insurance men had unsealed all the houses, and the result was her
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you could drown me for a new-born kitten, and I'd never open my
+eyes in surprise after <i>this</i>," Susan expounded to the friends at the
+hotel. "But Mrs. Macy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> always <i>was</i> peculiar; she was always give to
+adventures. To think of her living there as snug as a moth in a rug,
+cooking her meals on the little oil-stove&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But where&mdash;?" interposed Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm telling you. She's been sleeping in a good bed, too, and being
+perfectly comfortable while we've all been suffering along of waiting
+for her to come back."</p>
+
+<p>"But Susan&mdash;" cried Gran'ma Mullins, wide-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you where she was; she was in your house&mdash;that's where she
+was. The cyclone just gave her a lift over your woodshed, and then it
+set her down pretty quick. She says she came to earth like a piece of
+thistledown on the other side. Her story is as your back door was open,
+so she run in, and then it begun to rain, so she saw no reason for going
+out again. When it stopped raining, she looked out and seen nobody. That
+isn't surprising, for we wasn't there. She thought that it was strange
+not seeing any lights, but she started to go home, and she says <i>what</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+was her feelings when she fell over her own roof in the path. She says
+of all the strange sensations a perfectly respectable woman can possibly
+ever get to start to go home and fall over her own roof is surely the
+most singular. She says she was so sleepy she thought maybe she was
+dreaming, and not having any lantern, it was no use trying to
+investigate, so she just went back to your house and went to bed in my
+bed. She says she dreamed of Hiram's ears all night long. I'd completely
+forgot Hiram's ears, which is strange, for they was far and away the
+most amusing things in this community. I think that way he could turn
+'em about was so entertaining. That way he used to cock 'em at you
+always give him the air of paying so much attention. They say he never
+cocked 'em at Lucy but once&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my, that once!" exclaimed Gran'ma Mullins involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a sin and a shame for Lucy to choke Hiram's ears off like she
+did," Susan declared warmly. "She just seemed to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> all the courage
+right out of 'em. Hiram always reminded me of a black-and-tan as long as
+he had the free use of his ears, but after Lucy broke their backbone
+like she did, he never reminded me of much of nothing." Susan paused to
+sigh. Gran'ma Mullins wiped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You and Hiram give up to Lucy too much," said Susan. "I wish she'd
+married me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish she had, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I wouldn't wish to seem
+unkind to the wife of my born and wedded only son, but I do wish that
+she'd married you, and if Hiram could only see Lucy with a mother's
+clear blue eye, he'd wish it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, desiring to recur to the main object
+under discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she's gone straight over to Meadville," said Susan. "Oh, my, she
+says, but think of her feelings as she sat inside that nice, comfortable
+house and realized that she was the only person in town with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> roof
+over her head! You see, she heard me talking with the insurance men, and
+she didn't know why we was to be sealed up, but she got it all straight
+as we was going to be turned out of house and home, and she says she
+made up her mind as no one should ever know as she was in a house and so
+come capering up to put her out. She says she settled down as still as a
+mouse, made no smoke, and never lit so much as a candle nights. Mrs.
+Macy is surely most foxy!"</p>
+
+<p>"And she's gone to Meadville?" said Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she didn't want to pay board here, and her own house hasn't got no
+roof, so she's gone to Mrs. Lupey. Old Doctor Carter was over here to
+appraise the damage done to folks, and he took her back with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if she'll ever&mdash;" wondered Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know. If folks talk about a marriage long enough, it usually ends
+up that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> way. Doctor Carter and Mrs. Macy has been kind of jumping at
+each other and then running away for fifteen years or so. They say he'd
+like her money, but he hates to be bothered with her."</p>
+
+<p>"She wouldn't like to be bothered with him, either," said Gran'ma
+Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Susan. "That's what's making so few people like to get
+married nowadays. They don't want to be bothered with each other."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop fixed her little, black, beady eyes hard on Susan.</p>
+
+<p>Susan stared straight ahead.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sperrit can't stand it no longer, and she's going visiting,"
+announced Susan Clegg to the three friends who, seated together on Mrs.
+Macy's piazza, had been awaiting her return from down-town. Both Mrs.
+Macy and Gran'ma Mullins were now back in their own houses after the
+temporary absence due to the cyclone, and Mrs. Lathrop and she who might
+yet be her daughter-in-law were reëstablished as their paying guests.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I never knew that Mr. Sperrit was that kind of a man," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, opening her eyes very wide indeed. "I wouldn't say he's
+han'some, and I wouldn't say he's entertaining; but I always thought
+they got on well together."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He isn't that kind of a man a <i>tall</i>," rejoined Susan, who had been
+holding one hatpin in her mouth while she felt for the other, but now
+freed herself of both. "It's just that Mrs. Sperrit's sick of all this
+clutter of mending up after the cyclone. She says she's nervous for the
+first time in her life and has got to have a change. She says the
+carrying off of the barn and its never being heard from any more has got
+on her nerves somehow, even if it was only a barn. She says God forgive
+her and not to mention it to you, Mrs. Macy, but she wishes every hour
+of her life as the cyclone had took you and left their barn, because the
+barn had her sewing-machine in it, and she'd as leave be dead as be
+without that sewing-machine."</p>
+
+<p>"Where&mdash;?" mildly interpolated Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sperrit says wherever she likes. He's been upset by the barn too,
+because it had his tool-chest in it, and he's such a handy man with his
+tools that he feels for her in a way as not many women get felt for."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where does&mdash;?" began Gran'ma Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't know at first, but now she thinks she'll go and stay with
+her cousin. She hasn't had much to do with her cousin for years, and she
+says she feels as maybe the barn was a judgment. She never got along
+well with her cousin. She says her cousin was pretty, with curls, and
+she herself was freckled, with straight hair, and so it was only natural
+as she always hated her. I don't feel to blame her none, for curls is
+very hard on them as is born straight-haired. But there was more reasons
+than one for Mrs. Sperrit not to get along with her cousin, and she says
+it never was so much the curls as it was her not being practical. Mrs.
+Sperrit is practical, and she's always been practical, and her cousin
+wasn't. They didn't speak for years and years."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever set 'em at it again?" asked Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mrs. Sperrit says it come by degrees. She says she first noticed
+as her cousin was trying to make up about five years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> ago, but she
+thought she'd best wait and be sure. Mrs. Sperrit's practical; she don't
+never look in anywhere until she's leaped around the edge enough to know
+what she's doing. She says her cousin named her first boy Gringer, which
+is Mrs. Sperrit's family name; but then, it is the cousin's family name,
+too, so she didn't pay any attention to that. Then she named her first
+girl Eliza, which, as we know, is Mrs. Sperrit's own name, but seeing as
+it was the name of the grandmother of both of them, she didn't pay any
+attention to <i>that</i>, either. Then she named the second boy Sperrit,
+which was a little pointed, of course; and Mrs. Sperrit says if her
+cousin had been practical, she would certainly have thought that the
+Sperrits ought to have given the child something. But she wasn't and
+didn't, and they didn't. Then she named the second girl Azile&mdash;which is
+Eliza spelt backwards&mdash;and Mrs. Sperrit says it was the spelling of
+Eliza backwards as first showed her how awful friendly her cousin was
+trying to get to be. Then, when she named the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> third boy Jacob, after
+Mr. Sperrit, and the fourth boy Bocaj&mdash;which is Jacob spelled
+backwards&mdash;Mrs. Sperrit says that it was no use pretending not to see.
+Besides, naming the baby Bocaj just did go to her heart, particularly as
+the baby wasn't very strong, anyway. So since then the Sperrits has sent
+'em a turkey every Thanksgiving and a quarter apiece to the children
+every Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"What's she named the other children?" asked Mrs. Macy with real
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there ain't no more yet. Bocaj is only six months old."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then they ain't sent no turkey yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not yet, but when they begin, they'll keep it up steady. And now
+Mrs. Sperrit says she'll go and visit and see for herself how things
+are. She's not very hopeful of enjoying herself, for she says visiting a
+person as isn't practical is most difficult. She knows, because when she
+taught school, she used to board with a family as was that way. She says
+she kept the things she bought then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> and she shall take 'em all to her
+cousin's. She says when you stay with any one as isn't practical, you
+must take your own spirit-lamp, and teapot, and kettle, and tea, and
+matches, and a small blanket, and pen and ink, and a box of crackers,
+and a sharp knife, and some blank telegrams, and a good deal of
+court-plaster, and a teacup, and sugar if you take it, and a ball of
+good heavy string, and your own Bible, and a pillow. And never forget to
+wear your trunk-key round your neck, even if you only go down-stairs to
+look at the clock. She's got all those things left over from her
+school-teaching days. She says everything always comes in handy again
+some time if you're practical, and she thanks God she's practical."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that I should care to visit that way," said Gran'ma
+Mullins thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say I wouldn't, and I wouldn't say I
+couldn't, but I don't think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She's going Tuesday," continued Susan Clegg. "Mr. Sperrit says she can,
+and she's going Tuesday. She's written her cousin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> and her cousin's
+written her. Her cousin says they'll be too glad for words, and for her
+to stay till Christmas&mdash;or till Thanksgiving, anyway. Mrs. Sperrit says
+she won't do that, but she'll stay until the end of next week if she can
+stand her cousin's husband. She says she never had any use for her
+cousin's husband, because he isn't practical either, and when he was
+young, his tie was never on straight. Mrs. Sperrit says a man that wears
+his tie crooked when he's young is the kind to keep shy of later. She
+says he'll never have a pocket knife and borrow hers, and never have a
+pencil and borrow hers. And then, too, she's almost sure as by this time
+he's spoilt her cousin's temper; and visiting a cousin whose temper's
+spoilt wouldn't be fun, even if she was practical. Which this one
+ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"If her cousin's got a sharp tongue I&mdash;" began Gran'ma Mullins in quiet,
+sad reminiscence.</p>
+
+<p>"She was buying some wood alcohol and a cheap spoon at Mr. Kimball's,"
+Susan went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> on. "She took me in her buggy and drove me up to look at our
+houses, which is trying feebly to climb again to where they was before
+the cyclone. But they're a sorry sight. I don't know when we're ever
+going to get into them, I'm sure. I only wish Jathrop was to see how
+slow those carpenters can be." Then Miss Clegg's countenance assumed a
+coy expression, her eyes lowered bashfully, and her fingers nervously
+sought to touch between the buttons of her waist some treasured object
+hidden within. "I&mdash;I had a letter from him to-day."</p>
+
+<p>And at that all three listeners started in more or less violent
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that I can tell any one," said Susan serenely. "So it's no use
+asking me another word about it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sperrit left on Tuesday precisely and practically as she had
+planned; but she returned very much sooner than she had expected.</p>
+
+<p>"And no wonder," declared Susan, just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> back from the Sewing Society, to
+Mrs. Lathrop, who never went. "I should say it was no wonder. Well, Mrs.
+Sperrit has had an experience, and I guess no lost barn will ever lead
+her into looking up no more cousins after this."</p>
+
+<p>"She's so worn-looking," said Gran'ma Mullins, who had returned with
+Susan. "I wouldn't say white, and I wouldn't say worried, but I call it
+peaked."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she's been through enough to make a book," said Mrs. Macy, who had
+come in with the others, "&mdash;a book like <i>The Jungle</i>, as makes you right
+down sick in spots."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>The Jungle</i> isn't so bad," said Susan. "If it was, Roosevelt would
+have straightened it out soon enough when he was in it himself. But
+what's awful about Mrs. Sperrit is what she has suffered, for that woman
+certainly has suffered. She's a lesson once for all as to visiting. No
+one as hears her is ever going lightly visiting after this. She lost her
+trunk-key as soon as she landed in the house, and she says she was too
+took up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> to miss it for three days, which shows what kind of a time she
+had. Why, her cousin went right to bed as soon as she got there, because
+she said as she knowed that Mrs. Sperrit was practical and could do
+everything better than she could. So that was a nice beginning to begin
+with. Well, she says such a house you never see. The chickens come into
+the dining-room, and they was raising mud turtles in the bathtub, and
+caterpillars in the cake-box. The children was awful right from the
+start. She slept in the room with two of them, and they woke her up
+mornings playing shave with the ends of her braids. She found out as
+they dipped 'em first in the water pitcher and then in the tooth powder
+to make it like lather."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Jacob, who's only two and a half, ate mashed potatoes with his
+fingers, which is a thing, Mrs. Sperrit says, as must be seen to be
+believed, and they all just swum in jam from dawn to dark. She says she
+never see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> such children, anyway. Whenever anybody sat down, they'd play
+she was the Alps, and go back and forth over her wherever they could get
+a purchase. And she says&mdash;would you believe it?&mdash;her cousin is got to be
+so calm that it drives you out of your senses only to see the way she
+takes things. Mrs. Sperrit says all she can say is as when a woman as
+isn't practical does go to bed, she's resigned to that degree that you
+wish you could blow her up with dynamite if only to see her move quick
+just once."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't she come home?" asked Mrs. Macy. "My view would be as I'd
+come home. I said so to her to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"She did come home, didn't she?" said Miss Clegg. "You heard her, and
+you know she's home. It's Mrs. Lathrop as all this is new to, isn't it?
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it would go to your heart to hear what happened to
+all those little conveniences as she took. There wasn't no sharp knife
+in the house but hers, so she never see hers after she unpacked it.
+There wasn't no string<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> or court-plaster either, so they disappeared
+too. Then they run out of tea the minute they see she brought some, and
+not being practical, her cousin's teapot naturally didn't have no nose,
+so she lost her teapot, too. The whole family took her hairbrush and
+used it for a clothes brush, and she thinks for a shoe brush when she
+was down-town. Her cousin wore her stockings and her collars, and her
+cousin's husband slept on the pillow with the blanket folded around him.
+Not being practical, he liked his feet free."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I nev&mdash;!" ejaculated Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sperrit said by the third day she had to begin to do something, so
+she asked if she could clean her own room, and her cousin said she was
+going to let her make herself happy in her own way and just to go ahead
+and clean the whole house if she liked. So she went to work and cleaned
+the whole house, and she says such a house she never dreamed could
+exist. She found families of mice, and families of swallows, and
+families of moths. She found things as had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> lost for years, and
+they was wild with delight to see 'em again. She found things as, she
+says, she wouldn't like to say she found, because when all's said and
+done a cousin is still a cousin, but she says&mdash;Good lands, what she
+found! Well, she says when she got the house cleaned, her cousin was
+still in bed, so she took heart of grace and asked if she might teach
+the children to mind. Her cousin said she didn't care, so Mrs. Sperrit
+went to work on those six children. Well, she says that was a job, and
+it was that as led to her coming away like she did. She says the
+children was the very worst children anybody ever saw. She says she
+taught school, and she thought she knew children, but anything like
+those children nobody&mdash;even those as is chock full of things not fit to
+eat&mdash;could ever by any possibility of dreamed of. Why, she says they was
+used to heating the poker and jabbing one another with it when mad; and
+while you was leaning down to tie your shoe, they'd snatch your chair
+away from behind you, and such games. But Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Sperrit is practical,
+and she believes in her Bible, and she thought as how the Lord had
+delivered them into her hands and set to work. She said she begun by
+washing them all&mdash;for they was always slippery from jam. And then she
+cut their nails very short and started in. Well, she says it was some
+work, for they was so funny she could hardly keep from laughing. She
+says they're mighty bright children&mdash;she must say that for 'em, although
+it don't soften her feelings a mite towards 'em. Well, she says you
+couldn't do nothing a <i>tall</i> with 'em. But she didn't lose courage. When
+she talked serious, they took it as a great joke, and she had to stop
+for meals so often that it used her all up; for she says such steady
+eating she never see. She says the meals was most terrible, too, as they
+always had herring, and of course the bones made so much picking that
+the children kept telling her she ate with her fingers, herself. She
+says that was the most awful part, the way they talked back. But she
+didn't despair. She kept washing them out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> of the jam and taking a fresh
+cut at their nails, until finally come the last hour of wrath. And then,
+she says, they did make her mad&mdash;good and mad."</p>
+
+<p>"But what did&mdash;?" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, seems the worst child was 'Zile. Of course, Mrs. Sperrit, having
+taught school, thought they'd pronounce it like Azalea, and make a real
+pretty name out of Eliza spelt backwards, but seems they dropped the A
+and just called her 'Zile to rhyme with file; and Mrs. Sperrit says she
+rhymed with file all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Susan," urged Mrs. Macy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the cousin and the husband was invited to go on a all-day
+excursion, so the cousin got up and dressed and went. She said she might
+as well, seeing as Mrs. Sperrit was there with the children. When they
+was gone, Mrs. Sperrit made up her mind as now was her chance to bring
+those children to time, once and for all. So she rolled up her sleeves
+and give 'em all a good bath&mdash;for she says the way they'd get freshly
+jammed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> was most astonishing&mdash;and then she went up-stairs to get her
+scissors to cut their nails. She was opening her trunk to get out the
+scissors when she heard a click. Well, when she run to the door, what do
+you suppose? She found they'd locked her in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe you can imagine her feelings! She says she was never so mad
+in all her life. She called through the door, but not a sound. There was
+a crack big enough to put your hand through under the door, and she
+tried to look through it, but it wasn't high enough to put your eye to.
+Then she heard a shout and run to the window. There they all was, out on
+the grass in front,&mdash;all but Bocaj, who was asleep in his cradle
+down-stairs. Well, such doings! She says 'Zile, who was always full of
+ideas, was just outstripping herself in ideas this time. They had a old
+pair of scissors, and first they went to work for half an hour cutting
+each other's hair. She says you can maybe think of her feelings in the
+upper window, left in charge of 'em, with full permission to whip 'em
+if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> necessary, and having to sit and watch 'em trim each other anyway
+the notion hit 'em. She says tying a man to a tree while cannibals eat
+up his family is the only thing as would express it a <i>tall</i>. After they
+got done cutting hair, they went in and got a pot of jam and brought it
+out and sat down in full sight and eat jam with their fingers till there
+was no more jam. She says she'd stopped calling things to 'em by that
+time and was just sitting quietly in the window, thanking God for every
+minute as they stayed where she could see what they was doing. But when
+they had finished the jam, they went in the house and was so deathly
+quiet she was scared to fits. She thought maybe they was setting fire to
+something. But after a while they begun to bang on the piano, and when
+she was half crazy over the noise, she looked towards the door, and
+there was the key poked under. She made a jump for the key, and it was
+jerked back by a piece of string. And her own string at that. Then she
+was called to the window by Gringer yelling, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> while she was trying
+to hear what he had to say&mdash;the piano jangling worse than ever&mdash;they
+opened the door suddenly and bundled Bocaj into the room and then locked
+the door again.</p>
+
+<p>"The baby was just woke up and hungry, and it was a pretty kettle of
+fish. She says she made up her mind then and there to quit that house
+and adopt Bocaj. She says she saw as there was no use trying to reform
+the rest; but Bocaj was so little and helpless, and nothing in her heart
+made her feel as he couldn't be raised to be practical. She went to work
+and fed him crackers soaked in boiling water while she packed her trunk.
+And when her cousin came home, she was sitting with her bonnet on ready
+to go. Her cousin just naturally felt awful. She wanted to call it a
+joke; but Mrs. Sperrit is a woman whose feelings isn't lightly took in
+vain. She left, and she took Bocaj with her. She telegraphed Mr.
+Sperrit, and he met her at the train. He was some disappointed because
+he'd forgotten about the baby's name and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> thought from reading it in the
+telegraph that she was bringing back a monkey. Seems Mr. Sperrit has
+always wanted a monkey, and she wouldn't have one. But now she says he
+can have a monkey or anything else, if he'll only stay practical. She
+says she doesn't believe she could ever live with any one as wasn't
+practical, after this experience."</p>
+
+<p>Susan paused, Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma Mullins rose to go to their kitchens
+and get suppers for their guests. When they had gone, Susan, having Mrs.
+Lathrop alone, eased a troubled conscience.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she confided, "do you remember me saying the other
+evening I'd had a letter from Jathrop?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop suddenly stopped rocking. "Yes&mdash;yes, Susan," she answered
+eagerly. "I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I didn't have one. It was just as everybody in this community has
+got their minds fixed on Jathrop's being wild about me, so I felt to
+mention a letter, and I shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> go on mentioning getting a letter from
+him whenever the spirit moves me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Susan&mdash;!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't hurt him a <i>tall</i>," said Susan Clegg with calm decision,
+"and it saves me from being asked questions. And you know as well as I
+do, Mrs. Lathrop, that I can have him if I want him."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop sat open-mouthed, dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't have him, it'll be because I don't want him," added Miss
+Clegg with dignity. "So it's no use your saying one other word, Mrs.
+Lathrop."</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Lathrop, thus adjured, refrained from further speech.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Far be it from me, Mrs. Lathrop," said Susan Clegg, returning from an
+early errand down-town and dropping in at Mrs. Macy's to find her friend
+still in her own room and rocking in her old-gold stationary rocker. It
+was now autumn, and to take the chill off the room an oil burner was
+brightly ablaze. "Far be it from me to say anything disrespectful of
+such a good Samaritan as your son Jathrop, but as we have it in the
+scriptures, he certainly does move in a mysterious way his neighbors to
+inform. It's mighty good of him to go to all the expense of building
+over my house in a way I'd never in this wide world have had it if I
+could 'a' understood those plans of that boy architect, and it may
+be&mdash;providing we escape<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> earthquake, fire, blood, and famine&mdash;that I'll
+get into it once more before next summer, notwithstanding it's all of
+two months behind yours, you being his mother, Mrs. Lathrop, and me only
+your friend. But a early frost is sure to crack the plaster, and, seeing
+as the glass blowers has gone on a strike, there's no telling when
+they'll blow the panes for the windows. Just the same, kind and good as
+Jathrop is, he might have had more consideration for me as would this
+day have been his wife, if I'd felt to answer him with a three-letter
+word instead of a two, than to put me on the pillar of scorn before a
+community as has known me always as a scrupulous lover of the voracious
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop, in mild astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," continued Susan, with growing indignation. "Jathrop has
+done his best to make me out a liar, and I don't know as I'll ever be
+able to hold my head up again. He's struck me in the tenderest spot he
+could strike me in, and not boldly neither, but in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> skulking,
+underhand way that makes it all the bitterer pill to swallow."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see&mdash;" objected Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nor me neither. But he did, and in no time everybody'll know it
+from Johnny, at the station, to Mrs. Lupey in Meadville, not forgettin'
+the poor demented over to the insane asylum. And it all comes of those
+letters I have been getting from Jathrop during the summer."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know and you know there was no letters a <i>tall</i>. But everybody
+else, except you and me and the postmaster, believed I had a letter
+regular every week. Whenever I run short of subjects at the Sewing
+Society, I just fell back on my last letter from Jathrop and told them
+all about what he was doing in those islands. I'd read the book he sent,
+and I'd read it to good profit. There was some things as I didn't quite
+understand, of course, but on them I just put my own interpretations,
+and knowing Jathrop as I did, it was easy enough for me to figure out
+how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> he'd be most likely to act in a strange, barbaric land. The book
+didn't have a word to say about the costumes of the native tribes, but
+I'm not so ignorant as not to know how those South Sea Islanders never
+wear nothing more hamperin' than sea-shell earrings and necklaces of
+sharks' teeth; and I'd read, too, that foreign visitors, on account of
+the unbearable heat, was in the habit of adoptin' the native fashions in
+dress. When you get started makin' things up, there's no knowing just
+where you're likely as to end. It's so easy to go straight ahead and say
+just whatever you please that seems in any way interesting. And so, when
+Mrs. Fisher asked me one day whether I supposed there was any cannibals
+there, I said there was one cannibal tribe that was most ferocious and
+had appetites that there was no such thing as quenchin'. I said that in
+Jathrop's last letter he had written me about how this tribe had
+captured the cook off the yacht and that when they finally found his
+captors and defeated them in a desperate battle lasting three days,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> all
+that was found of the cook was two chicken croquettes."</p>
+
+<p>"For gra&mdash;!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what Mrs. Fisher said. Of course, with the cook eat up&mdash;all but
+what was in the two croquettes, that is,&mdash;Jathrop and his millionaire
+friends was a good deal put about. There wasn't a one of 'em as knew the
+first thing about cooking, and after the exercise of the three days'
+battle they was most awful hungry. And then, I says, quoting from the
+letter from Jathrop which never came, they had a piece of real luck,
+just as millionaires is always having. They had taken one prisoner, and
+by means of signs, not knowin' a word of the cannibal language, they
+discovered that the prisoner was the cook of the tribe. He pointed to
+the croquettes as a example of his handiwork, and Jathrop said that he
+never saw anything in the cookin' line that looked more toothsome than
+they did. So, of course they engaged the cannibal cook on the spot and
+carried him back to the yacht with 'em. Everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> went well for a few
+days, but on a day when they had invited the chief of a friendly tribe
+to dinner, there was something as aroused their suspicions. The
+principal dish for the feast was, so far as they could make out from the
+cook's sign-language, a savory rabbit stew. Now as they had never seen
+or heard tell of a rabbit in the Bahamas, they was naturally curious to
+learn where the cook had managed to dig it up. He either couldn't or
+wouldn't tell. I says that Jathrop says you might 'a' thought that the
+cook was a thirty-second degree mason and that the origin of the rabbit
+was a thirty-second degree masonic secret. The millionaires gathered in
+council and discussed the question, pro and con, from every obtainable
+or imaginable angle. Then, just as they were about to adjourn without
+having reached any conclusion whatever, they rang for the cabin boy to
+fetch some liquid refreshment. But there wasn't no answer. And they
+might 'a' been ringing yet as to any good it would do. They never did
+see that cabin boy, and the only one to eat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> the savory rabbit stew was
+the visiting chief."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't&mdash;" observed Mrs. Lathrop, rocking faster.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you're right about that," Susan confirmed,
+loosening her shawl, for the oil-stove was rapidly lifting the room's
+temperature. "I don't see, myself, why anybody should ever have known
+any better, and nobody would have, if it hadn't been as Jathrop took it
+into his head to talk to a newspaper man at Atlantic City on about the
+same day as I had him missing the cabin boy and refusing a helping to
+the rabbit stew. Mr. Kimball showed me the paper as came from New York
+wrapped around a new ledger he just received by express. The reporter
+had written two columns and over about the 'Klondike Bonanza King,' and
+if Jathrop had set his mind to makin' me out a Ananias and a Saphira
+boiled into one, he couldn't have succeeded better. He hasn't been in
+the Bahamas a <i>tall</i>. The yacht started for there, but it went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> to Cuba
+instead, and he and his friends only stayed in Cuba a week. From there
+they went down to Panama and looked over the canal as far as it's gone.
+They spent the summer sailin' from one summer resort to another, and I
+must say I should think there was better ways of passin' the time than
+that. When it comes to eatin', I'd about as leave eat the dishes of a
+cannibal cook as eat things made of the salt water that people go
+bathin' in, and that's what they do at Atlantic City. The minister
+showed me some candy 'Liza Em'ly sent him from Atlantic City in July,
+and I know what I'm talkin' about, for it was printed on the paper
+around each piece. 'Salt-water Taffy.' Think of that! It's plain to be
+seen that they ain't got any fresh water there, or they wouldn't use
+salt. Jathrop and the other millionaires, I suppose, drink nothin' but
+wine, but the poor folks must drink salt water or go thirsty. I suppose
+it saves salt in seasonin', but I'd rather have my vituals unseasoned
+than have 'em salted with water that folks has swum in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> They certainly
+ain't got no enterprise, that's sure. If they had they'd pipe
+water&mdash;fresh water&mdash;from somewheres. And if there's no place near enough
+to pipe it from, they'd build cisterns. But water's not the only thing
+as shows their shiftlessness. Our town isn't exactly a metropolis, but
+we got a few cement sidewalks. Atlantic City ain't got a one. I heard
+about that long ago. And in these days of progress, too! Nothing but a
+board walk on its principal street&mdash;nothing a <i>tall</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What did&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"He said a good deal more'n his prayers, I can tell you that. He said
+his object in going to the Bahamas, to which he never went, after all,
+was to look into the possibility of securin' a large tract of land there
+for the cultivation and growth of sisal. Now what under the sun would
+you suppose sisal was? I saw in the book that sisal was being grown in
+increasing quantities in the islands, and I just naturally supposed it
+was some sort of animal. It might of been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> buffalo, or it might of been
+guinea pigs, but when I spoke at the Sewing Society of how Jathrop had
+mentioned the great number of sisal, and Mrs. Allen says: 'What is
+sisal?' I just right then and there on the spur of the minute says:
+'Why, don't you know? Sisal is a sort of small oxen striped like a zebra
+and spotted like a leopard.' And would you believe it, Mrs. Lathrop,
+when Mr. Kimball asked me that same question to-day, I said the very
+same thing&mdash;small oxen striped like a zebra and spotted like a leopard.
+'That's what Mrs. Allen told me you said, Miss Clegg,' says he, 'but
+accordin' to the paper, Jathrop Lathrop don't quite agree with you.' I
+don't know, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, why Jathrop should take
+pleasure in making me appear like a ignoramus, but there ain't no
+question about it that that's what he did when he gave that interview to
+that there reporter. 'What kind of animal is a sisal, then, Mr.
+Kimball?' I asked, and you can believe me my blood was boilin' in my
+veins. 'It ain't no animal a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> <i>tall</i>,' he says. 'It's hemp what they
+make ropes out of to hang murderers with. And the seeds they feed
+canaries on.' 'Well,' I says, 'that may be the reporter's sisal, but it
+ain't mine, and it ain't Jathrop's. The newspapers never get nothin'
+right nohow, but when it comes to reducin' cattle into rope and
+birdseed, they are certainly goin' one better on the Chicago pork
+packers.' In all my life I have never been a respecter of the untruth,
+but I know enough on the subject to tell a good lie when necessity calls
+upon me and to stick to it as long as it has an eyelid to hang by. But I
+will say this for your son Jathrop, Mrs. Lathrop, and that is that
+before he got done with that reporter, he didn't leave so much as a
+eyelash, let alone a lid. It wasn't only that he'd never been to those
+islands a <i>tall</i>, and I'd been tellin' everybody in town as how I'd had
+a letter from him there every week the whole summer through, but he must
+air his acquaintance with things on the islands just as if he'd been
+born and raised there. And it seems there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> ain't no natives within miles
+of the Bahamas, and hasn't been since Columbus and his people was there,
+goin' on fifteen hundred years ago. Columbus told 'em that he'd take 'em
+to the land where all their dead relatives and friends had gone to, a
+land flowin' with milk and honey, and he kept his word. Seems he shipped
+every last mother's son and daughter of 'em back to Spain with him, and
+left the islands bare for the next comers. It may have appeared a rather
+roundabout way for the native Bahamians to reach heaven and their
+departed folks, seeing as it led through hard work in the Spanish mines,
+but there ain't no question whatever that they every one got there in
+the end."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;" suggested Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that unless Lathrop or the reporter made it up, or the pair of
+'em together, that nobody lives there now except whites and blacks, and
+there's not enough whites to make a nice shepherd's plaid out of the
+combination. But savagery, except for pirates, has never had any place
+there, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> cannibalism is absolutely unknown. It's all very
+humiliating, and it'd 'a' been much better to let people ask me and
+never said nothing back a <i>tall</i>. When people is in the dark, they've
+got to imagine for themselves, and as long as they don't tell what they
+imagine to others, no piece in a newspaper can never make 'em blush. I
+can tell you it's learnt me a lesson as I won't soon forget. I'll never
+get over the way Mr. Kimball looked at me when he said as how sisal was
+hemp; and me thinking all the time it was a animal when it was a herb.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it's a ill wind that don't chill the shorn lamb. I'm
+that chilled that I feel I never shall talk again. I'll never say black
+is black or white is white until I've looked at the color twice with my
+glasses on. Accuracy is the best policy, I says, from this day
+henceforth."</p>
+
+<p>"You might&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, too. I might have known that it didn't sound true to be
+getting letters every week from a man who went away to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> the Klondike and
+never sent his mother so much as a picture postal card in all the years
+he was there. But then, too, you've got to consider the kind of folks as
+you're telling things to, and with all due respect to the ladies of the
+Sewing Society, from Mrs. Allen to Gran'ma Mullins, they're not
+over-burdened with the kind of intellect as can add two and two and get
+the same answer twice in succession. There wasn't a one of 'em as
+thought of that, or they'd 'a' said it straight out, without once
+considering my feelings. And I'll say this much for you, Mrs. Lathrop:
+you're not the best housekeeper I ever see, and you're about a match for
+Mrs. Sperrit's cousin when it comes to being practical, but you have got
+some brains, and I'd no more think of trying to deceive you than I'd
+think of trying to deceive Judge Fitch when he'd got a big retainer to
+get the truth out of me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop leaned down and turned out the oil burner.</p>
+
+<p>"Was that&mdash;?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, it wasn't all. There was something else that has set me all of a
+flutter. If it wasn't as you never can tell whether a newspaper is
+voracious or just bearing false witness, I'd certainly feel as if
+Jathrop was playing fast and loose with my affections. I can remember,
+and you can remember, too, when the freedom of the press didn't mean
+freedom to make a Pike's Peak out of a ant hill. But in these days
+there's no telling whether, when we read of a poor soul being attacked
+by a wild beast, it's a jungle tiger or just a pet yellow kitten. Folks
+would rather read about the tiger than the kitten, and so the papers
+give 'em what they want without any regard for the real facts a <i>tall</i>.
+Elijah Doxey, who's a real editor if there ever was one, and knows all
+about the paper business, says that the newspaper, like everything else,
+has to keep abreast of the times or go to the wall, and that since
+people in these days 'ld rather read fiction than history, it stands to
+reason a paper can't stand in its own light by sticking always to cold
+commonplace facts."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did the&mdash;?" Mrs. Lathrop attempted mildly to question.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop. But the interview
+with Jathrop wasn't all interview, by no means. It said a lot about his
+party, and it mentioned each of the millionaires as was in it. Seems the
+interview was given on one of those Atlantic City board walks, and it
+was given&mdash;from what on earth do you think, Mrs. Lathrop? From a wheel
+chair. Jathrop in a wheel chair! Think of that! And not alone, either.
+'Beside him,' wrote the interviewer, 'was the beautiful, dark-eyed Cuban
+señora who, rumor says, is soon to become his bride.' My lands! If it
+hadn't been for Mr. Kimball's apple barrel, I certainly would have
+dropped. It would 'a' been bad enough if they was both strong and well,
+but to think of Jathrop being too weak to walk and going to marry a
+foreigner no more robust than himself. You can't imagine the shock it
+give me. For a minute I was clean speechless, and I'd 'a' been dumb yet,
+I do believe, if it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> wasn't as I begun to figure things out in my head
+and got sight of a ray of hope. Just as like as not, I says, Jathrop was
+suffering from the sudden change of climate,&mdash;from the Klondike to Cuba
+seems to me a pretty rigorous switch for any constitution,&mdash;and the
+Cuban woman was more'n likely his trained nurse fetched from the island.
+Either that or the woman was just recovering from a illness, and Jathrop
+got in to ride with her out of pure kindness of heart. Then, too, I
+remembered that: 'rumor says,' and cheered right up. Rumor never told
+the truth yet, as far as I know, and it's not in reason to believe the
+shameless thing is going to reform in these degenerate days. Jathrop may
+be going to marry the señora, I don't say he isn't, and I don't say he
+is. But before I believe it, I've got to have some better authority than
+what rumor says. He's steered clear of wives in the Klondike, and he's
+steered clear of 'em in other places, and I don't see as there's any
+reason to think his steering apparatus come to grief while he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> was in
+Cuba. 'How's Susan Clegg?' That was what he wrote in the first letter
+you'd had from him in a dog's age, Mrs. Lathrop, and it showed pretty
+clear to me who he was thinking of while engaged in the steering
+operation."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think&mdash;" Mrs. Lathrop began distressfully.</p>
+
+<p>"No man as was seriously sick, Mrs. Lathrop, ever talked two whole long
+newspaper columns to a reporter. You can bank on that. He was well
+enough to make me out the king of prevaricators, and it took some
+strength and a good deal of attention to small details to do it, and as
+the Cuban señora never said one word in all that time, I can't think as
+she is cutting any figure eights in his affairs. Consequently, I don't
+believe it'll pay either of us to do any great lot of worrying."</p>
+
+<p>"If&mdash;" Mrs. Lathrop attempted once more to interpolate.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I told Mr. Kimball. 'If Mrs. Lathrop could only see
+this paper,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> I says, 'I know she'd be delighted.' It stands to reason
+as a mother must be proud of a son who, after having no more sense than
+to take a kicking cow for a bad debt, goes to the Klondike and comes
+back a millionaire; but it stands to reason, too, that she'd be more
+proud of him to get two columns of free advertising in a New York paper
+that can sell its columns to the department stores for real money. Well,
+I asked him for the paper just to show you, and though he didn't feel to
+part with it, just the same he did in the end, and I carried it away in
+triumph."</p>
+
+<p>"You've brought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Lathrop, more sorry
+than I am to disappoint Mr. Kimball in not being able to return it, but
+the truth is I lost it on the way home."</p>
+
+<p>"Lost&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Every last scrap of it. And I can't say as it was altogether accidental
+either. As Shakespeare says: 'Self-protection is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> best part of
+valor.' If that paper was ever to get before the Sewing Society, my
+character would be stripped off me to the last rag. Mr. Kimball can say
+what was in it, but without the paper itself, he'll have a hard time
+proving anything, and my word when it comes to a dispute is as good as
+his and a thousand times better."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop leaned forward and for a moment stopped rocking.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;" she said quietly but tensely.</p>
+
+<p>"Tore it into small bits," returned Susan, rising, "and scattered them
+to the winds of heaven. There's a paper trail all the way from the
+square to Mrs. Macy's gate."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop resumed her rocking and relapsed into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Clegg, laying her finger to her lips as a parting warning, went
+quietly out.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Well," said Miss Clegg to her dear friend in the early fall of that
+same year, while they still waited under alien roofs the completion of
+their own made-over houses, "the men who write the Sunday papers and say
+that when you look at the world with a impartial eye in this century you
+can't but have hopes of women some day developing into something, surely
+would know they spoke the truth if they could see Elijah Doxey now."</p>
+
+<p>"But Eli&mdash;" expostulated Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not. But 'Liza Em'ly is, and it's her I'm talking about.
+She was up to see me this afternoon, and she says she'll spare no money
+nowhere. The trained nurse is to stay with him right along forever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> if
+he likes, and the two can have her automobile and ride or walk or do
+anything, without thinking once what it costs. There was a doctor up
+from the city again yesterday, and that makes four visits at a hundred a
+visit. But 'Liza Em'ly says even if Elijah hadn't anything of his own,
+she'd pay all the bills sooner'n think anything that could be done was
+being left out. It's a pretty sad case, Mrs. Lathrop, and this last
+doctor says he never see a sadder. He said nothing more could be done
+right now, for there really is nothing in this community to remind
+Elijah that he ever wrote a play, if they only could get those clippings
+from the newspapers away from him. But that's just what they can't do.
+He keeps looking them over, and then such a look of agony comes into his
+eyes,&mdash;and Elijah was never one to bear pain as you must know,
+remembering him with the colic,&mdash;and he clasps his hands and shakes his
+head, and&mdash;well, Mrs. Lathrop, Elijah just wasn't strong enough to write
+a play, and some one as was stronger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> ought to of restrained him right
+in the first of it."</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;" said Mrs. Lathrop pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's it," confirmed Susan, "and oh, it's awful to take a bright
+young promising life like his and wreck it completely like that! To see
+Elijah walking about with a trained nurse and those clippings at his age
+is surely one of the most touching sights as this town'll ever see.
+'Liza Em'ly says she offered a thousand dollars to any newspaper as
+would print one good notice, 'cause the doctors say just one good notice
+might turn the whole tide of his brain. But the newspapers say if they
+printed one good notice of such a play, the Pure Food Commission would
+have 'em up for libel within a week, and they just don't dare risk it.
+This last doctor says he can't blame Elijah for going mad, 'cause he
+knows a little about the stage through being in love with a actress
+once, and he says he wasn't treated fair. He says play-writing is not
+like any other kind of writing, and Elijah wasn't prepared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> for the
+great difference. Seems all words on the stage mean something they don't
+mean in the dictionary, and that makes it very hard for a mere ordinary
+person to know what they're saying if they say anything a <i>tall</i>. And
+then, too, Elijah never grasped that the main thing is to keep the
+gallery laughing, even if the two-dollar people have tears running down
+their cheeks. And you can't write for the stage nowadays without you
+keep folks laughing the whole time. Elijah never thought about the
+laughing, because his play was a tragedy like <i>Hamlet</i>, only with Hamlet
+left out. For the lady is dead in the play, and her ghost is all that's
+left of her. But 'Liza Em'ly told me to-day as his trouble came right in
+the start, for the people who look plays over no sooner looked Elijah's
+over before they took hold of it and fixed it. And they kept on fixing
+it till it was <i>Hamlet</i> with nobody but Hamlet left in. And then, so as
+to manage the laughs, they dressed everybody like chickens if they
+turned back-to. So that while the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> audience was weeping, if any one on
+the stage turned 'round, they went off into shrieks of laughter. 'Liza
+Em'ly says they never told Elijah about the chicken feathers, and the
+opening night was the first he knew about that little game, for he was
+laid up for ever so long before then. He got all used up in the first
+part of the rehearsals; for it seems you can only have a theater to
+rehearse in at times when even the people who sweep it don't feel to be
+sweeping. And so they always rehearse from one to six in the morning.
+And Elijah naturally wasn't used to that. But they'd had trouble even
+before then; for right from the start there was a pretty how-d'ye-do
+over the plot. Seems Elijah wanted his own plot and his own people in
+his own play, and they had a awful time getting it through his head as
+it's honor enough to have your own play, and it's only unreasonable to
+stick out for your own plot and your own people too. 'Liza Em'ly says
+they had a awful time with him over it all, and there was a time when he
+felt so bad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> over giving up his plot and his people that any one ought
+to have seen right there as he'd never be strong enough to stand all the
+rest of what was surely coming. 'Liza Em'ly didn't tell me the whole of
+the rest what come, but Mr. Kimball told me that what was one great
+strain on Elijah, right through to the hour he begun to scream, was that
+the leading lady fell in love with him and used to have him up at all
+hours to fix up her part, and then kiss him. And Elijah didn't want to
+fix up her part, and he hated to be kissed. But they told him the part
+must be fixed up to suit her, and that the kisses didn't matter, because
+they was only little things after all.</p>
+
+<p>"He was wading along through the mire as best he could, when all of a
+sudden it come out as she had one husband as she'd completely overlooked
+and never divorced. He turned up most unexpectedly and come at Elijah
+about the kisses. Then they told Elijah he couldn't do a better thing by
+his play than to let the man shoot him two or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> three times in places as
+would let him be carried pale and white to a box for the opening night;
+and then, between the last two acts, marry the lady and let it be in all
+the morning papers. You can maybe think, Mrs. Lathrop, how such a idea
+would come to the man as is to be shot. But, oh, my, they didn't make
+nothing of Elijah's feelings in the matter. Nothing a <i>tall</i>. They just
+set right to work and called a meeting of the play manager and the stage
+manager and the leading lady's manager and Elijah's manager, and the man
+who really does the managing. They all got together, and they drew up a
+diagram as to where Elijah was to be hit, and a contract for him and the
+leading lady to sign as they wouldn't marry anybody else in the
+meantime. And if it hadn't been for 'Liza Em'ly, the deal, as they
+called it, would have gone straight through. For Elijah was so dead beat
+by this time that about all he was fit for was to sit on a electric
+battery with a ice bag on his head, and look up words in a stage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+dictionary and then cross 'em out of his play."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I&mdash;" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what 'Liza Em'ly said she said," rejoined Susan Clegg. "I
+tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'Liza Em'ly is no fool since her book's gone
+into the thirty-seventh edition, and that's a fact. She told me to-day
+as when she realized the man she loved&mdash;for 'Liza Em'ly really loves
+Elijah; any one can see that just by looking at the trained nurse she's
+got him&mdash;was being murdered alive, she went straight up and took a hand
+in the matter herself. I guess she had a pretty hard time, for the
+leading lady wouldn't hear to changing any of what they call the
+routing, and said if Elijah wasn't shot and married according to the
+signed agreement, she wouldn't play. And when a leading lady won't play,
+then is when you find out what Shakespeare really did write for,
+according to 'Liza Em'ly. For a little they was all running this way and
+that way, just beside themselves, with the leading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> lady in the
+Adirondacks and two detectives watching her husband. And the man as was
+painting the scenery took a overdose of chloral and went off with all
+his ideas in his head, and that unexpected trouble brought 'em all
+together again. The husband came down off his high horse and said he'd
+take five per cent, of the net&mdash;Don't ask me what that means, for Mr.
+Dill don't know either&mdash;and the littlest chorus girl and go to Europe.
+And he said, too, as he'd sign a paper first releasing Elijah from all
+claim on account of his wife. So they all signed, and he sailed. He was
+clear out to sea before they discovered as he had another wife as he'd
+never divorced, so the leading lady could of married Elijah, after all.
+Well, that was a pretty mess, with a husband as had no claim on nobody
+gone off to Europe with five percent of the net. The stage manager and
+Elijah's manager took the <i>Mauretania</i> and started right after him, for
+when it comes to five per cent. on any kind of stage thing, Mr. Kimball
+says, any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> monkeying counts up so quick that even hiring a yacht is
+nothing if you want to catch that five per cent. in time. So they was
+off, one in the captain's room and the other in the bridal suite, while
+'Liza Em'ly was down in Savannah getting local color to patch up the
+scenery, leaving Elijah totally unprotected on his battery with his
+ideas.</p>
+
+<p>"But Elijah wasn't to be left in peace even now. Seems they was having a
+investigation into the poor quality of the electricity in the city, and
+a newspaper opened a referendum and made 'em double the power. The
+company was so mad, they didn't give no warning to a soul, but just slid
+up the needle from 100 to 200 right then and there; and one of the
+results was they blew Elijah nearly through the ceiling. Nothing in the
+world but the ice bag saved him from having his skull caved in, and the
+specialist thinks he's got a concussion in his sinus right now. Poor
+Elijah!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;?" Mrs. Lathrop queried.</p>
+
+<p>"They took him to the hospital, and from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> then on to the opening night
+he had nothing to do with his own play. The leading lady married the
+stage manager till she got the stage to suit her, and then she married
+the man who really does the managing until she got everything else to
+suit her. Next, without letting any of the others know, she married
+Elijah's manager secretly, so that when poor Elijah in the hospital
+thought he was looking at his manager, he was really nursing a viper in
+his bosom. When 'Liza Em'ly came back with her local color, they told
+her they didn't want it because they was going to have the camping-out
+scene in the parlor, and play the people all liked a joke. When she went
+to a lawyer to protest, the lawyer looked through all Elijah's contracts
+and said Elijah had never stipulated as the camping-out scene should be
+in the woods. So 'Liza Em'ly paid him fifty dollars and come away a good
+deal wiser than she went.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come the opening night, and Mr. Kimball says he shall never forget
+that opening night as long as he lives. You know he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> bought himself one
+of those hats as when you sit on 'em just gets a better shape, and then
+he went up to see his own nephew's own play. Seems he sat on his hat in
+Elijah's own box, but he says Elijah was looking very bad even before
+the curtain went up. Seems Elijah didn't expect much, but he did have
+just a little hope that here and there in spots he'd see some of his own
+play. But the hope was very faint. After the curtain went up, it kept
+getting fainter. Of course Elijah meant it for a tragedy and called it
+<i>Millicent</i>; and seeing the title changed to <i>Milly Tilly</i> was a hard
+blow to him right in the beginning. Seems the woman poisoned herself
+because she was unhappy, and after she's dead, she remembers there was
+some poison left in the bottle, and so she wants to warn the family. It
+was a very nice plot, Polly White thinks, and Elijah was wild over it
+'cause there's never been a plot used like it. But of course his idea
+was as it should be took seriously. Do you wonder then, Mrs. Lathrop,
+that the first time in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> play when one of the play actors turned
+round he nearly died? Mr. Kimball says he nearly died himself. He says
+he never saw anything so funny as those chicken backs in all his life.
+He says people was just laying any way and every way in their seats,
+wailing to stop, so they could stop too. He says he was laughing fit to
+kill himself when all of a sudden he looked up to see Elijah, and he
+says nothing ever give him such a chill as Elijah's then-and-there
+expression. Seems Elijah was just staring at the leading lady as was
+flapping her wings and playing crow, while the gallery was pounding and
+yelling like mad. And then Elijah suddenly shot out of the box and round
+behind the scenes and vanished completely."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop gasped and lifted her hands, but no word issued from
+between her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course we know now what happened, but nobody did then. Nobody
+was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr.
+Kimball didn't know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece
+before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high
+or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would
+have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it
+was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of
+advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought
+it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way.
+Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while,
+you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it.
+It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he
+was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr.
+Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was
+plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his
+interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the
+afternoon of that day, whatever do you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> suppose? There was Elijah, just
+where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him
+off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the
+baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him,
+ending up even with the chicken feathers."</p>
+
+<p>"Great heav&mdash;!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it.
+Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed
+up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and
+pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was
+found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater
+that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw
+how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to
+let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every
+night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot
+out. Then she'd make a speech about his having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> been in the scenery car
+all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it
+would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that
+a <i>tall</i>. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and
+called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had
+in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one.
+Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where
+you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he
+told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can
+talk all you please about will power&mdash;and it may be true of people in
+general&mdash;but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one
+who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as
+takes all the marrow out of your bones and the blood out of your body.
+And he says he wasn't no more responsible when he signed that contract
+to go mad in a box every evening and at least one matinée every week
+than a grasshopper. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> says his one and only thought by that time was
+to get away from 'em and make a break to where he'd never hear about his
+play again. But after he'd signed, they never let him out of sight. They
+locked him up in a dressing-room with the leading lady's pet mouse until
+after the performance, and then they took him and introduced him to two
+very big managers as was engaged to do nothing except manage him nights
+in the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know the rest, Mrs. Lathrop. He really did go mad, then, and
+we've got him here now helpless, getting rich almost as fast as 'Liza
+Em'ly, and crazy as a loon. I declare, it's one of the saddest cases I
+ever see. I don't know whatever can be done. They say as fast as he gets
+sane, the play'll surely drive him crazy again, so I don't see what
+'Liza Em'ly will do. She set with me the whole afternoon and talked very
+nicely about it all. To see her here, you'd never think she could act
+the way Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher tell about. I can see she's got a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+little airy, and she says she misses her maid and her secretary more
+than she ever tells the minister's family; but on the whole I like her
+very much, and her devotion to Elijah is most beautiful. She says he's
+the one love of her life, and she shall marry him if ever he gets sense
+enough to know what he's doing. If he doesn't, she says she shall take a
+yacht and sail with him and write books until he dies. She says they can
+land once in a while to get their provisions and their royalties. But
+she says the only possible salvation for Elijah, as things are now, will
+be to stay where he never sees a car to remind him of scenery, or a
+house to remind him of a stage, for years and years to come. I asked her
+what she <i>really</i> thought of his play, and she said she thought the
+leading lady was just right and very clever, only Elijah was too
+sensitive a nature to understand little artistic touches like the
+chicken feathers. She says folks are too tired nowadays to be bothered
+to laugh. They want to be made to laugh without even thinking. She says
+Elijah is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> earnest nature as likes to work his laughs out very
+carefully and conscientious; but the leading lady understands getting
+the same effect, only a million times quicker, with chicken feathers and
+divorces. 'Liza Em'ly says the leading lady is very fair according to
+her own idea of fairness. She didn't have no money to put in the play,
+so she agreed to put in four divorces and one scandal as her part of the
+stock. Now the play's only been on a month, and she's paid up everything
+except one divorce and the scandal; and she's done so well they're
+trying to work up some scheme to let her pay both those off at the same
+time. The play is going fine. They print columns about Elijah and his
+madness, and the whole company is learning to crow together at the end
+of the second act. Every night they take out a little of what Elijah
+wrote, and the main manager says that there'll soon be nothing of Elijah
+left in except the ghost, and the ghost of the bottle, and the agreement
+to pay Elijah his royalties. And according to the main manager's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> views,
+that's being pretty fair and square with Elijah."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you&mdash;?" queried Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know," answered Miss Clegg, "I really d'n know what to
+say. I'm kind of dumb did over both 'Liza Em'ly and Elijah, for you know
+as well as I do, Mrs. Lathrop, that nobody ever looked for those kind of
+things from them."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if it ever comes where I can," responded Miss Clegg, "I shall like
+to see it very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Did&mdash;?" pressed Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I asked her," Susan admitted, "I asked her fair and square. I
+says: ''Liza Em'ly, there's no use denying as you've used real people in
+this community in your book, and now I want to know who is Deacon
+Tooker?' She said Deacon Tooker was just the book itself. She seemed
+more amused than there was any particular sense in; but I thought if
+anything could give her a good laugh, it wasn't me would begrudge her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+There's this to be said for our young folks when they do get rich, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and that is that they're nice about it, and it makes every one
+feel kindly towards 'em. Every one feels kindly towards Jathrop, and
+every one feels kindly towards 'Liza Em'ly, and as for poor, dear
+Elijah&mdash;Well!"</p>
+
+<p>The tone was expressive enough. Mrs. Lathrop shook her head sadly. Then
+both were silent.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The "building-over" of Susan Clegg and her friend, Mrs. Lathrop, was
+completed during the second week in December, and in less than
+twenty-four hours they were once more established in their own
+dwellings, surrounded by their own goods and chattels. For only the
+briefest space, however, did Miss Clegg remain where she was put. Then
+she hurried through the passageway afforded by the connecting pergola
+and burst excitedly into her neighbor's brand new kitchen in the very
+center of which sat Mrs. Lathrop in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker, calmly surveying her domiciliary spick-and-spanness. On her lap
+lay a just-opened letter; but for once the scrupulously observing Miss
+Clegg failed to observe. She was too full of fresh trials.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I d'n know whatever sins I committed in this world, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+began, dropping into the nearest chair and facing her friend in an
+upright, a little bent forward attitude that was clearly pugnacious,
+"that I should have these things visited upon me. The Lord knows, just
+the same as you do, as I've always been a good and pure woman, loving my
+neighbors like myself and doing all my Christian duties as I was give to
+see 'em. When I was tore up from my home by the roots and cast wilted
+and faded upon Gran'ma Mullins, where the infant memories of Hiram
+certainly wasn't calculated to do no reviving, I made the best of it. I
+made the best of Lucy and a dog with a cold nose, too; and I bore up
+with courage and no complaint under Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion.
+And I did it all to please you, Mrs. Lathrop, and your fool of a son,
+Jathrop, whose money, it's my opinion, has acted on him in a most
+injurious way. He never had much sense, as you yourself know, but now he
+ain't got no sense a <i>tall</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't&mdash;" Mrs. Lathrop started gently to protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do," rejoined Susan Clegg spiritedly; "and if you don't, you
+ought to. Anyhow, I mean to tell you, if it's the last act of my life.
+Anybody as has any sense a <i>tall</i> must have seen that building over was
+just a mite removed from building new; and what's new never did go with
+what's old, and it never will. If we was to be built over, we ought to
+have been all built over or let alone. Jathrop's built the houses over,
+but he ain't built over the furnishings, and the built-over houses and
+the not-built-over furniture and carpets and window shades and pots and
+kettles and pans and china and linen and everything else don't agree and
+just naturally can't and never can. They're fighting now like sixty, and
+they'll go on fighting the longer they're kept together. My house was
+restful and peaceful before, but now it's like a circus with all the
+wild animals let loose. And I can tell you this, Mrs. Lathrop; my things
+is getting the worst of it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> Why, before they went to storage at Mr.
+Shores', they was in the best repair you ever see, and now it would make
+your heart ache to look at 'em. They've aged a century at least during
+the summer. They're wrinkled and halt and lame and blind, and the new
+paper on the walls and the new polish on the floors and the new paint on
+the woodwork is making 'em look sicker and sicker every minute. If
+there's a society for the prevention of cruelty to furniture and other
+household goods, it ought to put Jathrop Lathrop in prison. I feel so
+sorry for those poor tables and chairs and bedsteads and all the rest of
+'em as I could cry my eyes out this very minute. There's one walnut,
+haircloth sofa as Father laid on before he was took to his bed as is
+pitiful to behold. It looks sicker than Father did even in his last
+hours, and I wouldn't be surprised any minute to see it just turn over
+all of itself and give up the ghost. And everything has on such a
+reproachful look it's more than human nature can bear to face it. If I'd
+ever thought as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> being built over would of come to this, I'd of gone on
+my knees and worked 'em to the bare bones before I'd of put up with it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop continued to rock in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, there's no cloud, however black, as hasn't got some silk in its
+lining, and the silk in this is the clock as Father gave Mother, which
+was supposed to be marble and wasn't. Much as I hated that clock, I
+couldn't have borne to see its agonies when set on by the new fireplace
+below, and the pink and gold wall paper behind, and the roses and cupids
+in the cornish above. It must just of shriveled in shame instead of
+going out in glorious flight, as it did when I set it flying at the end
+of the bed-slat. Lord knows, though, Mrs. Lathrop, that's a small thing
+to be thankful for; and it's the only thing. I haven't begun yet to tell
+you all. And I don't intend to. There's a limit to my temper, and if I
+once got started, there's no saying where I'd end. But there's one thing
+more as I can't hold in, and it's the thing as was marked on the plans:
+'But. Pan.' I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> never did understand why I should be give a separate room
+to keep butter pans in, seeing as I ain't got no cow, let alone no
+dairy. And even if I had, why I should keep my butter pans or my milk
+pans either in a little alley-way between the kitchen and the
+dining-room, just where the heat and smells could get at 'em from one
+side and the flies from both, not to mention the added footsteps put on
+me journeying from the stove to the dinner table. You can see for
+yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, there's no sense in it, whatever. But I'd never
+say a word about it, if that was all. But it ain't all. It's the
+littlest part. For Jathrop's cruelty hasn't stopped with torturing the
+furniture. It's clear he couldn't be satisfied till he fixed up a trap
+as sooner or later would hit me square in the face and break my nose. At
+both ends of his 'But. Pan.' he's had hung doors as swing, and springs
+on 'em to make 'em swing hard and deadly. What either one of those
+swinging doors might do to my features, let alone to the pudding or stew
+I might be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> carrying, it isn't in mortal tongue to express. If I could
+find one thing as was right in the whole house, I'd be fair and square
+enough to overlook the others; but there ain't to my mind a single
+solitary betterment. There's glass knobs on all the doors as will show
+every finger mark, and will keep me busy wiping from dawn to dark. The
+old brown knobs never showed nothing and didn't never have to be thought
+of, let alone polished. It's always been my idea as a cupboard was a
+place to shut things up in out of sight, and here if he hasn't gone and
+put glass doors on the one in the corner of the dining room, so as every
+one can see just what's meant to be hid. It's clear to be seen he's
+crazy on the subject of glass, which I ain't and never have been. And I
+don't like the way he's stinted things as is necessary and put all the
+money in things as had better been left out. Necessities before
+everything is my motto. What use, I'd like to know, is that cupid and
+rose cornish? But he puts that there just to catch dust and leaves out
+the whole of one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> parlor wall. If you'll believe me, Mrs. Lathrop,
+there's not a hair or hide of a wall between my entry hall and my
+parlor. Nothing but a pair of white posts as most people use on their
+piazzas. How I'm ever going to keep that parlor dark I don't see; for
+he's got glass over the front door and on both sides of it, and no
+shutters to keep the sun out. He's built in both the kitchen stove and
+the ice box, and for the life of me, I can't find no reasonable way of
+taking the ashes out of the one or the water out of the other. The
+builder says the ashes dump into a place in the cellar and the water
+from the ice drains down a pipe underneath the house. But I don't like
+neither plan. The drip from a ice box is a very cheering sound, I think,
+and with hot ashes going down cellar where you can't see 'em, I'll be in
+deadly fear of the house going up in smoke while I'm dreaming in my bed.
+The long and the short of it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I feel as I have been
+assaulted and robbed. Jathrop's took away my home and left me a house as
+isn't a home to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> and never can be. And as far as I can see, he's done
+the same to you, which is ten thousand times worse, you being his
+mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking up the letter from her lap so that at
+last it was forced upon Susan's observance.</p>
+
+<p>"From him, I suppose," Miss Clegg instantly concluded, reaching for it.
+"If he's got anything to say in his defence, I'm sure I'd delight to
+read it. But no matter what he says, he can't undo to me what he's done
+to me. I'll never feel the same towards Jathrop, your son or not your
+son, Mrs. Lathrop, as long as I live."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop passed the letter to Miss Clegg. Like all of Jathrop's
+letters, it was brief and to the point. He announced that he would spend
+Christmas with his mother in her rebuilt home and would bring with him a
+friend as his guest. Susan read it over twice, turning the page each
+time, evidently in hope of finding an enlightening postscript.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all things!" she exclaimed, as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> passed the letter back to
+her friend. "Coming to see his work of destruction and going to bring
+<i>her</i> with him!"</p>
+
+<p>"He don't&mdash;" Mrs. Lathrop endeavored to explain.</p>
+
+<p>"He don't, because he don't dare; but there's no question what he means.
+He's bringing the señora. And he wouldn't bring her if it wasn't that
+he's going to marry her. Even you must see that. And if there was ever a
+insult multiplied by perjury, Jathrop's done it in that action. It's a
+good thing he didn't ask: 'How's Susan Clegg?' this time, as he did the
+time he was coming back from the Klondike. For I don't believe I could
+ever have stood that. All I can say, Mrs. Lathrop, is as I'm sorry for
+you from the soles of my feet up. You'll never in the world be able to
+get up a Christmas dinner as will please any señora, you can take my
+word on that. And not to please her will be a bad beginning with a
+señora as is to be your future daughter-in-law. Señoras don't care
+shucks for turkey and mince pie. They're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> not used to 'em and likely to
+get indigestion from 'em, and think what it would mean to Jathrop, let
+alone to her, if she should be carried off by a acute attack right here
+in your new, built-over house, at the dinner table. He'd blame it on
+you, and like as not she'd haunt you the rest of your living days. No,
+sir. You've got to give her Spanish omelets with lots of red peppers in
+'em, and everything else Creole style, which means all he't up with
+tabasco sauce fit to burn out your insides. It's eating like that as
+makes those Spaniards and Cubans so dark colored you can't tell 'em from
+mulattoes. The peppers and the tabasco sauce bakes 'em brown on the
+outside, after leaving 'em all scorched and parched within."</p>
+
+<p>For once, however, Susan Clegg was wrong in her deduction. Jathrop
+arrived in a red automobile on the day before Christmas, with a
+chauffeur in bear-skins driving, and a guest in sealskin beside him. But
+the guest was not the señora. It was one of Jathrop's millionaire
+friends who, Jathrop said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> could buy and sell him twenty times over. He
+was a small man with a bald head and a red beard and old enough to be
+Jathrop's father.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg viewed the arrival from her bedroom window and was so glad it
+wasn't the señora that she at once set about baking extra doughnuts and
+mince pie to contribute to the festivities of the morrow. This occupied
+her until supper time. Then she made a hurried meal, washed her one
+plate and cup and saucer, and loaded down with her thank offering,
+flitted through the pergola and in at Mrs. Lathrop's kitchen door. The
+kitchen was empty, but voices penetrating from the dining room told her
+that her friend and her visitors were still at table. Being a trifle
+nervous and unable to sit quietly, she began at once to put the
+disordered kitchen into some degree of order, purely for the sake of
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>She had just finished washing and scouring the pots and pans and was
+flushing the waste-pipe of Mrs. Lathrop's new porcelain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> sink with
+lye-water so strong that her eyes ran tears from the fumes, when the
+voices growing more and more audible told her that Jathrop was leading
+his mother and his guest toward the kitchen. She just had time hurriedly
+to dry her hands on the roller towel when they appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," exclaimed Jathrop, in apparent surprise, "if here ain't
+our old friend, Susan Clegg!"</p>
+
+<p>There is no question that Miss Clegg was slightly flustered at thus
+being taken unawares, but she recovered herself promptly, and shook
+hands cordially with Jathrop and not less cordially with the little
+millionaire, whom he introduced as Mr. Kettlewell. And Mr. Kettlewell
+was cordiality itself. Everybody sat down, right there in the kitchen
+and talked for a full hour, and in the course of the talk, Jathrop told
+Susan that he had arranged with a department store in New York to let
+her have whatever she needed for her built-over house and charge the
+same to his account. She could select the things from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> the firm's
+catalogue, or go to the city at his expense and pick out the actual
+articles. It was his Christmas present to his mother's and his own
+oldest friend. In conclusion, Jathrop joined with his mother in an
+invitation to Susan to take Christmas dinner with them; and Mr.
+Kettlewell smilingly begged her, for his sake, not to refuse. Altogether
+Susan had the pleasantest evening she had experienced in years, and the
+next morning, while Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell were off in the car after
+evergreens with which to decorate the two houses, she ran over with the
+express purpose of telling Mrs. Lathrop so.</p>
+
+<p>"Jathrop mayn't have much judgment when it comes to selecting
+architects," she began, "nor again when it comes to selecting servants,
+as was proved by his bringing that Hop Loo all the way from the
+Klondike. Nor again, neither, when it comes to wives, if it's a real
+fact that he's going to marry a brown-baked señora; but there's no
+getting away from the fact that he's a king in choosing his men friends.
+I've seen men in my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> life of all sorts and descriptions, from the
+minister to the blacksmith, but I ain't never see before such a
+handsome, high-minded, superior gentleman as Jathrop's friend, Mr.
+Kettlewell. I never thought much of bald-headed men before, but his head
+is so white and shiny, it's a pleasure to look at it. And I always just
+hated a red beard; but Mr. Kettlewell's beard is of a different red.
+It's a nice, warm, comforting red as makes you feel as cosy as the glow
+of a red-hot stove when the thermometer's down around zero. I can't say
+either, Mrs. Lathrop, as I wasn't more or less prejudiced against men as
+never rightly grew up, but stopped in the women's sizes. But there's a
+something about Mr. Kettlewell's proportions as gives you the idea he's
+really taller than he seems. And there's only one thing to compare his
+voice to. It's milk and honey. My lands, what a sweet, clear-rolling,
+liquid voice that Mr. Kettlewell has!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ja&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I heard him. But I don't put that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> against Mr. Kettlewell, not a
+<i>tall</i>. I'm sure he made every penny of it honestly, and if he's retired
+from business now, it don't mean he's quit work. It's no easy job
+cutting coupons off all the bonds he must have, and collecting rents is
+a occupation I don't envy nobody. It's the penalty that rich men have to
+pay for their success. They work hard to get the principal, and then
+they're made to work twice as hard to get the interest. There's no such
+thing as rest for the rich any more'n there is for the poor. I used to
+think before Father died as I'd like to roll in wealth, but it ain't no
+easy rolling, I can tell you that, Mrs. Lathrop, especially when you've
+got a tenant like Mrs. Macy, who won't buy so much as a gas-tip or do so
+much as drive a nail without charging it up to the owner."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Clegg's participation in the Christmas dinner at her neighbors' was
+twofold. She took part in its preparation as well as in its discussion.
+It was her soup which began it, it was her "stuffing" which added zest
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> the roast turkey, it was her cranberry sauce which sweetened
+contrastingly the high seasoning, and it was her mince pie which brought
+the repast to a fitting and enjoyable close. Seated opposite to Mr.
+Kettlewell, where she could revel in a full view of his shining pate and
+his warmly comforting whiskers, her enjoyment was ocular as well as
+gustatory; and under the caressing sweetness of his voice it was
+likewise auricular. For the occasion Jathrop had provided a fine vintage
+champagne, and though Miss Clegg, whose total-abstinence principles
+forbade her to even taste, refrained from so much as touching her lips
+to the edge of her glass, she unquestionably warmed in the stimulating
+atmosphere of the sparkling, bubbling, golden juice of the grape. To her
+it was indeed the red-letter Christmas of her life, and every incident,
+of the dinner especially, was a matter for reflection and rumination in
+the succeeding hours.</p>
+
+<p>In this vale of tears, however, there is apparently no great joy without
+its compensating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> sorrow; and in Susan Clegg's case the one followed
+swiftly on the heels of the other. In the pale gray of the dawn of the
+following day, Susan Clegg dashed wildly out of her kitchen door and
+flitted with lifted skirts across the brief intervening space that led
+to Mrs. Lathrop's back door. As pallid as the morning itself, her scant
+hair streaming, her eyes wide with mixed terror and indignation, she
+burst into her neighbor's kitchen, where to her great relief she found
+her old friend already up and occupied.</p>
+
+<p>One glimpse of Susan was enough for Mrs. Lathrop. Up went her hands and
+down went she on to the nearest chair with an inarticulate gasp of
+horrified yet questioning astonishment, while Miss Clegg flopped limply
+into another at the end of the kitchen table.</p>
+
+<p>There she must have sat for a full minute before she could get breath to
+utter a word, which, being contrary to all her habits, was in itself
+terrifying to her friend. Eventually, however, she forced herself to
+assume<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> an upright position and simultaneously attained a somewhat
+feeble attempt at speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all things in this world to happen to me!" Then she paused for
+a fresh breath, which being utterly without precedent, added mightily to
+Mrs. Lathrop's alarm. "And even now at this minute I don't really know
+whether I'm more dead than alive, or more alive than dead."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop, believing that the situation being extraordinary, some
+extraordinary effort on her part was demanded, stirred herself to a
+prolonged speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me I'm looking&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not a ghost, if that's what you mean. You are looking at Susan
+Clegg in the flesh&mdash;all the flesh that ain't been scared clean off her.
+But it's the greatest miracle as ever happened in this community that
+it's my body and not my spirit as is here to tell the tale. My house was
+broken into by a burglar, Mrs. Lathrop, and I was tied up and gagged in
+one of my own chairs."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop just gasped. Susan drew herself up a little straighter,
+gaining courage from the sound of her own voice, and striking something
+like her old oral gait.</p>
+
+<p>"I was gagged for five hours, Mrs. Lathrop, and knowing me as you do for
+all these years and years, maybe you can feel what being gagged for five
+hours and not able to say even 'boo' meant to a active person like me.
+Every one of those hours was like a eternity in a Spanish inferno of
+torture. And everything I possess in this world, from my bonnet and
+striped silk dress to Father's deeds at the mercy of that gagger. And
+all I've got to say is this: If I hadn't of been built over, it never in
+the wide creation would have happened. And if your son Jathrop thinks he
+can ever make up to me for being gagged by inviting me to a Christmas
+dinner, most of which I cooked with my own hands, and offering to give
+me strange pieces of furniture to take the place of pieces as is old
+friends and dearer than the apples of my two eyes, he'd better do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> some
+more thinking. There never was nothing about the house I was born in and
+my mother and father died in to make a burglar look at it twice. No
+burglar as had any respect for himself or his calling, Mrs. Lathrop,
+would have looked at it once or knowed as it was there. But built over
+it's as different as diamon's is from pebbles. It looks money from the
+tips of its lightning rods to its cellar windows and is as inviting to
+robbers as if it had a sign on the gatepost, reading: 'Walk in!' So,
+however you look at it, there's nobody responsible for my gagging and
+for whatever is missing but one man, and that man is Jathrop Lathrop.
+It's easy to be seen as he's no more fit to have money than a crow as
+steals gold trinkets that cost fortunes and goes and hides 'em in hollow
+trees. He was born poor, and the Lord meant him to stay poor, no matter
+what Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion has to say about things as
+happens being meant to happen. The Lord hadn't nothing to do with
+Jathrop going to the Klondike and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> getting rich, you can be certain
+about that. If he hadn't been fool enough to take a kicking cow for a
+perfectly good debt and then let it loose to ride over a peaceful and
+long-suffering community, he'd 'a' lived and died a pauper in this here
+very town. So's far as I can see it was the devil and not the Lord as
+guided Jathrop from the first, and everything as has happened since
+shows the devil is still guiding him. Everything he turns his mind to
+goes by contraries. I'm not saying anything against the goodness of
+Jathrop's intentions, mind you, Mrs. Lathrop, but no matter how good
+they are, evil and misery certainly seems sure to follow."</p>
+
+<p>The tirade stirred Mrs. Lathrop to her feet, but she was not resentful.
+She knew that Susan Clegg's bitterness was confined to her tongue, and
+that even with that she could salve as well as sting.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I&mdash;?" she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you can," answered Miss Clegg. "I never felt as I needed a cup
+of tea more, and if the doughnuts I brought you ain't all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> eat up, I'd
+relish four or five of 'em right now."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking down the teapot.</p>
+
+<p>"No; but I'm coming to it. I begun with the cause, and the effect'll
+come trailing after like the tails of Mary's little lambs. Only the
+tails in this case was bigger than the sheep. It may have been hearing
+the noise Jathrop makes when he eats, or it may have been your turkey
+gravy or your biscuits, Mrs. Lathrop, or all of 'em put together. Not
+knowing which, I'm not foolish enough to blame one more'n the other. But
+it's a fact as is undeniable that I never slept poorer than last night.
+I was in bed by nine, but I never closed my eyes till eleven, and I
+certainly heard the clock strike midnight. I counted goats jumping over
+a stile, and I counted 'em backward as well as forward, but I heard one
+struck, and I heard two. And then I heard something as set my hair up on
+end and the gooseflesh sprouting all over me. It sounded like footsteps
+in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> 'But. Pan.,' and they was too heavy for the cat's, I could tell
+that at once, though at two in the morning it's surprising how loud a
+cat's footsteps can sound, especially when it's reached the pouncing
+stage, and the rat ain't got no hole to run to. I'd forgot to put the
+turkey leg in the ice-box as I'd carried home with me, and all I could
+think of was that if it was the cat, there'd be nothing left on that
+bone by morning, unless I stopped things right then and immediately.
+You'd never believe how cold a house can be at two o'clock in the
+morning of the day after Christmas unless you'd got up in it as I did;
+and now to look back at it, I see how lucky it was as it was as cold as
+it was, for if it hadn't of been, I'd a gone down just as I was, and I
+was in no trim to meet a man burglar, I can tell you <i>that</i>. So I just
+slipped into this flannel wrapper and a old pair of slippers, which I've
+got on now under these arctics, and I picked up the candle as I'd lit,
+and down-stairs I went. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I hope you may never in your
+born<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> days in this world or the other have such a shock as met me there
+face to face in my own new, built-over kitchen. If there wasn't the
+biggest giant of a man I ever see coming out of the shadows between the
+cookstove and the cellar door. And he with his head all wrapped around
+in one of my best plaid roller towels, so that nothing of him was to be
+seen but two fierce, staring, bloodshot eyes as gleamed like a wild
+beast's. Oh, my soul and body, Mrs. Lathrop, that minute! How I ever
+kept my senses I don't pretend to say, more especially as he was on me
+with one jump. There was no such thing as holding on to the candle, you
+can see that. It dropped, and I never knew I dropped it. For, of course,
+I shut my eyes, and when your eyes is shut, there's no knowing whether
+there's a lighted candle about or whether there isn't."</p>
+
+<p>In her agitation over the recital, Mrs. Lathrop, who was placing cups
+and saucers on the table, let one of the cups slide crashing to the
+floor. "Oh, Su&mdash;!" she exclaimed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You may well say: 'Oh, Susan!'" Miss Clegg continued. "There is times
+when 'Oh, Susan' don't half express the state of affairs, and this was
+one of 'em, Mrs. Lathrop. It wasn't in nature for me not to scream, so I
+screamed, and it was that scream that did the business. It showed the
+burglar I wasn't deaf and dumb, and people as isn't deaf and dumb is
+looked on by burglars as their natural enemies. Maybe some people can
+scream without opening their mouths, but I never was one of that kind,
+and the kind as open their mouths when they scream is the kind that all
+burglars prefer. It saves 'em the trouble of forcing apart their jaws. I
+never shut my mouth after opening it; for the burglar just shoved
+something in it as quick as scat, and then he tied a bandage around back
+of my head so I couldn't spit it out. Then he picked me up and plumped
+me down hard in a chair and tied me fast to it with my own clothesline.
+And all the time he never no more opened his lips to speak than if he
+couldn't. It's my opinion he must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> have had a cold and lost his voice.
+Either that, or his voice was such a unpleasant voice he was ashamed to
+let anybody hear it. For it ain't in common sense as a man, even if he
+is a burglar, could keep as still as he did, if he had a speaking voice
+that's in any way fit for use. I know in the time he took there was a
+lot of things I felt to say to him, and would if I could, and common
+sense'll tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he must have felt to say a lot of
+things to me. But he didn't make so much as a peep behind his roller
+towel."</p>
+
+<p>"Did&mdash;?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, pouring the tea.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say as he did or he didn't. I haven't missed nothing yet, but
+then I haven't looked. Still, if he didn't I can't say as I'd have much
+respect for him. What sort of a burglar would a burglar be to take all
+that trouble of breaking in, binding and gagging, and then go away
+without helping himself to something for his trouble. I ain't got no
+love for burglars in general or in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> particular. But any burglar as 'ld
+do a fool trick like that I ain't got no respect for neither."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;?" queried her neighbor as she passed Susan her cup.</p>
+
+<p>"It was something of a job I can tell you, but when I sets my mind to a
+thing I sets my mind to it, and ropes and a kitchen chair ain't got the
+power to stop me. I begun wriggling as soon as I heard the burglar shut
+the door behind him, and I kept on wriggling for every minute of the
+five hours. A tramped-on worm never did more turning and wriggling than
+I did between two and seven this morning, and at last wriggling being
+its own reward, I wriggled free, first with my hands and then with my
+feet. But before I got my feet free, I undid the band and ungagged
+myself and said just a few of the things that was bottled up all that
+time. The Bible says there's a time to talk and a time to be still, but
+there's such a thing as overdoing the still time, I think, and when
+you're gagged by a burglar is one of 'em."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Susan sipped her tea for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell?" she asked at length. "Ain't they
+up yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop nodded. "They start&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean they've both lit out already?" asked Susan in surprise.
+Then: "I was hoping to see Mr. Kettlewell again. But it's a long journey
+back to New York, so I suppose they set off before light."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop nodded once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't&mdash;?" she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly am. I'm going to report the burglary at once. I've got a
+clue, and it ought to be easy enough to run down that burglar." She drew
+from her bosom a rather damp handkerchief. "That's what he left me to
+chew on for five hours," she said, as she spread it out. "And there's
+the clue right there in the corner."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop took it to the window and inspected it through her glasses.
+The handkerchief was initialed with a "K."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The New Year came and January was passing and, so far as Susan Clegg
+cared to divulge at least, there was no news of her burglar. It was
+noted, however, not only by Mrs. Lathrop, but by Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma
+Mullins, and indeed by all the ladies of the Sewing Society, that Miss
+Clegg had adopted an air of secretiveness concerning the matter that was
+quite foreign to her usual frank, unreserved communicativeness. But the
+curiosity provoked by this strangely unfamiliar attitude was swallowed
+up in the sensational tidings which spread throughout the community
+shortly after. Without so much as a hint of warning, Susan Clegg had
+vanished between dark and dawn, leaving her house locked, bolted, and
+barred, the blinds drawn, and the shutters fast closed.</p>
+
+<p>For once Mrs. Lathrop, thus deprived of her prop and her stay, evinced
+sufficient initiative to have the cellar door forced and a search of the
+premises made; a rumor having got abroad that the burglar had returned,
+this time more murderously inclined, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> that Miss Clegg's mangled
+corpse would be found stiff and stark within her own darkened domicile.
+To every one's infinite relief the search proved the rumor utterly
+unfounded; and it proved something more, as well. It proved that Susan's
+departure was plainly premeditated&mdash;"with malice prepense," to quote
+Judge Fitch&mdash;since all her best clothes had gone with her. Whereupon
+sentiment switched to the opposite pole, and it was openly declared that
+Miss Clegg had gone after the burglar.</p>
+
+<p>The wonder was of a magnitude calculated to extend far beyond the
+proverbial nine days, and it probably would have greatly exceeded that
+limit, had not the heroine of the affair chosen to cut it short of her
+own volition by reappearing quite as suddenly as she had vanished, at
+the end of a single week.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop, looking across from her bedroom window as she arose from
+her night's sleep on the morning of the eighth day, was joyously
+startled to see the Clegg windows unshaded, and the house otherwise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+displaying signs of rehabitation. Nor did she have long to wait for the
+explanation of the mystery, which to the exclusion of everything else
+had filled her mind ever since her friend's going. With a shawl over her
+head and shoulders, she hastened through the pergola, and the next
+moment was facing her neighbor with glad eyes across four yards of
+kitchen floor space.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Susan! Such a fri&mdash;" These were her four and a half words of
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it would," Miss Clegg caught her up, beaming as Mrs. Lathrop
+couldn't remember ever to have seen her beam before. "I knew it would
+frighten you all half to death, but when a thing's to be done, it's to
+be done, and there ain't no use shirking. I had to go, and I had to go
+quick, and I was never so glad of anything in my life, past or present,
+as that I went. Of course, it was all along of that burglary, as any
+fool might have guessed if they took the trouble. In the first place, I
+don't mind telling you now, I went straight to Mr. Weskin the morning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+after it happened, and I took him the clue and showed it to him. The way
+he spun around in his spinning chair was fit to make even a level-headed
+person like me dizzy. He examined the linen, and he examined the way the
+K was worked, and then he says, no it couldn't possibly be Mr.
+Kimball's. Now, what <i>do</i> you think of that? Just as if I ever suspected
+it was. I guess I know Mr. Kimball well enough to know him, even if he
+has got his head wrapped up in one of my new roller towels, and I told
+Lawyer Weskin so. Mr. Kimball, indeed! But Lawyer Weskin said as he
+didn't never hear of a burglar whose name commenced with K, and he
+didn't know a soul in these parts either, burglar or no burglar, whose
+name did, except Mr. Kimball. There's only one way to ferret out the
+perpetrator of a crime, he says, and that's by deduction, and the first
+rule of deduction is to guess what the K stands for. I never thought
+much of Lawyer Weskin, I'm free to admit that, but if he don't know
+nothing else, it's as clear as shooting that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> does know about
+education. For in the end it worked out just as he said, and the Lord be
+praised for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't&mdash;" began Mrs. Lathrop in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say as Mr. Kimball had a thing to do with it. I certainly
+don't. In the first place, Mr. Kimball would never dare to come to my
+house at such a hour of the morning, and in the second place Mr. Kimball
+never carried as fine a handkerchief as the one I chewed on. So that put
+it past Mr. Kimball. And the only other K I could possibly think of was
+old Mrs. Kitts over to Meadville, who could no more of got over here
+than could the king of the Sandwich Islands, whose name begins with K,
+too. There was the Kellys, of course, but the Kellys couldn't qualify
+neither, for they're too rich to need to do any burglarizing. Well, I
+can tell you, I soon come to a point where I didn't know where to turn,
+and I never would of turned neither, if it hadn't of been for a letter I
+got the day of the night I went away. You'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> never guess in the world,
+Mrs. Lathrop, who that letter was from so I may as well tell you first
+as last. It was from Mr. Kettlewell."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth in astonishment, but no sound came forth.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it'ld surprise you, but it's as true as we're both standing in
+this kitchen at this minute. It was a very nice letter, and it said as
+how he had admired me from the first minute he saw me, but more
+particularly after he'd sat opposite to me at the table and eat my
+cranberry sauce. He said he'd always loved cranberry sauce, but as he
+felt he'd never tasted none until he tasted mine. I certainly never see
+a more complimentary letter than that letter of Mr. Kettlewell's. But it
+was the end of the letter where he signed his name that lit me up with
+the clear light of revelation. Until I see his name spelled out there in
+black and white, I never once believed it begun with a K. I'd thought
+all along as his name was Cattlewell, with a C. Far be it from me, Mrs.
+Lathrop, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> ever have suspected as Jathrop's friend would stoop to
+housebreaking and to binding and gagging a lone woman, but there's other
+ways as his handkerchief might have got to my mouth, and I felt to know
+the truth. His address was on the letter, and there was nothing as could
+have stayed me from getting to that address as fast as steam and steel
+could carry me. I left in the middle of the night, and I got to New York
+in the morning, and I didn't have that feeling for nothing. Mr.
+Kettlewell was at his hotel, and in all my born days I never see a
+person gladder to see anybody than Mr. Kettlewell was to see me. It's
+marvelous what a impression a little good cooking will make on a man,
+even if it's only in cranberry sauce. His mouth actually hadn't stopped
+watering yet. Leastwise he said it hadn't, and I'd be a fool not to
+believe him. He begun talking about it right away, and I let him talk,
+just so's I could look at his shiny bald head and his red whiskers
+without having to think of anything else except the sound of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+milk-and-honey voice. Finally he said he supposed I'd come to the city
+to select Jathrop's Christmas present of furnishings, and if I'd like
+him to help me select 'em, he'd be glad enough to go along and lend a
+hand. Well, nothing could of been nicer than that, now, could it? But I
+told him I wasn't one as traveled all the way to New York under false
+pretences, and that if he must have the truth, I'd never give one
+thought to Jathrop's present since he mentioned it. All my thought, I
+said, had been give to finding a handkerchief with a K onto it, which
+I'd washed and ironed with my own hands and brought to him, believing I
+must of picked it up at the Christmas dinner by mistake, and not wanting
+him to feel the need of it any longer. And you can believe me or not,
+Mrs. Lathrop, just as you feel about it, if he didn't right then and
+there on seeing that clue, confess that it did belong to him, and that
+he couldn't for the life of him remember where he'd left it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop, who had been standing all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> the while, dropped into a chair
+at this point in dumb stupefaction. But Susan, who had been caught with
+a bowl of batter in one hand and a spoon in the other, paused only to do
+a little more stirring.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," she went on, still apparently as pleased as punch. "The clue
+belonged to Mr. Kettlewell and no one else, which led me to suspect
+right away that the burglar must have robbed your house first. I knowed
+very well that I never carried that clue home myself, though I'd said I
+might, just for the sake of drawing Mr. Kettlewell on. And so how could
+it have got into my mouth unless the burglar got it from Mr. Kettlewell
+himself? But there is stranger things in this world than you and me ever
+dreamed of, Mrs. Lathrop, and that was one of 'em. Mr. Kettlewell is a
+very frank and open gentleman, and seeing how disturbed I was over
+something, though I'd never so much as breathed burglar or burglary, he
+made another confession. And when it comes to dreaming, there is very
+few people, he said, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> has the power to dream the way he does. He
+don't just lie still in bed and picture things out in his sleep, but he
+gets up and does the things he's dreaming about. He ain't got no
+limitations in it, either. Sleepwalkers is more or less common. But
+sleepwalkers just walk, and that ends 'em. Mr. Kettlewell says he very
+seldom walks. He usually drives a automobile when he's dreaming, just as
+he does when he's wide awake. Sometimes he comes to while he's driving,
+and he's found himself often as much as a couple a hundred miles from
+home, and without a cent in his clothes, the clothes usually being just
+pajamas with nothing but a handkerchief in the pocket. Now, if you had
+any imagination a <i>tall</i>, Mrs. Lathrop, you'd see what I'm coming to,
+but as you haven't you don't, I can tell by the way you look. So you'll
+get the full benefit of the surprise when I say that on Christmas night
+Mr. Kettlewell distinctly remembers he dreamed of committing a burglary.
+He says it wasn't my mince pie as did it, because he's often eaten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+mince pie before and never dreamed nothing worse than going to the
+electric chair; and it wasn't my stuffing neither, for turkey stuffing
+when it's indigestible always makes him dream he's a monkey climbing
+trees. He says once he woke up sudden and fell and broke his arm, but
+that that was a long while ago. Now he's had more experience, he never
+wakes up till he's safe back in bed again. And he says doughnuts causes
+his dreams to run back to when he was a boy, and one time he come to,
+after a after-dinner nap, when he had doughnuts for dessert, playing
+marbles in the back alley with a lot of street urchins. I can tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, he was most interesting. He's got all his dreams sort of
+classified in that way, and can almost tell to a dot what he'll dream
+about according to what he eats. And he says soggy biscuits always makes
+him dream he's robbing a house or killing somebody. It was mighty lucky
+for me, as you can see for yourself, that this time he only dreamed of
+binding and gagging. If he'd dreamed of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> murder, I'd not be here now to
+tell the tale. And it's clean to be seen that your biscuits would of
+been an accessory before the fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was him as done it, and without no moral blame attaching to him
+a <i>tall</i>. If he'd killed me, the law couldn't of touched him either, for
+the law takes no account of what a person does while they're asleep. But
+as you made the biscuits in your full senses and with your eyes wide
+open, you'd of been the only one to blame."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop groaned. "You know, Sus&mdash;" she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course if I was alive, I'd never hold it against you, because I know
+very well you can't make biscuits no better, and ain't never had sense
+enough to learn. But if I was murdered, my ghost couldn't testify, and I
+don't see as how you could be saved from the law taking its course."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture there was a sound overhead, and both ladies started,
+Mrs. Lathrop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> in surprise and her friend in sudden realization of
+neglected duties.</p>
+
+<p>"What is&mdash;?" inquired Mrs. Lathrop.</p>
+
+<p>"It's him," answered Susan. "Mr. Kettlewell. And the coffee's boiled now
+till it's bitter, and there ain't a single cake on the griddle." She was
+turning back to the stove as Mrs. Lathrop's exclamation caught her and
+switched her around.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Susan Clegg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't Susan Clegg me, Mrs. Lathrop," she commanded. "There ain't no
+Susan Clegg any more. When Susan Clegg disappeared a week ago last
+night, she disappeared for good, never to return. And if you suspect
+anything else, it's best I should introduce myself here and now,&mdash;Susan
+Kettlewell, from this time forth, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and dropped back again.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do. I do mean to say I'm married at last. We was wedded with a ring
+in New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> York last Wednesday, and it's my husband's footsteps you hear up
+there in the new bathroom."</p>
+
+<p>She dropped three spreading spoonfuls of batter on the greased griddle
+and gave Mrs. Lathrop a full minute to absorb the announcement. Then, as
+she drew the coffee pot to one side, she continued:</p>
+
+<p>"And it was purely a love match, make no mistake about that. He's got
+money enough to buy and sell Jathrop, but he's as simple-minded and
+simple-tasted as a babe in arms. And there's nothing I can think of that
+he's not ready and willing to give me. Besides, he's frank and open
+about everything. He says his teeth is false, and he has a bullet in his
+right leg, got one time when he dreamed somebody was shooting him; but
+that otherwise he's as perfect as a man of his age can be. He says he'll
+buy a wig if I want him to, and that if I don't like the color of his
+whiskers, he'll have 'em dyed whatever color I'd like best, and the
+wig'l be made to match. But I wouldn't have him changed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> the least mite.
+And if there's one thing in the world I'm thankful for it is that I got
+him and not Jathrop. And I'm not thinking from the financial standpoint,
+neither."</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>Distinctive Fiction by Anne Warner</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The reading world owes Anne Warner a vote of thanks for her
+contributions to the best of American humor.&mdash;<i>New York Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>Anne Warner has taken her place as one of the drollest of American
+humorists.&mdash;<i>Century Magazine.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>The Gay and Festive Claverhouse</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>A story of the desperate attempt of a supposedly dying man to lose
+the love of a girl.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Sunshine Jane</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>The joyful story of a Sunshine Nurse whose mission was not to care
+for sick bodies but to heal sick souls.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>When Woman Proposes.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>A clever and entertaining story of a woman who fell in love with an
+army officer.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>How Leslie Loved</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>Not only a buoyant love story but a penetrating satire on modern
+manners.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Just Between Themselves</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>A vivacious satire on married life which is full of mirth of the
+quieter, chuckling variety.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>The Taming of Amorette</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>A clever comedy telling how a man cured his attractive wife of
+flirting.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Susan Clegg, Her Friend, and Her Neighbors</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>A study of life which is most delectable for its simplicity and for
+the quaint character creation.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Susan Clegg and a Man in the House</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>The remarkable happenings at the Clegg homestead after the boarder
+came.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>The pranks of a scapegrace nephew who was showing his old aunt a
+"good time."</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>In a Mysterious Way</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>Compounded of amusing studies of human nature in a rural community.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>A Woman's Will</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>Describes the wooing of a young American widow on the continent by
+a musical genius.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h4>Little, Brown &amp; Co., <i>Publishers</i>, Boston</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs
+
+Author: Anne Warner
+
+Illustrator: H. M. Brett
+
+Release Date: September 1, 2011 [EBook #37289]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                SUSAN CLEGG
+
+                            AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS
+
+                               BY ANNE WARNER
+
+      Author of "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," "Sunshine Jane," etc.
+
+
+    WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
+    H. M. BRETT
+
+    BOSTON
+    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
+    1916
+
+    _Copyright, 1916_,
+
+    BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+
+    _All rights reserved_
+
+    Published, May, 1916
+    Reprinted, May, 1916
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Nothing but the floor stopped me from falling through to
+China." FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 144._]
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING                              1
+
+      II. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY                   32
+
+     III. SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY                     58
+
+      IV. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH                   80
+
+       V. SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"                      104
+
+      VI. SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED                              129
+
+     VII. SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED                             153
+
+    VIII. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE                       176
+
+      IX. SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND                    216
+
+       X. SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION                  236
+
+      XI. SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT                    256
+
+     XII. SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE                       277
+
+
+
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING
+
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sat on her front piazza, and Susan Clegg sat with her. Mrs.
+Lathrop was rocking, and Susan was just back from the Sewing Society.
+Neither Mrs. Lathrop nor Susan was materially altered since we saw them
+last. Time had moved on a bit, but not a great deal, and although both
+were older, still they were not much older.
+
+They were not enough older for Mrs. Lathrop to have had a new rocker,
+nor for Susan to have purchased a new bonnet. Susan indeed looked almost
+absolutely unaltered. She was a woman of the best wearing quality; she
+was hard and firm as ever, and if there were any plating about her, it
+was of the quadruple kind and would last.
+
+If the reader knows Susan Clegg at all, he will surmise that she was
+talking. And he will be right. Susan was most emphatically talking. She
+had returned from the Sewing Society full to the brim, and Mrs. Lathrop
+was already enjoying the overflow. Mrs. Lathrop liked to rock and
+listen. She never went to the Sewing Society herself--she never went
+anywhere.
+
+"We was talking about dreams," Susan was saying; "it's a very curious
+thing about dreams. Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop," wrinkling her brow and
+regarding her friend with that look of friendship which is not blind to
+any faults, "do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, they said down there that dreams
+always go by contraries. We was discussing it for a long time, and they
+ended up by making me believe in it. You see, it all began by my saying
+how I dreamed last night that Jathrop was back, and he was a cat and
+your cat, too, and he did something he wasn't let to, and you made one
+jump at him, and out of the window he went. Now that was a very strange
+dream for me to have dreamed, Mrs. Lathrop, and Mrs. Lupey, who's
+staying with Mrs. Macy to-day and maybe to-morrow, too, says she's sure
+it's a sign. She says if dreams go by contraries, mine ought to be a
+sign as Jathrop is coming back, for the contraries is all there: Jathrop
+_wasn't_ a cat, and he never done nothing that he shouldn't--nor that he
+should, neither--and you never jump--I don't believe you've jumped in
+years, have you?"
+
+"I--" began Mrs. Lathrop reminiscently.
+
+"Oh, that time don't count," said Susan, "it was just my ball of yarn,
+even if it did look like a rat; I meant a jump when you meant it; you
+didn't mean that jump. Well, an' to go back to the dream and what was
+said about it and to tell you the rest of it, there wasn't any more of
+it, but there was plenty more said about it. All of the dream was that
+the cat went out of the window, and I woke up, but, oh, my, how we did
+talk! Gran'ma Mullins wanted to know in the first place how I knew that
+the cat was Jathrop. She was most interested in that, for she says she
+often dreams of animals, but it never struck her that they might be any
+one she knew. She dreamed she found a daddy-long-legs looking in her
+bureau drawer the other night, but she never gave it another thought.
+She'll be more careful after this, I guess. Well, then I begun to
+consider, and for the life of me I can't think how I knew that that cat
+was Jathrop. As I remember it was a very common looking cat, but being
+common looking wouldn't mean Jathrop. Jathrop was common looking, but
+not a common cat kind of common looking. It was a very strange dream,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the more I consider it, the more I can't see what give it
+to me. I finished up the doughnuts just before I went to bed, for I was
+afraid they'd mold in another day with this damp weather, but it don't
+seem as if doughnuts ought to result in cats like Jathrop. If I'd
+dreamed of mice, it'd been different, for some of the doughnuts was
+gnawed in a way as showed as there'd been mice in the jar. It does beat
+all how mice get about. Maybe it was the mice made me think Jathrop was
+a cat. But even then I can't see how I did come to dream that dream.
+Unless it was a sign. Mrs. Lupey's sure it was a sign. We talked about
+signs the whole of the Sewing Society. Dreams and signs. Everybody told
+all they knew. Mrs. Macy told about her snow dream. Whenever Mrs. Macy
+has her snow dream, somebody dies. She says it's so interesting to look
+in a paper the next time she gets hold of one and see who it was. One
+time she thought it was Edgar Allen Poe, but when she read it over
+twice, she see that it was just that he'd been born. She says her snow
+dream's a wonderful sign; it's never failed once. She dreamed it the
+night before the earthquake in Italy, and she says to think how many
+died of it that time!
+
+"This started Gran'ma Mullins, and Gran'ma Mullins told about that dream
+she had the year before she met her husband. That was an awful dream. I
+wonder she met her husband a _tall_ after it. She thought she was alone
+in a thick wood, and she saw a man coming, and she was scared to death.
+She says she can feel her trembling now. She didn't know what to do,
+'cause if she'd hid among the trees he couldn't have seen her, and that
+idea scared her as bad as the other. So she just stood and shook and
+watched the man coming nearer and nearer. I've heard her tell the story
+a hundred times, but my blood always sort o' runs cold to hear it. The
+man come nearer and nearer and, my, but she says he _was_ a man! She was
+just a young girl, but she was old enough to be afraid, and old enough
+not to want to hide from him, neither. She says it was an awful lesson
+to her about going in woods alone, because of course you can't never
+expect any sympathy if the man does murder you or kiss you--everybody'll
+just say, 'Why didn't she hide in the woods?' Well, Gran'ma Mullins
+says there she stood, and she can see herself still standing there. She
+says she's never been in the woods since just on account of that
+dream--and then, too, she's one of those that the mosquitos all get on
+in the woods. And then, besides, she doesn't like woods, anyway. And
+then, besides, there ain't no thick woods around here. But, anyhow, you
+know what happened--just as he got to her she woke up, and I must say of
+all the tame stories to have to sit and listen to over and over, that
+dream of Gran'ma Mullins is the tamest. I get tired the minute she
+begins it, but my dream had started every one to telling signs, and so
+of course Gran'ma Mullins had to tell hers along with the rest.
+
+"When she was done Mrs. Lupey told us about her mother, Mrs. Kitts, and
+a curious kind of prophetic dream she used to have and kept right on
+having up to the day she died. Mrs. Lupey said she never heard the like
+of those dreams of her mother's, and I guess nobody else ever has,
+either. No, nor never will. Well, it seems Mrs. Kitts used to dream she
+was falling out of bed, and the curious part is that she always _did_
+fall out of bed just as she dreamed it, so it never failed to come true.
+She'd dream she hit the floor _bang!_ and the next second she'd hit the
+floor _bang!_ Mrs. Lupey said she never saw such a dream for coming
+true; if old Mrs. Kitts dreamed she hit her head, she'd hit her head,
+and the time she dreamed she sprained her wrist, she sprained her wrist,
+and the time she had her stroke, as soon as her mind was got back in
+place she told them she'd dreamed she had a stroke in her chair just
+before she fell out of her chair with the stroke. Even the minister's
+wife didn't have a word to say.
+
+"Mrs. Lupey said her mother was a most remarkable woman. She's very
+sorry now she didn't board that painter for a portrait of her. The
+painter was so awful took with old Mrs. Kitts that he was willing to do
+her for six weeks and with the frame for two months. But Mrs. Lupey was
+afraid to have a painter around. She'd just read a detective story about
+a painter that killed the woman he was painting because he didn't want
+any one else to paint her. Mrs. Lupey said it was a very Frenchy
+story--there was a lot between the lines and on the lines, too--as she
+couldn't make out, but it taught her never to have painters around, for
+you never could be sure in a house with four other women that he'd kill
+the one he was painting. But she's sorry now, for she's older now and
+wiser and a match for any painter going, long-haired, short-haired or no
+hair at all. But it's too late now, and there's Mrs. Kitts dead
+unpainted, and all they've got left is a sweet memory and that cane she
+used to hit at 'em with when they weren't spry enough to suit her, and
+her hymn-book which she marked up without telling any one and left for a
+remembrance. Mrs. Lupey says such markings you never heard of.
+
+"When Mrs. Lupey was all done, Mrs. Brown took her turn and told us
+some very interesting things about Amelia. Seems Amelia is so far
+advanced in learning what nobody can understand that she can see quite a
+little ways ahead now and tell just what she's going to do. She can't
+see for the rest of the family, but she can see for herself. Sometimes
+it's just a day ahead, and sometimes it's a long way ahead. The longest
+way ahead that she's seen yet is that she can't see herself ever getting
+up to breakfast again. Mrs. Brown says of course she respects Amelia's
+religious views, but it's trying when Amelia wants to go to church, but
+doesn't see herself going, so has to stay at home. She says Amelia just
+loves to sew, but she can't see herself sewing any more, so she's given
+it all up. She says Amelia's got a superior mind--anybody can tell that
+only to see the way she's took to doing her hair--but she says it's a
+little hard on young Doctor Brown and her, who haven't got superior
+minds, to live with her. Amelia don't want to kill flies any more, for
+fear they're going to be her blood relations a million years from now,
+and Mrs. Brown says she never was any good once a mouse was caught, but
+now she won't even hear to setting a trap; she says all things has equal
+rights, and if she feels a spider, some one has got to take it off her
+and set it gently outside on the grass. Oh, Mrs. Brown says, Amelia's
+very hard to live up to, even with the best will in the world. Mrs.--"
+
+Here Susan was interrupted by Brunhilde Susan, the minister's youngest
+child, who brought the evening milk and the evening paper.
+
+"There was a letter, so I brought that, too," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+"A letter!" said Susan in surprise.
+
+"It's for Mrs. Lathrop," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+"For me!" said Mrs. Lathrop in even greater surprise.
+
+"Yes'm," said Brunhilde Susan.
+
+A letter for Mrs. Lathrop was indeed a surprise, as that good lady had
+only received two in the last five years. As those had been of the
+least interesting variety, she looked upon the present one with but mild
+interest. The next minute she gave a scream, for, turning it over as
+some people always do turn a letter over before opening it, she read on
+the back "Return to Jathrop Lathrop..." and her fingers turning numb
+with surprise and her head dizzy for the same reason, she dropped it on
+the floor forthwith.
+
+Brunhilde Susan had turned and gone back down the walk. Miss Clegg, who
+had been regarding her friend's slowness to take action with
+ill-concealed impatience, now made no attempt at concealing anything,
+but leaned over abruptly and picked up the letter. As soon as she looked
+at it she came near dropping it, too. "From Jathrop!" she exclaimed, in
+a tone appalled. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was quite speechless. Susan held the letter and began to
+regard it closely. It was quite a minute before another sound was made,
+then suddenly a light burst over the younger woman's face. "It's my
+dream. I told you so. It _was_ a sign, just as Mrs. Lupey said. He's
+coming back!"
+
+She looked toward Mrs. Lathrop, but Mrs. Lathrop still sat quite limp
+and gasping for breath.
+
+"Shall I open it and read it to you?" Susan then suggested.
+
+"Y--y--" began Mrs. Lathrop and could get no further.
+
+At that Susan promptly opened the letter. It was written on the paper of
+a Chicago hotel, and ran thus:
+
+     "_Dear Mother_:
+
+     "Years have passed by, and here I am on my way home again. I've
+     been to the Klondike and am now rich and on my way home. I hope
+     that you are well and safe at home. You'll be glad to see me home
+     again, I know. How is everybody at home? How is Susan Clegg? I
+     shall get home Saturday morning.
+
+     "Your afft. son,
+     "J. LATHROP, ESQ."
+
+That was all and surely it was quite enough.
+
+"Well, I declare!" Susan Clegg said, staring first at the letter and
+then at the mother. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop! Well, I declare. It _was_ a
+sign. You and me'll never doubt signs after _this_, I guess."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop made an effort to rally, but only succeeded in just feebly
+shaking her head.
+
+Susan continued to hold the letter in her hand and contemplate it.
+Another slow minute or two passed.
+
+But at last the wheels of life began to turn again, and that active
+mind, which grasped so much so readily, grasped this news, too. Miss
+Clegg ceased to view the letter and began to take action regarding it.
+
+"Did you notice what he says here, Mrs. Lathrop? He says he's rich. I
+don't know whether you noticed or not as I read, but he says he's rich.
+I wonder how rich he means!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened and shut her eyes in a futile way that she had, but
+continued speechless.
+
+"Rich," repeated Miss Clegg, "and me dreaming of him last night; that's
+very curious, when you come to think of it, 'cause I'm rich, too. And I
+was dreaming of him! It doesn't make any difference my thinking he was a
+cat; I knew it was Jathrop, even if he was only a cat in a dream.
+Strange my dreaming of him that way! I can see him flying out of the
+window right now. He was one of those lanky, long cats that eat from
+dawn till dark and every time your back's turned and yet keep the
+neighbors saying you starve it. And to think it was Jathrop all the
+time! Thinking of me right that minute, probably. And he says, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And he's rich. I _do_ wonder what he'd call rich!"
+
+Susan paused and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop remained dumb.
+
+"The Klondike, that's where he went to, was it? Goodness, I wonder how
+he ever got there! Well, I'll never be surprised at nothing after this.
+I've had many little surprises in my life, but never nothing to equal
+this. Jathrop Lathrop come back rich! Why, the whole town will be at the
+station to meet him to-morrow. I wonder if he'll come in the parlor-car!
+Think of Jathrop being a cat overnight and coming in a parlor-car next
+day! And he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+The last three words seemed to make quite an impression on Susan, but
+Mrs. Lathrop appeared smashed so supremely flat that nothing could make
+any further impression on her. She continued dumb, and Susan continued
+to hold the letter and comment on it.
+
+"I wonder what he looks like now. I wonder if he's grown any better
+looking! I certainly do wonder if he's got any homelier. And he's rich!
+Why, nobody from this town has ever gone away and got rich before, not
+that I can remember. I call myself a rich woman, but I ain't rich enough
+to dream of writing it in a letter. I certainly should like to know
+what Jathrop calls being rich. He couldn't possibly have millions, or it
+would have reached here somehow. Maybe he's been digging under another
+name! I suppose three or four thousand would seem enough to make him
+call himself rich. If he comes home with three or four thousand and
+calls that being rich, I shall certainly feel very sorry for you, Mrs.
+Lathrop. He'll be very airy over his money, and he'll live on yours. If
+you've got to have any one live with you, it's better for them to have
+no money a _tall_, because if they've got ever such a little, they
+always feel so perky over it. Mrs. Brown says if Amelia didn't have that
+six dollars and seventy-five cents a month from her dead mother, she'd
+be much easier to live with. Mrs. Brown says whenever Doctor Brown trys
+to control Amelia, Amelia hops up and says she'll pay for it with her
+own money. Mrs. Brown says to hear Amelia, you'd think she had at least
+ten dollars a month of her own. Mrs. Brown's so sad over Amelia. Amelia
+sees herself doing such outlandish things some days. Mrs. Brown says
+your son's wife is the biggest puzzle a woman ever gets. I guess Mrs.
+Brown would have liked young Doctor Brown never to marry."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth and shut it again.
+
+"I suppose you're thinking where to put Jathrop when he comes," Susan
+said quickly. "I've been thinking of that, too. Where can you put him,
+anyway? He never can sleep in that little shed bedroom where he used to
+sleep, if he's really rich, and he'll have to have some place to wash
+before we can find out."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked distressed. "I--" she began.
+
+"Oh, that wouldn't do," said Susan, knitting her brows quickly. "Think
+of the work of changing all your things. No, I'll tell you what's the
+best thing to do; he can sleep over at my house. Father's room was all
+cleaned last week, and I'll make up the bed, and Jathrop can sleep there
+until we find out how to treat him. Maybe his old shed bedroom will do,
+after all, or maybe he's so awfully rich he'll enjoy sleeping in it,
+like the president liked to stack hay. Maybe he'll ask nothing better
+than to chop wood and take the ashes out of the stove just for a change.
+I do wonder how rich he is. If he's rich enough to have a private car, I
+expect this town _will_ open its eyes. You'll see a great change in your
+position, Mrs. Lathrop, if Jathrop comes in a private car to-morrow
+morning. There's something about a private car as makes everybody step
+around lively. I don't say that I shan't respect him more myself if he
+comes in a private car. But he can sleep one night in father's room,
+anyway, although if he calls it being rich to come home with just two or
+three thousand, I think he'd better understand it's for just one night
+right from the start. I wouldn't want Jathrop to think that I had any
+time to waste on him if he calls just two or three thousand being rich.
+It'd be no wonder I dreamed he was a cat, if he's got the face to call
+that being rich. But that would be just like Jathrop. You know yourself
+that if Jathrop could ever do anything to disappoint anybody, he never
+let the chance slide. I never had no use for Jathrop Lathrop, as you
+know to your cost, Mrs. Lathrop. But, still, if he really is rich, I
+haven't got anything against him, and I'll tell you what I'll do right
+now: I'll go home and put that room in order and get my supper, and then
+after supper I'll just run down to the square and see if anybody else
+knows, and then I'll come back and tell you if they do. It's no use your
+trying to put things a little in order, because you couldn't straighten
+this place up in a month, and, besides, it isn't worth fussing till we
+know how rich he is. He may just have writ that in for a joke--to break
+it to you gently that he's coming back again to live here. Heaven help
+you if that's the case, Mrs. Lathrop, for Jathrop never will. It isn't
+in me to deceive so much as a fly on the window, and I never have
+deceived you and I never will."
+
+With which promise Susan took her departure.
+
+It was all of three hours--quite nine in the evening--when Susan came
+back. She found Mrs. Lathrop transferred to her back porch and seemingly
+in a somewhat less complete state of total paralysis than when she had
+left her.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked up as her friend approached and smiled.
+
+"Nobody knew," Susan announced as she mounted the steps, "but every one
+knows now, for I told them. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw anything
+like it. There isn't a person in town as ever expected to see Jathrop
+again, and only about three as always thought he'd come back rich. Every
+one's going to the station to-morrow morning, even Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy
+says if it's one of the mornings she can't walk, she'll hire Hiram and
+his wheelbarrow just as she does for church those Sundays. Everybody's
+so interested. I told them about the private car, and everybody hopes
+that he's got one, and that he'll come in it. Mr. Dill says he must be
+rich if he's been to the Klondike and come back a _tall_. He says
+there's no halfway work about the Klondike. Either you come back a
+millionaire or else you eat first your dog and then your boots and
+that's the last of you. Gran'ma Mullins says she never heard of eating
+boots in the Klondike; she thought you rode on a sled there and that
+there weren't any women. She says Hiram's spoken of going there once or
+twice, and Lucy thought maybe the coasting would do him good, but
+Gran'ma Mullins says not while she's alive, no, sir. Why, it's 'way
+across America and up a ways, and so many people want to go up that they
+have to sleep three in a berth, and she says will you only think of
+Hiram, with the way she's brought him up, three in a berth. If the bed
+ain't tucked in with Gran'ma Mullins' own particular kind of tuck, Hiram
+kicks at night and don't get any proper nourishment out of his sleep.
+No, Gran'ma Mullins says she couldn't think of Hiram in the Klondike
+sleeping under a snow-pile and having to hunt up a whale whenever he was
+in need of more kerosene oil. And she says what good would millions do
+her with the bones of the only baby she ever had feeding whatever kind
+of creature they have up there. No, she says, no, and a million times
+more, no; she's been reading about it in a New York paper that came
+wrapped around her new stove lid, and she knows all there is to know on
+that subject now. She says a New York paper is so interesting. She says
+the way they print them makes it very entertaining. She was reading
+about a sea serpent, and when she turned, she turned wrong, and she read
+twelve columns about the suffragettes, looking eagerly to see when the
+sea serpent was going on again. She says she give up trying to see why
+they print them so or ever trying to finish any one subject at a time;
+she just goes regularly through the paper now and lets the subjects
+fight it out to suit themselves. She says it makes the last part very
+interesting. You read about a baby, and after a while you find out
+whether it's the Queen of Spain's or just a race-horse. She says she
+supposes next Sunday there'll be a picture of Jathrop in the paper;
+maybe there'll be a view of this house with you and me. I think that
+that would be very interesting."
+
+Susan paused to consider the idyllic little picture thus presented to
+her mind's eye, and Mrs. Lathrop continued to say nothing. After a while
+Susan went on again:
+
+"I've been thinking a good deal about that letter, Mrs. Lathrop. I don't
+know whether you noticed or not, but to my order of thinking it was very
+strange his saying, 'How's Susan Clegg?' That's a curious thing for an
+unmarried man to ask his mother about an unmarried woman. When you come
+to consider how Jathrop was wild to marry me once, it really means a
+terrible lot. I was the first woman except you he ever kissed; he wasn't
+but a year old, and I was thirteen, but those things make an impression.
+I don't mind telling you that I've often thought about Jathrop
+nights--and days, too. And lately I've been thinking of him more and
+more. And you can see that he's been feeling the same about me, for he's
+showed that plain enough by saying in black and white, 'How's Susan
+Clegg?' Jathrop is a very silent nature, you can see that from his never
+writing even to his own mother in all these years. It means a good deal
+when a silent nature opens its mouth all of a sudden and writes, 'How's
+Susan Clegg?' And then my dreaming of him was so strange. He had soft
+gray fur and big bright yellow eyes, and the way he flew out of the
+window! Even in my dream I noticed how nice he jumped. He made a
+beautiful cat. And you know I always stood up for him, Mrs. Lathrop,
+I always did that. Even when I thought he needed lynching as much
+as anybody, I never said so. And now he's come back rich, and he's
+coming home to you and me, and he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'
+'How's--Susan--Clegg?'"
+
+Susan's voice died dreamily away. Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. After a
+minute Susan's voice went on again: "It's too bad I haven't time to sort
+of freshen up my striped silk. It's got awful creasy laying folded so
+long. I'd of put some new braid around the bottom if I'd known, and if
+this town wasn't so noticey, I'd put my hair up on rollers to-night. A
+little crimp sets my wave off so. But, laws, everybody'd be asking why I
+did it, and if Jathrop's got any idea of me in his head, it'll be very
+easy to knock it right straight out if this town gets first chance at
+him. But I don't intend that this town shall get first chance at him. I
+shall be on that platform to-morrow morning, and I'll be the nearest to
+that train, and once he gets off that train, I shall bring him right
+straight up here to you and me. It's safest, and it's his duty, too. As
+soon as you've seen him, I'll take him over to my house to wash. Then
+I'll give him his breakfast, and by the time he's done his breakfast, if
+he really means anything, I'll know it. If he really means anything,
+we'll come over after breakfast, and it'll do your heart good to see
+how happy we'll look. He can leave his bag in father's room then, for
+we'll have so much to talk over it'll be more convenient to take him
+over there. You can see that for yourself, Mrs. Lathrop--you know how
+young people like to be alone together when they're engaged, and a woman
+of my age don't need no looking after any longer. I'm no Gran'ma Mullins
+to be worrying over woods nor yet any Mrs. Lupey as supposes every man
+you let into your house may be going to hit you over the head when
+you're thinking of something pleasant.
+
+"No, I ain't afraid of Jathrop Lathrop nor of any other man alive, thank
+heaven. _But_, if I find out as he don't mean anything, I shall march
+him over to you in sharp order, bag and all. If he don't mean anything,
+I'll soon know the reason why, and as soon as I know the reason why,
+I'll send Mr. Jathrop Lathrop flying. 'How's Susan Clegg?' indeed! He'll
+find it's a very dangerous joke to go joking about me, no matter how
+much money he's scraped out of the Klondike. A joke is a thing as I
+never stand, Mrs. Lathrop, and if you'd been one as joked, you'd have
+found that out to your deep and abiding sorrow long ago. Very few people
+have ever tried to have any fun with me, and I've got even with the most
+of them, I'm happy to remark. I shall find out yet who sent me that
+comic valentine with the man skipping over the edge of the world and me
+after him with a net, and when I do find out, I'll get even about that,
+too. Me with a net! I'd like to see myself skipping after any man that
+was skipping away from me. If he was skipping toward me, I wouldn't
+marry him--not 'nless I loved him. I know that. Love is a thing as you
+can't raise and lower just as the fancy strikes you. A woman can't love
+but once, and I've got a kind of warm bubbling all around my heart as
+tells me that I've loved that once and that it was Jathrop. It's very
+strange, Mrs. Lathrop, but I've been thinking of Jathrop a great deal
+lately. I keep remembering more and more how much I've been thinking
+about him. I suppose he was thinking of me, and that's what started me.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' I can just seem to hear Jathrop's voice; Jathrop
+had a very strange voice. 'How's Susan Clegg?'
+
+"The mind is a curious thing, when you stop to consider, Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Brown says Amelia says minds can communicate if you know how. Mrs.
+Brown says if she calls to Amelia when she's in the hammock and Amelia
+don't answer, Amelia always explains afterwards as she was
+communicating.
+
+"It all shows that the mind is a wonderful thing. There was Jathrop and
+me communicating regularly, and me so little understanding what it all
+meant that I dreamed he was a cat. I can't get over that dream. I wonder
+if that meant that he's got whiskers now. If he's got whiskers, and he
+loves me, he's got to cut 'em right straight off. You'll have to speak
+to him about that as soon as you see him, Mrs. Lathrop, for I won't be
+able to, of course. And you can see for yourself that I couldn't have
+whiskers around. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I've had no
+experience with whiskers."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop promised to remonstrate with Jathrop if he really had
+whiskers, and after some further conversation Susan went home and to bed
+and slept soundly. In the morning she was up very promptly, and Mrs.
+Lathrop saw her off for the station.
+
+The whole town was at the station. But in front of them all--closest to
+the track--stood Susan Clegg.
+
+It was a breathless moment when Johnny ran out with the flag and the
+train stopped. Susan motioned the rest back with dignity and stood her
+ground alone. The car door opened, and a stout, homely man, with eyes
+set wide apart and a very large mouth, appeared on the platform. He was
+well dressed and carried an alligator-skin traveling-bag.
+
+Everybody gasped. But it was not his appearance nor the alligator-skin
+bag that caused them to gasp. It was that Jathrop Lathrop, returning
+after his long absence, had brought back a lady with him.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY
+
+
+And not merely a lady, but a Chinese lady at that. A particularly
+chubby, solemn, Chinese lady, who descended from the train which brought
+Jathrop Lathrop back to his native town after making a fortune in the
+Klondike, and meekly trotted along in his wake, carrying the large
+valise, while Jathrop carried the small one.
+
+Susan walked off straightway with Jathrop and the Chinese lady, while
+the town remained stock and staring behind. The town was frankly "done
+did up." That Jathrop might return with a wife had never once entered
+the head of any one. Still less had the idea of any one of that
+community ever wedding a Chinese been entertained. It was a peculiarly
+overwhelming sensation, and one which led Gran'ma Mullins to lean
+against Hiram, while Mrs. Macy leaned against the equally firm side-wall
+of the station itself. It was several seconds before people came to
+their senses enough to go around by the track gate and look to see how
+far the bewildering party had got on their way. They were just crossing
+the square.
+
+"Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," said Mr. Kimball, and his words
+seemed to break the deadlock; everybody scattered forthwith, all talking
+at once.
+
+Meanwhile Jathrop, arriving at his mother's gate, paused and said quite
+easily:
+
+"I'll go in alone, Susan; mother will like the first hour or so quite
+alone with me, I know. Won't you take Hop Loo to your house for
+breakfast?"
+
+Susan, who had by no means as yet recovered from the shock of the
+Celestial bride, opened and shut her mouth once and her eyes twice, and
+yielded. For the nonce she seemed as speechless as Mrs. Lathrop
+herself. Jathrop's appealing ease of manner had overawed her all the way
+up from the station, and the walk had been accomplished in stately
+silence. If the Klondike Prodigal had been surprised over the alteration
+in Susan, he had not said so, and now he quietly handed Hop Loo his
+alligator-skin traveling-bag (or hers, whichever it was), and passing in
+through his mother's gate, shut it forthwith behind him, and went on up
+the walk. Susan cast one look, which would have thrown a basilisk into
+everlasting darkness, after him; and then, turning, marched back to her
+own gate. Hop Loo followed, Susan opened her own gate and passed through
+it; Hop Loo passed through after her. Susan went up her walk; Hop kept
+close to her heels. Together they mounted the steps and then entered the
+house.
+
+It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely to
+rally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When she climbed
+the steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She looked
+peculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the present
+moment that she was not pleased with the world in general.
+
+"I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smiling
+enough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep up
+her own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those of
+others. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew."
+
+This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as it
+might have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable of
+anything so subtle.
+
+"Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's no
+use taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already set
+about doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathrop
+never come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of being
+poisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop has
+learned too many little tricks for that."
+
+Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous striped
+silk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dipping
+it (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen that
+the vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils.
+
+"Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herself
+and looking eagerly in her friend's face.
+
+"Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan.
+
+"Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular under
+the severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em,
+or did he just buy her for beads?"
+
+"I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don't
+know a _tall_. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man does
+about a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to have
+seen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she walked straight to my rack of
+pans and took down just whatever she fancied. I _never_ saw the beat!
+No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and the
+North Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop has
+picked up. He never said a word walking up--nothing but 'Ah' once. I
+don't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked your
+cradle and might have married you, too--if she'd wanted to. For I could
+have married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever know
+what passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say what
+prevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regret
+it, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks of
+the treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken--he
+means me."
+
+Susan paused and shook her head angrily.
+
+"I don't doubt but what he's sorry," said Mrs. Macy; "maybe he married a
+Chinese for fear any other kind would remind him of you."
+
+Miss Clegg rejected this possible poetic view of Jathrop's action with a
+look of great disgust accompanied by another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't believe it's very often that a man ever marries some other
+woman on account of any other woman. That's very pretty in books, but
+books ain't life. Life's life, and if Jathrop Lathrop's married that
+heathen Chinese, he's got very strange notions of life, and that's all I
+can say. Why, if she didn't lug that heavy bag along and walk a little
+back, and he never bothered to speak to her. She's very different from
+what I'd have been, I can tell you. You can maybe fancy me carrying
+Jathrop Lathrop's bag a little behind Jathrop Lathrop! I think I see
+myself. 'How's Susan Clegg?' He'll soon find out how Susan Clegg is.
+What do you think, Mrs. Macy, what _do_ you think? When we came to his
+mother's gate, he just stopped, said he thought she'd like him alone
+best, said to me, 'Give Hop Loo some breakfast, will you?'--and then if
+my gentleman didn't walk through the gate and shut it after him! Well, I
+_never_ did. There was me and his wife carefully shut out on the other
+side of the fence like we was pigs. And then I had to bring her over
+here and give her father's room. What would my dead and gone father say
+to a Chinese woman having his room, I wonder! Father had very fine
+feelings for a man as got about so little, and if he was alive, I don't
+believe no Jathrop Lathrop would have gone sending no heathen Chinese
+wife to live with _me_. She won't live with me long, I can tell you that
+to your face, Mrs. Macy. I took her because I was too dumb did up over
+having a gate shut in my face by Jathrop Lathrop to do anything else,
+but I ain't intending to have her long. I've always been for shutting
+the Chinese out, and I ain't going back on my principles at my time of
+life. No, indeed. 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+Susan paused angrily. Her repetition of the deceptive phrase in
+Jathrop's letter seemed to turn her boiling wrath into one of still,
+white menace. She sat perfectly still, snapping her eyelids up and down,
+and breathing hard.
+
+"I don't blame you one mite, Susan," said Mrs. Macy warmly; "I wish Mrs.
+Lupey was here. She wanted to come, too, but she's got her bag to pack
+to go home. She only come for one night, and to-night'll make two, so
+she wants to get packed. But she knows all about the Chinese. Her
+husband's got a cousin who is a missionary in China, and she could have
+felt for you. The cousin's got eleven Chinese servants besides a Bible
+class of two as she's training to be missionaries after they're trained.
+Mrs. Lupey says she'd have known what to do when that Chinese lady got
+off the train this morning. They don't let 'em ride in the same cars in
+China."
+
+Just here Jathrop came out of his mother's front door and walked down
+the path. Both ladies were freshly shocked by the sight. At the gate he
+turned in the opposite direction. Both ladies stared after him. Soon he
+was out of sight. Then they stared at each other.
+
+"Well, what is he up to now?" Mrs. Macy finally ejaculated.
+
+"I don't know," said Susan in a tone of complete despair as to ever
+again gaining any insight into the motives which moved Jathrop, "I d'n
+know, Mrs. Macy. Don't ask me anything about Jathrop Lathrop after he's
+gone home to see his mother and has handed me over a Chinese wife to
+board. He may be gone up to Mrs. Brown's to run off with Amelia for all
+I know. Nothing is ever going to surprise me any more after this day. I
+only know one thing, if he does run off with Amelia, that Chinee'll find
+herself and his valises dumped off of my premises pretty quick. I never
+was one for false feelings, and I should see no call for Christian
+charity toward a heathen who comes to me with two black bags on her legs
+and a dressing-sack for an overcoat."
+
+"I wonder if Jathrop likes her wearing such clothes," said Mrs. Macy.
+"Everybody is wondering."
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Clegg, "men are very queer. There's no telling
+what they are going to fancy till they get out of the train married to
+it. Think of his having the face to write 'How's Susan Clegg?' and him
+married to that puzzle-blocks thing all the time. I wonder what his
+mother said when he told her!"
+
+"Let's go over and see Mrs. Lathrop!" suggested Mrs. Macy, "she's over
+there alone now."
+
+This idea immediately found favor with Susan. "But I'll have to go in
+and see what _she's_ up to first," she said. "If she's caught a rat and
+is making soup in my teapot with it, I shan't feel to enjoy leaving her
+alone with my teapot."
+
+Mrs. Macy could but feel the extreme justice of this view, and Susan,
+whose countenance indicated that she was sorely beset by misgivings,
+went into the house.
+
+When she came out, her face wore a relieved expression.
+
+"She's all safe," she said. "She's asleep on the floor. I must say it's
+changed my feelings toward her. It shows she knows her place."
+
+They walked sedately to Mrs. Lathrop's. They climbed the back steps, and
+they knocked.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was busy making preparations for dinner. She came to the
+door with a promptitude which, in view of her well-known habit of
+deliberation, was little short of miraculous.
+
+"We came to see how you were," said Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Come in," said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+They walked in and seated themselves on two of the wooden-bottomed
+kitchen chairs. Mrs. Lathrop went on with her work. She was uncommonly
+active, and her face wore a broad, unusual smile. "Jathrop's gone up to
+the cemetery," she said. "He's going to have a monument put up to his
+father."
+
+"What do you think of--?" interrupted Susan.
+
+"Yes, we come to--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"He's going," continued Mrs. Lathrop, taking down a plate and blowing
+the thick dust from its surface, "to have an awful handsome monument put
+up. Not a animal like you put up to your father, Susan, but a angel
+hanging to a pillar with both hands and feeling for a cloud with its
+feet. He showed me the picture. And he's going to have the parlor
+papered and give the town a watering-trough for horses, with a tin cup
+on a chain for people, and he's--"
+
+"Yes, but--" interrupted Susan.
+
+"You know, of course--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop swept off the top of the rolling-pin with the stove-brush.
+"And he's going to build me on a bedroom right off the hall," she
+continued, "and put a furnace under the whole house. And one of those
+lamps that haul up and down, and a new set of kitchen things, and he'll
+come here every year and see if I want anything else, and if I do, I'm
+to have it. I'm to have a pew in church, even if I never do go to
+church, and a paper every day, and his baby picture done big, and be
+fitted for new glasses."
+
+"But, Mrs. Lathrop--" Susan interrupted, seeing that Mrs. Lathrop was
+surely still in ignorance as to her Mongolian daughter-in-law.
+
+"Yes, you--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Liza Em'ly is to do all the sewing I want," went on Mrs. Lathrop,
+proceeding with her baking preparations at a great rate, "and Jathrop'll
+pay the bill. And any things I want, I'm just to send for, and
+Jathrop'll pay the bill; and anything I can think of what I want done,
+I'm just to say so, and Jathrop'll pay the bill."
+
+It seemed as if Susan Clegg would burst at this. It was plain now that
+Jathrop really was rich, and here was his mother supposing the rose was
+utterly thornless.
+
+"But did he tell you about his wife?" she broke in desperately. "That's
+what I want to know."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, who was mixing butter and sugar together in a yellow bowl,
+stopped suddenly and stared.
+
+"His wife!" she said blankly.
+
+"Yes, his wife," repeated Susan.
+
+"The wife he brought back with him," explained Mrs. Macy.
+
+"The wife he--" Mrs. Lathrop pushed the yellow bowl a little back on the
+table and rested her hands on the edge. They trembled visibly; "the wife
+he--" she repeated.
+
+"Surely you know that he brought his wife back with him?" said Mrs.
+Macy. "Surely he's told you?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop--turned her usual dumb self again--looked at Mrs. Macy with
+almost unseeing eyes.
+
+"I--" she ejaculated faintly, "no, he--"
+
+"Now, you see," exclaimed Susan, half to the friend and half to the
+stricken mother, "it don't make any difference what a man turns into
+outside, he stays just the same inside. What have I always said to you,
+Mrs. Lathrop? You can't make no kind of a purse out of ears like
+Jathrop's. Jathrop Lathrop could turn into fifty millionaires, and he'd
+still be Jathrop Lathrop. He can hang all the angels he pleases and
+water all the horses from here to Meadville, and still he never could be
+any other man but just himself. And being himself, he never by no manner
+of means could be frank and open. He was always one that held things
+back. You thought it was because he didn't have no brains, but you was
+his mother and naturally looked on the best side of him. But he never
+deceived me, Mrs. Lathrop; I saw through Jathrop right from the start.
+There was a foxiness about Jathrop as nobody never fully saw into but
+me. That was my reason for never marrying him--one of my many reasons,
+for his foxiness hasn't been the only thing about Jathrop that I've seen
+through. I never was one to soften the blows to a tempered lamb, so I
+will say that so many reasons for not loving a man as I've seen in
+Jathrop I never see in any other man yet. But none of my reasons for not
+marrying him has ever equalled this new reason as has cropped up now in
+his bringing home a wife. When a man comes home with a wife, then you do
+see through him for good and all, and when Jathrop come scrambling out
+from between those two cars this morning with a heathen Chinee at his
+heels--"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop screamed loudly. "A--"
+
+"Heathen Chinee," repeated Susan.
+
+"You know what a Chinee is, don't you?" interposed Mrs. Macy; "they're
+from China, you know."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop retreated to her rocker with a totter.
+
+"Yes, she's a heathen Chinee," said Susan, with unfailing firmness, "the
+kindest heart in the world couldn't mistake her for anything even as
+high up as a nigger. Her eyes cross just under her nose, and she's got
+her hair wound round her head with a piece of black tape to hold it on.
+She wears divided skirts as is most plainly divided, and not a gore has
+she got to her name or her figure. She _is_ a Chinese and no mistake,
+and you may believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but
+Jathrop without a so much as by-your-leave dumped her onto me for
+breakfast, and she's asleep on father's floor now."
+
+"On your--" gasped Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, on father's," said Susan, "and now, Mrs. Lathrop, you see what he
+is at last. He not only marries a Chinese when if he'd been patient he
+might have got a white one, but he brings her home, and don't even tell
+you he's brought her home, or even that he's got her, or even that he's
+married her, or anything. A man might line my house with furnaces and
+have his baby picture done big in every room, and I'd never forgive his
+acting in such a way. I never hear the beat. It throws all the other
+calamities as ever come upon anybody in this community clean out of the
+shade. What will be the use of your having a pew in church; you won't
+even be able to face the minister now with your son's marrying one of
+them as we have to give our good money to teach to wear clothes. What
+good will your having the parlor papered be with everybody ashamed to go
+to see a woman who has got a Chinese daughter. To my order of thinking,
+you was better off poor. Why, they eat the hen's nests, the Chinese do,
+and prefer 'em to the eggs. It's small wonder I dreamed Jathrop was a
+cat, with him descending on us like the wrath of heaven married to a
+China woman. Jathrop's no fool though, and if you'd seen that humble
+heathen going along back of him with his big valise, you'd have to see
+as the man as picks out a wife like that never could have been a fool. I
+felt for her, I really did, only she was watching me with the wrong eye
+all the time, and it made me dizzy to try and look at her kindly. I'll
+tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, when Jathrop comes back, you'll just go for
+him and give it to him good. Men must learn as they can't bring their
+Chinese wives into this community. There's a principle as we'd ought to
+live up to whether we enjoy it or not, and it's all against marrying
+Chinese. The Chinese are all right, I hope and trust, but nothing as
+feeds itself with a toothpick had ever ought to be held pressed to the
+bosom of families like you and me, Mrs. Lathrop. It isn't the way we're
+brought up to look at them, and it's a well-known fact as no matter what
+the leopard does to the Ethiopian, he sticks to his spot just the same
+as before--"
+
+"But--" broke in Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop,--we've been friends
+too long for me not to feel kindly to you,--but Mrs. Macy is a witness
+to his bringing her, even if I wasn't well known to be one as never
+lies. Mrs. Macy is a witness, too, to how he's got her dressed, and a
+more burning disgrace than this keeping your chosen wife in loose
+overalls and a jacket as any monkey on a hand-organ would weep to see
+the fit of, I never see. It may be the custom in the Klondike and may
+be convenient for sliding, but this is no sliding community, and, to my
+order of thinking, Jathrop would have showed you more affection and us
+more respect if he'd bought his wife a bonnet and a shawl before he
+brought her here."
+
+Susan paused for breath. Mrs. Lathrop continued speechless. Mrs. Macy
+tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking, "Lands, she's got a
+pigtail, too."
+
+Susan picked up the cudgels afresh at that. "Wound twice around her
+head," she said bitterly; "oh, she _is_ a figure of fun and no mistake.
+I d'n know, I'm sure, what Jathrop was ever thinking of the day he
+picked her out, but this I do know, and that is, that he'd better pick
+her off of me pretty quick. You know, Mrs. Lathrop, as a friend is a
+friend and I've always been a good friend to you, but I never was one to
+stand any nonsense--not now and not never--and when a man writes, 'I'm
+rich' and 'How's Susan Clegg?' he gets me where no Chinese wife ain't
+going to please me in a hurry. I'm glad Jathrop is rich, on your
+account, Mrs. Lathrop, but his being rich don't alter my views of him a
+mite. I look upon him as a gray deceiver, that's what I look upon him
+as, and if he's brought a piece of carnelian or anything back to me, you
+can tell him to give it to his lawfully wedded wife, for I don't want to
+have nothing more to do with him."
+
+"But, Susan--" broke in poor Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Lathrop; I'm in no mood to listen to no
+one just now. I ain't mad, but I'm hurt. It's no wonder I dreamed he
+was a cat, for of all the sly, back-door things a cat is the
+meanest. And there was always something very cat-like about Jathrop
+Lathrop--something soft and slow and creepy--nothing bold and
+out-spoken. I might have known as even if he did come home rich, he'd
+find a way to even it up. And now look how he has evened it up. Think of
+your grandchildren; there won't be one of 'em able to ever look anybody
+straight in more'n one eye at once. Marrying Chinese is terrible,
+anyway--in some States it's forbidden. It's to be hoped Jathrop'll keep
+out of those States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."
+
+Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling,
+"Where are you, mother?"
+
+He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen.
+Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to a
+sudden halt.
+
+"We've been telling your--" began Mrs. Macy.
+
+"--mother about your wife," finished up Susan.
+
+Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my _wife_!" he
+repeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"
+
+"Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have been
+kinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've done
+it now."
+
+"Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed poor Mrs. Lathrop in
+heart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.
+
+"But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do you
+mean?"
+
+There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.
+
+"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who
+said I had one?"
+
+Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at
+Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.
+
+"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much
+longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as
+has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to
+be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."
+
+"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely
+bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
+
+Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was all
+right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the
+situation.
+
+"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.
+
+"To buy her with beads."
+
+"To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming
+exasperated.
+
+"Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as
+you brought with you and gave me to board."
+
+Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy--my boy,"
+he said.
+
+"Your boy!" said Susan.
+
+"Yes, my boy."
+
+Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity,
+and hopeless resignation.
+
+"Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I _did_ suppose you had some sense even in
+the view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to give
+up. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe your
+wife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that you believe that that is
+your boy--well!"
+
+Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macy
+wobbling in her wake.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY
+
+
+Susan Clegg and Mrs. Macy walked down to Mrs. Lathrop's gate, and out of
+her gate and to Miss Clegg's gate; the whole in a silence deadly and
+impressive. Mrs. Macy paused there.
+
+"I don't believe I'll come in," she said doubtfully.
+
+"I don't blame you," said Susan, "I wouldn't if it was me. Jathrop's
+boy, indeed! What kind of a man is it as'll have a Chinese family and go
+forcing them onto the true and long-tried friends of his one and only
+mother!"
+
+"I can't see why he didn't leave the boy in the Klondike," said Mrs.
+Macy slowly and reflectively. "I thought men always left their Chinese
+families just where they found 'em. It's strange Jathrop brought him
+home with him."
+
+"You see now what my dream meant," said Susan darkly, "a cat, indeed.
+It's small wonder I knew the cat was Jathrop Lathrop. Of all the mean,
+sly, creeping creatures that ever come up against the back of your legs
+sudden a cat is the worst. A snake is open and aboveboard beside a cat.
+You can see a snake. You don't see 'em often around here, thank heaven."
+
+"Well, we haven't seen Jathrop often around here for a long time," said
+Mrs. Macy, whose mind was as given to easy logical deduction as many of
+her mental caliber, "and we do see a lot of cats--you know that, Susan."
+
+"'How's Susan Clegg?'" quoted Susan in a tone of reflective wrath. "I
+don't know whether you know it or not, Mrs. Macy, but Jathrop asked
+after me in his letter to his mother, and him with a Chinese wife.
+'How's Susan Clegg?' What did he write that for if he was married, I'd
+like to know."
+
+"Maybe he wanted to know how you were," suggested Mrs. Macy.
+
+The look she received in recognition of this offered explanation led to
+her immediately proposing to go on home. "You've got the Chinaman to
+look after, anyhow," she added.
+
+"You'd better come in while I go up and look at him again," said Susan
+shortly. "It's a very strange sensation to be alone in your house with
+what you fully and freely take to your dead father's bed and board,
+supposing it's a wife, and then find out as it's her son instead. Come
+on in."
+
+Mrs. Macy was easily persuaded, and they thereupon went up the walk. "I
+guess I'll go see if he's still asleep," Susan said when they reached
+the piazza, and Mrs. Macy forthwith sat down to await what might come of
+it.
+
+Susan was absent but a few minutes; she returned with a fresh layer of
+disapproval upon her face.
+
+"Is he still sleeping?" Mrs. Macy asked.
+
+"Yes, he's still sleeping," Miss Clegg replied, jerking a chair forward
+for herself. "You'd know he was Jathrop Lathrop's child just by the way
+he sleeps. You remember what a one Jathrop always was for sleeping. I
+don't know as I remember Jathrop's ever being awake till he was fairly
+grown. Whatever you set him at always just made him more sleepy. You
+know yourself, Mrs. Macy, as he wouldn't be no grasshopper with Mrs.
+Lathrop for his mother, but a cocoon is a comet beside what Jathrop
+Lathrop always was. I don't know whether he's rich or not, but I do know
+that heathen Chinee is his son, and I know it just by the way he
+sleeps."
+
+"And so Jathrop's rich," said Mrs. Macy, rocking agreeably to and fro,
+and evidently striving toward more pleasant conversation.
+
+"Yes," said Susan darkly, "rich and with a Chinese wife somewhere. Just
+as often as I think of Jathrop Lathrop writing, 'How's Susan Clegg,'
+with a Chinese wife I feel more and more tempered, and I can't conceal
+my feelings. I never was one to conceal anything; if I had a Chinese
+wife the whole world might know it."
+
+Just here Gran'ma Mullins hove in sight, coming slowly and laboriously
+up the street.
+
+"Why, there's Gran'ma Mullins!" Mrs. Macy exclaimed. "She's surely
+coming to see you, too."
+
+Both ladies remained silent, watching the progress of Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+Gran'ma Mullins arrived a good deal out of breath. Susan brought a chair
+out of the house for her.
+
+"I come to--tell you," panted the new visitor as soon as she had
+attained unto the chair, "that Jathrop's--things is--coming."
+
+"What things?" asked Susan.
+
+"They all come on--the ten o'clock--from the junction; Hiram is helping
+unload."
+
+"What's he brought?" Susan asked.
+
+"Well, he's brought an automobile," said Gran'ma Mullins, "and a lot of
+other trunks and boxes."
+
+"An automobile!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy, "well, he _is_ rich then!"
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Susan, "some very poor folks is
+riding that way nowadays."
+
+"And he brought three trunks and seventeen big wooden boxes," continued
+Gran'ma Mullins, "big boxes."
+
+"Three trunks and sev-en-teen--Three trunks and sev-en--" Susan's voice
+faded into nothingness.
+
+"Goodness knows what's in them," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Hiram was
+getting so hot unloading that I wanted him to stop and let me fan him,
+but he wouldn't hear to it. Hiram's so brave. If he said he'd unload
+something, he'd unload it if he dropped dead under it and was smashed to
+nothing."
+
+There was a pause of unlimited bewilderment while Mrs. Macy and Susan
+raised Jathrop upon the pedestal erected by his three trunks, seventeen
+boxes and the automobile.
+
+"And to think of his having a Chinese wife," Susan exclaimed, the keen
+edge of sorrow cutting crossways through all her words.
+
+It was just here that Mrs. Lupey now appeared, approaching at a good
+pace. Mrs. Lupey was a large, imposing woman and wore a silk dolman with
+fringe. It was immediately necessary for the party to adjourn to the
+sitting-room, as the piazza was strictly limited.
+
+It was Mrs. Lupey who without loss of time did away with the Lathrop
+parentage of the young Chinese.
+
+"Why, he's his servant, of course," she said in a lofty scorn. "I'm
+surprised you didn't know that by his age."
+
+"I did think of his age," Susan said, "but I read once in some paper as
+the women in China get married when they're four years old, so you'd
+never be able to tell nothing by the age of no one there. Well, well,
+and so she isn't his wife, nor yet his son. Well, I'm glad--for Mrs.
+Lathrop's sake."
+
+"But if Jathrop's really got a automobile and seventeen trunks, he
+_must_ be awful rich," said Mrs. Macy. "It'll be a great thing for this
+town if Jathrop's rich. He'd ought to be very grateful to the place
+where his happy childhood memories run around barefoot."
+
+"Oh, he'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins, "it's easy to remember when
+you've got the money to do it. But I hope to heaven he won't set Hiram
+off on that track again. Hiram does so want to go away and make a
+fortune; I'm worried for fear he will all the time. And Lucy wants him
+to, too. I can't understand a woman as wants a fortune worse than she
+wants Hiram. Lucy doesn't seem to want Hiram 'round at all any more. If
+he's asleep, she starts right in making the bed the same as if he wasn't
+in it, and if she's sewing, he don't dare go within the length of her
+thread.
+
+"Life has come to a pretty pass when a wife'll run a needle into a
+husband just for the simple pleasure of feeling him go away when she
+sticks him." Gran'ma Mullins sighed.
+
+"I wonder what they're doing now!" Mrs. Macy said.
+
+All four turned at this and looked toward the Lathrop house together. It
+was quiet as usual.
+
+"I d'n know as it changes my opinion of Jathrop much, that being his
+servant," said Miss Clegg suddenly. "It's kind of different, his handing
+his wife or his son over to me; but his heathen Chinee servant! I don't
+know as I'm very pleased."
+
+"Pleased!" said Mrs. Lupey. "Why, in San Francisco they make 'em live
+underground like rats."
+
+"Maybe that was why you dreamed he was a cat, Susan?" suggested Mrs.
+Macy, whose brain seemed to grasp at the subject under consideration
+with special illumination.
+
+Susan rose. "I think you'd better go," she said abruptly, "I've got to
+get dinner. My mind's in no state to deal with all these sides of
+Jathrop and his Chinaman just now."
+
+What the day brought up the street and in and around Mrs. Lathrop's
+house would take too long to catalogue. Suffice it to say that poor Mrs.
+Lathrop, who had been for long years the veriest zero in the life of the
+community, became suddenly its center and apex.
+
+When Jathrop went to New York at the end of the week, he left his mother
+not only sitting, but rocking in the lap of luxury, with her head
+leaning back against more luxury and her feet braced firmly on yet more
+luxury. Even her friend over the way was rendered utterly content.
+
+And the pleasantest part of it all was the way that it affected Susan
+Clegg. As Susan sat by Mrs. Lathrop and turned upon her that tender gaze
+which one old friend may turn on another old friend when the latter's
+son has suddenly bloomed forth golden, her full heart found utterance
+thus:
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop--well, Mrs. Lathrop, I guess no one will ever doubt
+anything again. Talk about dreams, _now_! I dreamed Jathrop was a cat,
+and the reason was that it's a well-known fact that cats _always_ come
+back. Why, Mrs. Macy told me once how she chloroformed a cat, and put it
+in a flour sack with a stone, and put the sack in a hogshead of water,
+and put the cover on the hogshead, and put a stone--another stone--on
+that, and went to church to hear the minister preach on 'Do unto others
+as you do unto others,' and when she came back, the cat was asleep on
+top of the hogshead, and Mrs. Macy got the worst shock she ever got. So
+you can easy see why I dreamed Jathrop was a cat; and he _did_ come
+back.
+
+"I declare that'll always be the pleasantest recollection of my life,
+how I met him at the station and how we came chatting up the street
+together. How he has improved, Mrs. Lathrop--not but what he was always
+handsome! There was always something noble about Jathrop. Gran'ma
+Mullins said yesterday as he made her think of a man she saw in a play
+once as stood on his crossed legs in front of a fire and smoked. So
+careless.
+
+"And then his bringing Mrs. Macy that polar-bear skin! Mrs. Macy says if
+there was one spot in the whole wide world where she never expected to
+set foot it was on top of a polar bear, and now she can stand on her
+head on one if the fancy takes her. I saw the minister when I was down
+in the square to-night, and he told me not to speak of it, but he
+thought a service of prayer for any stocks and mines as Jathrop has
+would be the only fitting form of gratitude which a reverent and
+affectionate congregation might offer to the great and glorious
+generosity of him who is going to give us a steeple after all these
+years of finishing flat at the top. Mr. Kimball came out to tell me to
+ask you if you'd like some one to come regularly for your order, and he
+says he'll keep caviare from now on, just on the chance of Jathrop's
+being here to eat it; he says why he didn't keep it before was he
+thought it was a kind of chamois skin.
+
+"It's beautiful to see the faces down-town, Mrs. Lathrop; you never saw
+nothing like it. Everybody's just so happy. Hiram is grinning from ear
+to ear over being took to the Klondike, and everybody is swore to not
+let Gran'ma Mullins know he's going. He's going to climb out of the
+window at night and get away that way, and Gran'ma Mullins won't mind
+what she feels when he really does come back a millionaire, too. She'll
+be just like you, Mrs. Lathrop; no one minds anything once it's over.
+Little misunderstandings are easy forgot.
+
+"And to think there's been a blue automobile puffing at these very
+kitchen steps! To think you and me was over to Meadville and back
+between dinner and supper one day! I guess Mrs. Lupey never got such a
+start. She'd been all the morning getting home on the train and was only
+just putting her bonnet away in its box when we rolled up. I never
+enjoyed nothing like that roll up in all my life! I never see
+automobiles from the automobile's side before, but now I can. When a
+automobile goes over a duck it makes all the difference in the world
+whether it's your automobile or your duck.
+
+"And then Jathrop's generosity! Not but what he was always generous.
+Deacon White says he will say that for Jathrop, he was always generous.
+And look what he brought home. Every child in town is just about out of
+their senses. Felicia Hemans is crazy about the earrings, and 'Liza
+Em'ly won't never take off the bracelet. Mr. Shores can't keep the tears
+back when he looks at his watch charm. I think it was so kind of
+Jathrop. But Jathrop was always kind; you know yourself that a kinder
+creature never lived than Jathrop. I always said that for him.
+
+"And then his having a new fence built around the cemetery. It was
+thoughtful, and Judge Fitch says nobody can't say more. But Judge Fitch
+says Jathrop was always thoughtful; he says he's been interested in him
+always just for that very reason. Judge Fitch says Jathrop's nature was
+always that deep kind that's easy overlooked. He says he'll have to
+confess to his shame that some of the time he overlooked him himself. He
+says it's very difficult to understand a deep nature, because if a deep
+nature don't make money, there's hardly any way of ever knowing that it
+really was deep; people just think you're a fool then--like we always
+thought Jathrop was. You know, nobody ever thought he ever could amount
+to nothing. You know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop. But making money lets
+you see just what a person's got in 'em and see it plain.
+
+"I'm sure for all I've loved Jathrop as if he was going to be my own,
+for years and years and years, still I never credited him with being the
+man he is. I supposed he was a tramp somewhere--yes, I really did, Mrs.
+Lathrop, you may believe me or not, but that's just what I thought when
+I thought anything at all about him--which wasn't often.
+
+"Everybody in the whole place is busy remembering pleasant things about
+him now. The minister's wife remembers his coming to a Christmas tree
+once a long time ago when they both was little; she says she hasn't
+thought of it in thirty years, but she remembers it as plain as day
+now,--he had on a coat and a little tie.
+
+"And Gran'ma Mullins says she never will forget the day before he was
+born, for she went to town and dropped her little bead bag, and you know
+how much she thinks of her little bead bag now when the beads is all
+worn off, so you can think what store she set by it when the beads were
+still on, and so she was all back and forth along the road hunting for
+it the whole blessed afternoon, and when she found it and went home, she
+_was_ tired, and she slept late next morning because her husband was out
+very late the night before, and when he slept late she always slept
+late, 'cause she said sleeping late was almost the only treat he ever
+give her, and, anyhow, when they did wake up and get up and get out,
+there was Jathrop, and she says she shall never forget her joy over
+having found the bead bag again.
+
+"Mrs. Macy says she remembers the day he hid, and you thought he was in
+the cistern, and you was kneeling down looking in when he jumped out
+from behind the stove and give you such a start you went in head first.
+
+"I remember that day myself, too--father was insisting he was paralyzed
+then, and mother and me wouldn't take his word for it, and we fully
+expected he'd race over and help haul you out, but all he said was,
+'She'll have to manage the best she can--I'm paralyzed,' and we really
+began to believe him from then on.
+
+"The minister says he shall always remember how well he looked when he
+put on long trousers; the minister's preparing a little paper on Jathrop
+to read at the Sunday-school annual, and he says he shall begin with the
+day he put on long trousers and then mark his rise step by step. The
+minister's so pleased over Jathrop's patting Brunhilde Susan on the
+head; he says there are pats and pats, but that pat that Jathrop give
+Brunhilde Susan was what he calls, in pure and Biblical simplicity, _a_
+pat."
+
+Susan paused. Mrs. Lathrop just felt her diamond solitaires, glanced at
+the new kitchen range, and was silent.
+
+"And then, Mrs. Lathrop, that dear blessed little Chinese angel--I tell
+you I shall never forget that boy. I liked his face when I first laid
+eyes on him, and when I thought he was Jathrop's lawful wife, I loved
+him as I'd loved even a Chinaman if he was your daughter; but when I saw
+him cleaning up my sink, polishing my pans, washing out my cupboards and
+all that, just the same as yours, _then_ was when I see that a heathen
+Chinee has just the same right to go to heaven that anybody else has,
+and from then on I just trusted him completely and let him do every bit
+of the work till he left.
+
+"I see now why everybody's so happy being a missionary if you can just
+get away and live with the Chinee. I'd have kept that boy if Jathrop
+hadn't wanted him--I'd have been very glad to; and it's awful to think
+we're keeping quiet, lovable natures like his from settling here. A girl
+might do much worse than marry that Chinese--_very_ much worse. A very
+great deal worse. Though I suppose many would hesitate."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop rose, went to the cupboard, took out a bottle of homemade
+gooseberry wine, poured out a little, and took a sip. She did not offer
+any to Susan.
+
+"It'll do you good," said Susan encouragingly. "I don't like the taste
+myself, but it'll do you good. Besides, Mrs. Lathrop, you must begin to
+get used to it. When you go around with Jathrop in his private car,
+you'll have to drink wine, and if I was you, I'd stop tying a stocking
+around your neck nights, for you'll have to wear a very different cut of
+gowns soon. If Jathrop buys that yacht he's gone to look at, you'll have
+to wear a sailor blouse."
+
+"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop faintly, "oh, Susan, I--" Miss Clegg put her
+hastily back into her chair.
+
+"Never mind if it does make your head go 'round a little, Mrs. Lathrop;
+you must learn how. It may be hard, but it'll make Jathrop happy, and
+now he's come back rich, that's what everybody wants to do.
+
+"Mrs. Brown says next time he comes she's going to make him a jet-black
+pound-cake, and Mrs. Allen says she's going to work him a pincushion.
+She says it'll be a plain, simple token of affection, but those whom
+Fortune smiles on soon learn to know the true worth of a simple gift of
+purest love. She says no one has ever known how she loved Jathrop,
+'cause she kept it to herself for fear you'd think she was after him for
+Polly."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop rocked dreamily.
+
+Susan rose to go.
+
+"Don't--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I must," said Susan. "Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, think of his giving me those
+fifty shares of stock just on account of my long-suffering friendship
+for you. I declare he's a great character--that's all I can say.
+
+"I always had a feeling he'd end in some unusual way; when they started
+to lynch him, I thought that was the way, but now I see that this was
+the way, and I thank heaven that I wasn't right the other time and am
+right this time. For human nature is human nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+people are always kinder to a woman whose son comes home from the
+Klondike a millionaire than they are if they had the bother of lynching
+him, no matter how much he may have deserved it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop continued to finger her solitaire earrings in happy
+silence. Miss Clegg, who never exhibited any tenderness toward anything,
+went over and arranged the fold-over of her friend's gold-embroidered,
+silk-quilted kimono.
+
+"I'll be glad when your new hair gets here, Mrs. Lathrop," she said
+tenderly, "it'll make a different woman of you. It's astonishing what a
+little extra hair can do; I always feel that when I put on my wave.
+
+"You and me will have to be getting used to all kinds of new things now.
+And that beautiful dream of mine letting us know he was coming. Mrs.
+Brown says Amelia says the Egyptians worshipped cats and used to pickle
+them when they died.
+
+"It's astonishing how, if you know enough, you can see how any dream is
+full of meaning. There's Jathrop so fond of pickles, and you and me
+worshipping him. And he writing in every letter he has time to get
+somebody to write for him, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop lapsed into beatific slumber. Susan Clegg went quietly
+home.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH
+
+
+It was not in reason to suppose that the return of Jathrop Lathrop
+should continue to occupy wholly the attention of the community. Each
+week--even each day--brought its fresh interests. Not the least exciting
+of the provocative elements was borne back from the metropolis to which
+'Liza Em'ly, that hitherto negatively regarded olive branch of the
+ministerial family, had but recently emigrated. 'Liza Em'ly, it was
+whispered one day, had written a book.
+
+The Sewing Society, at its next meeting, discussed it, as a matter of
+course; and Susan Clegg, equally as a matter of course, promptly
+reported the proceedings to her friend and neighbor, Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well," she began, sitting down with the heavy thump of one who is
+completely and utterly overcome, "I give up. It's beyond me. I was to
+the Sewing Society, and it's beyond them all, too. The idea of 'Liza
+Em'ly's writing a book! No one can see how she ever come to think as she
+could write a book. No one can see where she got any ideas to put in a
+book. I don't know what any one thought she _would_ do when she set out
+for the city to earn her own living, but there wasn't a soul in town as
+expected her to do it, let alone writing a book, too. I can't see
+whatever gives any one the idea of earning their living by writing
+books. Books always seem so sort of unnecessary to me, anyway--I ain't
+read one myself in years. No one in this community ever does read, and
+that's what makes everybody so surprised over 'Liza Em'ly, after living
+among us so long and so steady, starting up all of a sudden and doing
+anything like this. And what makes it all the more surprising is she
+never said a word about it either--never wrote home to the family or
+told a living soul. And so you can maybe imagine the shock to the
+minister when he got word as his own flesh and blood daughter had not
+only written a book but got it all printed without consulting him. His
+wife says he was completely done up and could hardly speak for quite a
+little while, and later when the newspaper clippings begin to come, he
+had to go to bed and have a salt-water cloth over his eyes. I tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, the minister is a very sensitive nature; it's no light
+thing to a sensitive nature to get a shock like a daughter's writing a
+book."
+
+"Is--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I should say that it was," said Miss Clegg. "I should say that it
+was. And not only is it being advertised, but people are buying it just
+like mad, the papers say. The minister is still more upset over that;
+seems the responsibilities of even being connected with books nowadays
+is no light thing. There was that man as was shot for what he wrote in
+a book the other day, you know, and the minister's wife says as the
+minister is most nervous over what may be in the book; she says he says
+very few books as everybody is reading ought to be read, and he knows
+what he's talking about, for he's a great reader himself. Why, his wife
+says he's got books hid all over the house, and she says--speaking
+confidentially--as he says most of 'em he's really very sorry he's
+read--after he's finished 'em. She says--he says he'll know no peace
+night or day now until he's read 'Liza Em'ly's book. I guess it's no
+wonder that he's nervous. 'Liza Em'ly's been a handful for years, and
+since she fell in love with Elijah, there's been just no managing her a
+_tall_. If Elijah'd loved her, of course it would have been different,
+but Elijah wasn't a energetic nature, and 'Liza Em'ly was, and when a
+energetic nature loves a man like Elijah, there's just no knowing where
+they will end up. I never see why Elijah didn't love 'Liza Em'ly, but
+her grandmother's nose has always been against her, and he told me
+himself as it was all he could think of when he sat quietly down to
+think about her. But all that's neither here nor there, for it's a far
+cry from a girl's nose to her brains nowadays, thank heavens, and 'Liza
+Em'ly's got something to balance her now. Polly White has sent for one
+of the books. She says she'll lend it around, no matter what's in it.
+Polly says there's one good thing in getting married, and that is it
+makes you a married woman, and being a married woman lets you read all
+kinds of books. I guess Polly's been a great reader since she was
+married. She's meant to get some good out of that situation, and she's
+done it. The deacon isn't so badly off, either. I wouldn't say that he's
+glad he's married all the time, but I guess some of the time he don't
+mind, and it's about all married people ask if only some of the time
+they can feel to not be sorry. A little let-up is a great relief."
+
+"You--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Miss Clegg, "but I pick up a good deal from others,
+and there's a feeling as married women have when they talk to a woman as
+they suppose can't possibly know anything just 'cause she never got into
+any of their troubles, as makes them show forth the truth very plainly.
+I won't say as married women strike me more and more as fools, for it
+wouldn't be kindly, but I will say as the way they revel in being
+married and saying how hard it is, kind of strikes me as amusing. _I_
+wouldn't go into a store and buy a dress and then, when every one knew
+as I picked it out myself, keep running around telling how it didn't fit
+and was tearing out in all the seams--but that's about what most of this
+marriage talk comes to. I do wonder what 'Liza Em'ly has said about
+marriage in _Deacon Tooker Talks_. That's a very funny name for a book,
+I think myself, but that's what she's named it. And as it seems to be
+about most everything, I suppose it must be about marriage, too. Of
+course 'Liza Em'ly's so wild to marry Elijah that everybody knows that
+that was what took her up to town. She didn't want to earn her living
+any more than any girl does. Nobody ever really aches to earn their
+living. But some has to, and some wants to be around with men, and there
+ain't no better way to be around with men nowadays than to go to work
+with 'em. You have 'em all day long then, and pretty soon you have 'em
+all the time. 'Liza Em'ly wants to have Elijah all the time."
+
+"What--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, she says she thinks they're so congenial; she told me herself as
+Elijah 'understood.' It seems to be a great thing to understand
+nowadays. It's another of those things we used to take for granted but
+which is now got new and uncommon and most remarkable. She told me when
+she and Elijah watched the sun setting together, they both understood,
+and she seemed to feel that that was a safe basis on which to set out
+for town and start in to earn her own living. The minister didn't want
+her to go. He was very much against it. It cost such a lot, too. The
+minister's wife said it would have been ever so much cheaper to fix a
+girl to get married. You can get married with six pairs of new
+stockings, the minister's wife says, and it takes a whole dozen with the
+heels run to earn your living. The minister's wife was very confidential
+with me about it all, and 'Liza Em'ly confided considerably in me, too.
+They both knew I'd never tell. Every one always confides in me because
+they know I never tell. Why, the things folks in this community have
+told me! Well!--But I _never_ tell. The real reason I never tell is
+because they always tell every one themselves before I can get around,
+but then a confiding nature is always telling its affairs, and so you
+can't really blame 'em. I never tell my own affairs, because I've
+learned as affairs is like love letters, and if they're interesting
+enough, it is very risky. But really, Mrs. Lathrop, I must be going now,
+and as soon as I get hold of that book, I'll be over with my opinion.
+_Deacon Tooker Talks!_ My, but that is a funny name for a book! I can't
+see myself what kind of a book it can possibly be with that title--but
+anyway, we shall soon know now."
+
+"Yes, we--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Susan, and the seance broke up for that day.
+
+It was resumed the day after, and the day after that, but no further
+progress having been made in the development of 'Liza Em'ly's affairs,
+that interesting topic remained in abeyance until after the next meeting
+of the Sewing Society, when the subject was put forward with emphasis.
+
+"You never hear the beat," said the lady who nearly always went to the
+Sewing Society to the lady who hadn't been there for years; "this book
+of 'Liza Em'ly's seems to be something just beyond belief. Polly read it
+all aloud to us to-day, and I must say it's a _most_ astonishing book. I
+will tell you in confidence, Mrs. Lathrop, as I ain't surprised that the
+minister hid his copy and that the newspapers is all printing things
+about it. Seems it's a man in bed talking to his wife who is asleep
+most of the time, only he don't pay the slightest attention to her not
+paying the slightest attention. Polly had the name right, it is _Deacon
+Tooker Talks_ (which is a _most_ singular name to my order of thinking).
+The cover has got a picture of the deacon's head on a pillow talking,
+and you can think how the minister would feel over his daughter's book's
+cover having a pillow on it! I walked home with Mrs. Fisher, and she
+will have it that 'Liza Em'ly's put her father into the book, soul and
+body. There's a man called Mr. Lexicon as is a lawyer in the book, and
+Mrs. Fisher says it's the minister. I wouldn't swear as it wasn't the
+minister myself, but I hate to believe it, for a girl as'll put her
+father in a book would be equal to most anything, I should suppose. But
+Mrs. Fisher's sure it's the minister; she says she knew him right off by
+his ear-muffs. Only 'Liza Em'ly has disguised the ear-muffs by calling
+them overshoes. Mr. Lexicon has always got on his overshoes. Mrs.
+Fisher waited until we got away from all the rest, and then she showed
+me a review from a New York paper that just took my breath away. It says
+no such book has appeared before a welcoming public in two hundred and
+fifty years, and she's going to write the paper and ask what the book
+two hundred and fifty years ago was about. Mrs. Fisher says she's
+thinking very seriously of writing a book herself. She says she's always
+wanted to write a book, and now she thinks she'll go up to town and see
+'Liza Em'ly and ask her about their writing a book together. She says
+she'll furnish all the story, and 'Liza Em'ly can write the book. Then
+they'll divide the money even. And there'll be money to divide, too, for
+'Liza Em'ly's book is surely selling. Mrs. Macy come up after Mrs.
+Fisher went home, and she had a piece out of another newspaper that Mrs.
+Lupey sent her, saying the book was in its ninth edition already. She
+had it with her at the Sewing Society, but she didn't bring it out, out
+of consideration for the feelings of the minister's wife. Mrs. Macy
+says she thinks she'll write a book, too. She's got the same idea as
+Mrs. Fisher about writing it with 'Liza Em'ly, only she says she'll let
+'Liza Em'ly use some of her own ideas mixed in with Mrs. Macy's ideas,
+and she can have two thirds of the money. She says it can't be hard to
+write a book, or 'Liza Em'ly couldn't never have done it, but she says
+'Liza Em'ly has got the Fishers in her book, and she's surprised Mrs.
+Fisher didn't recognize 'em at the Sewing Society. 'Liza Em'ly calls 'em
+the Hunters. Fishers, hunters--you see! An' John Bunyan she calls Martin
+Luther, an' in place of being a genius, she covered that all up by
+making him a painter. Laws, Mrs. Macy says writing a book's easy. She
+says that book of 'Liza Em'ly's is really too flat for words, and what
+makes people buy it, she can't see. Well, I shan't buy a copy, I know
+_that_. I ain't knowed 'Liza Em'ly all my life to go doing things like
+that now."
+
+With which very common view as to the works produced by our intimate
+friends, Miss Clegg rose to take her departure.
+
+"Did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, when they next met.
+
+"No--I asked, but not a soul knew. We haven't got _any_ man in town as
+it could _possibly_ be. They was all discussing it, too. Mrs. Macy and
+Mrs. Fisher is really going to town to see 'Liza Em'ly and take up their
+ideas to talk over. Mrs. Macy is putting her ideas down on a piece of
+paper, so as to be sure she has 'em with her. Mrs. Fisher's keeping hers
+in her head, for she says if she lost them, anybody might write her
+book. They think they'll go Tuesday. I hope they will, 'cause if they
+do, they'll come straight from the train and tell me, and then I'll come
+straight over and tell you."
+
+With which amicable arrangement Miss Clegg again took her departure.
+
+It was quite two weeks before affairs shaped themselves for Mrs. Macy
+and Mrs. Fisher to go to the city on their literary errand, but they
+managed it at last, and you may be very sure that Mrs. Lathrop peeked
+eagerly and earnestly out of her window many times the afternoon after
+their journey. They came up to call upon Miss Clegg and narrate their
+adventures quite according to their usual friendly ideals, and directly
+they took their leave that good lady hied herself rapidly to Mrs.
+Lathrop to tell the tale.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop met her at the door and both sank into chairs immediately.
+
+"Well, what--" said the older lady then, and her younger friend rejoined
+promptly:
+
+"Perfectly dumfounding; nothing like it was ever knowed before or ever
+will be again."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They're both completely paralyzed. Mrs. Fisher can't say a word, and
+Mrs. Macy can't keep still."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop again.
+
+Miss Clegg drew a sharp breath. "They went to see 'Liza Em'ly, an' they
+saw her. My goodness heavens, I should think they did see her. Mrs.
+Macy says if any one ever supposed as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was
+any wonder, they'd ought to go to the city an' see 'Liza Em'ly, and the
+Hanging Gardens would keep their mouths shut forever after."
+
+"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop for the third time.
+
+But Miss Clegg was now quite ready to discharge her full duty. "Seems
+'Liza Em'ly's book went into the twentieth edition yesterday," she said,
+opening her eyes and mouth with great expressiveness. "They knew that
+before they got there, for you can believe Mrs. Macy or not, just as you
+please, Mrs. Lathrop, but there were actually signboards saying so stuck
+up all along in the fields as the train went by. The train-boy had the
+books for sale on the train, too, and kept dropping 'em on top of 'em
+all the way, but they didn't mind that, for Mrs. Fisher read her book as
+fast as she could until he picked it up again, and she read to good
+purpose, for this afternoon she asked for a glass of water, and while I
+was out with her in the kitchen getting it, she told me there isn't a
+mite of doubt but Mrs. Macy is in the book, and Doctor Carter of
+Meadville is in right along with her. Mrs. Fisher says 'Liza Em'ly has
+called her Miss Grace and him Doctor Wagner of Lemonadetown, but she
+says she knew 'em instantly by the description of how they was in love;
+she says you'd recognize how they was in love right off. I must say,
+Mrs. Lathrop, as I think 'Liza Em'ly ought to be very careful what she
+writes about real people if you can tell 'em as quick as that; but
+anyway, they got to town and took a street car, and then, lo and behold,
+if their first little surprise wasn't the finding as 'Liza Em'ly has
+stopped living where she lives and gone to live in a hotel, so they had
+to go to the hotel, too, and when they got there, what do you think?--If
+'Liza Em'ly wasn't giving a reception to celebrate the twentieth
+edition!"
+
+"Wh--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg, "certainly--yes, I should say so,
+too. If they didn't get a fine shock over 'Liza Em'ly and her hotel and
+her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she'll never know what
+a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a
+elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before
+they'd caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room
+with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in
+the middle, passing cups of tea which a lady, with her muff on her head,
+was pouring out, while 'Liza Em'ly sat on a table swinging her feet in
+shoes she never bought in _this_ town, Mrs. Macy'll take her Bible oath,
+and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, that isn't anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs.
+Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two
+perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a
+kind of a party! One man and one girl was under the piano playing cat's
+cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a
+hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn't have been surprised at nothing after
+that, you'd think, but she says when it comes to 'Liza Em'ly nowadays,
+you don't know even what you're thinkin', for you'd suppose 'Liza Em'ly
+would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of
+that, she just clapped her hands and said, 'Hello, home-folks,' which
+nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and _he_
+had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn't look anywhere
+near as used up as in Mrs. Macy's opinion a man away from business with
+his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought
+to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young
+lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully
+powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then
+there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they'd
+both jumped and Mrs. Macy come near dislocating her hip, they see that
+a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says _such_
+piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared
+hereafter; she says he'd skitter up the piano with both hands, and then
+he'd bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the
+very bottom, he'd give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair
+over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose
+hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more
+till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and
+then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and
+folded his arms and was done."
+
+"Mercy on--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody
+clapped like mad, and then 'Liza Em'ly come to earth and went and threw
+her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy's order of thinking, didn't
+look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they
+could shake hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a
+lot of telegrams on a tray, and while 'Liza Em'ly was fixing half a
+spectacle in one eye to read 'em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins,
+and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their
+two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin
+about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs.
+Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed 'em to the
+door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all
+three and 'Liza Em'ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till
+somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then
+till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they
+looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak,
+and then they came home."
+
+"Well, wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it's _awful_! And the worst of it is for
+her to be the minister's daughter. Think of it! They bought a paper as
+had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they'd just been
+at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now,
+and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they
+ain't much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they
+see posters of _Deacon Tooker Talks_, and people in the cars was all
+discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text
+to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds
+with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."
+
+"Well, wha--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Clegg. "The book's made right out of this
+community, and since I've read it myself, I can see who every one is
+_except_ Deacon Tooker. I can't see who Deacon Tooker is, for we haven't
+got anybody like him. He's talking the whole time; in fact, the book is
+all what he says about everything, and all his wife ever does is to wake
+up when he shakes her and then go to sleep again. The idea's very
+remarkable of a man laying awake chattering to himself all night long,
+but I never heard of any such person here. Our only deacon is Deacon
+White, and he never talks a _tall_."
+
+"I wonder if the min--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, I don't believe so," said Miss Clegg. "My goodness, suppose he did
+and hit something like they did! No, I hope he won't ever think of it,
+and as for 'Liza Em'ly, I hope she'll remember her married father and
+mother soon and remember her quiet and loving home, too, before she gets
+in the habit of having parties like that very often. My gracious, think
+of going to call on a girl as you see christened and having a snake-lady
+gartering her way up your leg while you were trying to say good-by and
+get away alive. Mrs. Macy says the creature was diving here and
+wriggling there and slipping under tables and over chairs in a way as
+made your flesh go creeping right after her. Well, it's clear 'Liza
+Em'ly's started on a most singular career. Mrs. Macy says first they
+give her a sandwich with a bow of ribbon on it, and she swallowed the
+ribbon; and then they give her a piece out of a cake that they said had
+a lucky quarter in it, and she's almost sure she swallowed the quarter,
+so maybe she was prejudiced."
+
+"Well, I--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They felt the same way," said Miss Clegg; "they've come home very much
+used up. Mrs. Macy says you can talk to her about the days of ancient
+Rome and the way folks act underground in Paris, but she says she knows
+positively as what she and Mrs. Fisher saw with their own eyes in 'Liza
+Em'ly's sitting-room beat all those kind of little circuses hollow. Mrs.
+Macy says she's seen enough of what they call high life now to last her
+till she dies of shame. She says the only bright spot in the whole thing
+is as 'Liza Em'ly's nose isn't anywhere near as prominent as you'd think
+any more, and she's got a automobile and is going to Europe when the
+book goes into its fiftieth edition."
+
+"Well--I--" mused Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, and I will, too," said Miss Clegg. "I'll go straight home and do
+it. I'm awful tired. And it bothers me more than I like to own not
+knowing who Deacon Tooker is. You know my nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and
+although I was never one to try to find out things nor to talk about 'em
+after I've managed to find 'em out, still I never was one to like not to
+know things, and I must say I do want to know who Deacon Tooker is.
+Well, they say all things comes to him who waits, so I think I won't
+stop here any longer. Good-by, and when I do find out, you can count on
+my coming right over to tell you."
+
+"Goo--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+But Miss Clegg had shut the door after her.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"
+
+
+There was nothing small or mean or economical about Jathrop Lathrop, now
+that he had turned out rich. He was the soul of generosity, the epitome
+of liberality, the concentrated essence of filial devotion as expressed
+in checks and carte-blanche orders directed at his mother.
+
+One of his earliest kind thoughts was to have Mrs. Lathrop's home
+completely modernized, and as Susan Clegg lived next door and was his
+mother's best and dearest friend, he decided to build her house over,
+too.
+
+To that end he hunted up the highest-priced architect of whom he could
+hear and asked to have designs submitted forthwith. The highest-priced
+architect readily undertook the reconstruction of the Lathrop and Clegg
+domiciles, but being too occupied to go down into the country and look
+over the field personally, he delegated one of his youngest and most
+promising assistants to accomplish the task, and the young and promising
+assistant forthwith packed his dress-suit case and set off.
+
+He was an assistant of most extraordinary youth and almost unbelievable
+promise, and he saw a chance to plan colleges (endowed by J. Lathrop,
+Esq.), palaces (to be built for Lathrop, the millionaire), possibly to
+be commissioned with the overseeing of the artistic development of some
+new, up-springing city (Lathropville, Alaska, or something of that
+sort), if he should only succeed in at once accomplishing a close union
+of feeling with the golden offspring of our old friend. His first really
+rich client is to a young debutant in bricks just what a well-hung
+picture is to the budding artist, or a song before royalty is to a
+singer. Such being the well-known facts of life the young and promising
+assistant fully intended to do himself proud in the reconstruction of
+the two houses consigned by Jathrop's benevolence to his tender mercies.
+
+The young architect came to town and went to the hotel (at Jathrop's
+expense). He spent the next ten days in going twice each day to study
+his task, sketch its realities and idealities, and also make the
+acquaintance of Mrs. Lathrop and Susan Clegg, for he was a young man of
+new and novel ideas, and one of his newest and most novel ideas was to
+build a house which would really suit those who were to live in it. He
+was so young that he had no conception as to how this was to be done,
+nor the faintest inkling as to what a Titanic-crossed-with-Promethean
+undertaking it would be to do, if even he did know how; but he felt--and
+most truly--that it was a new view of the relation between house and
+builder, and he felt proud over having thought it out for himself as
+well as for all time to come. Then he had another novel idea--not so
+altogether his own, however--which was that a house should "express its
+dweller." This latter idea was quite beyond the grasp of his present
+audience and just a little beyond his own grasp, too, but he was brave
+and conscientious and didn't see it that way at all.
+
+It has taken some time to lay out all these premises, but if there is
+any one with whom one can desire close acquaintance it is surely the man
+who comes to build over a comfortable and in-most-ways-satisfactory home
+of long years' standing, so I trust that the minutes have not been
+altogether wasted.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Clegg received the young man and his mission in
+such states of mind as were entirely compatible with their individual
+outlook over life.
+
+"I must say I'm far from altogether liking him," Susan said to her
+friend, a very real note of disapproval in her voice, one day toward the
+end of the week. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking in her new old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker and listened as usual with interest. "He's on the
+woodpile now, drawing a three-quarter profile of the woodshed. The way
+he perches anywhere and then goes to work and draws anything would
+surely make an English snail pull his castle right into his house along
+with him, for I've got a feeling as there's nothing about me as he
+hasn't got in his book by this time, and there's many things he's drawn
+as I never would choose to have the world in general looking over. I'm
+sure I don't want no view of my woodshed going down to posterity for one
+thing. I've had to have a woodshed, but I've never admired it, and the
+way I've nailed anything handy over holes in it is far from my usual way
+of mending. You've always mended 'hit or miss,' Mrs. Lathrop, and after
+years of such doings as was more worthy a poorhouse than a Christian,
+heaven has seen fit to reward your patching with a son fresh from the
+Klondike, but I've always darned blue with blue and brown with brown,
+and the only spot in my whole life that I haven't carefully and neatly
+matched the stripes in is my woodshed, and now to-day when I was
+thinking very seriously of using it up for the kitchen-stove next
+winter, if there isn't a young man from New York out drawing it in black
+and white, and ten to one he'll print it in some unexpected Sunday paper
+marked 'Jathrop Lathrop's mother's friend Susan Clegg's woodshed!'
+That'll be a pretty kettle of fish, and you needn't tell me that there
+won't be somebody to perk up and say, 'No smoke without some fire,'
+which will be as good as throwing it in my teeth that I'm one of those
+as use a safety pin when a button's off, when it's a thing as I've never
+done and never would do even if there is a proverb that a pin's a pin
+for all that."
+
+Susan paused here and looked upon her friend in serious question. Mrs.
+Lathrop, however, merely continued to rock pleasantly. A change had come
+over the spirit of her rocking since the return of Jathrop. She had
+rocked for years with a more or less apologetic air, as if she knew that
+there were those who might criticize her action and yet she couldn't
+personally feel that she really ought to give it up. But now she rocked
+with a wide, free swing as if life was life and if she liked to rock,
+she was going to rock, and if there were those who objected, they could
+object--she didn't care. There is nothing that so quickly develops an
+independent standpoint as the possession of money; there is nothing that
+so fully produces a conviction that one is thoroughly justified in doing
+just exactly what one pleases; there is nothing that leads to quite the
+same lofty indifference as to whether what pleases one pleases or
+displeases all the rest of the world.
+
+We have but to look at Jathrop to see that this is true. Of all the
+tame, mild-eyed, listless young individuals, Jathrop was the worst,
+falling asleep on an average of three times an afternoon in school, and
+never keeping conscious a whole evening. Whether a sudden change in
+Jathrop's character was the cause of making him a financial power or
+whether his Klondike-acquired bank account was the cause of his
+awakening, it still is a fact that now in his quiet way he was a very
+live person.
+
+Jathrop was indifferent to a degree, also, as witness his appearance
+with his Chinese boy whom everybody took to be his wife with his great
+baggy trousers and pigtail that no respectable boy, Chinese or
+otherwise, should wear. Of course, it must be acceded that Jathrop was
+indifferent in that case from ignorance. He did not know what the world
+was saying.
+
+Perhaps that accounts for the lofty attitude, one might say lofty
+altitude, of so many of our millionaires. They are so far removed from
+the world that their ears cannot hear what is being said. People talk in
+whispers about the "very rich," which makes it doubly hard for them to
+hear, or hearing, to think that it matters very much, else people would
+shout. However, when all is said, money does make a difference.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop had been a silent, sat-upon, unaggressively-rocking person
+for years; now Jathrop had come back from the Klondike and altered all
+that; it was not that she had turned talkative, it was not that she had
+so far altered the very foundations of her being as to presume ever to
+try to contradict any other body's opinions, but the return of Jathrop
+and the wealth of Jathrop had found expression in his mother through the
+one medium of almost all expression with her. Mrs. Lathrop had ceased to
+concern herself as to the length or the vigor of her rocking. It was
+beautiful to see the energy of independence with which she went back and
+forth, bringing her feet down with an audible clap whenever she desired
+fresh impetus.
+
+Susan Clegg did not seem to sympathize. Instead, sitting on her straight
+chair opposite, she shook her head severely, further discontent making
+itself visible in the manner of her shake.
+
+But Mrs. Lathrop was proof against all manifestations of disapproval
+now. She flew back and forth in the old-gold-plush stationary rocker
+like the happy pendulum of some beatific clock. Jathrop was home.
+Jathrop was rich. Jathrop would buy her anything she wanted.
+
+"I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop," Susan went on, the discontent
+ringing somewhat more distinctly in her tone, "as I'm much taken with
+this idea of building us over, even if Jathrop does mean it kindly. I
+know there's a many as would nigh to go out of their senses at the very
+idea of being made over new for nothing, but I was never one to go out
+of my senses easy, and that young man on the woodpile doesn't give me
+any kind of secure feeling as to what he'll make out of my house. He
+looks to me like the kind of young man as will open doors square across
+windows where the knob'll smash the glass sure if you're trying to carry
+a bureau out at the time of the house-cleaning. The kind of cravats he's
+got looks to me like his chimneys would be very likely not to draw, and
+their color gives me a feeling that doughnuts in his house will smell in
+shut-up closets a week after the frying. You know what shut-up fryings
+is like after they've had no fresh air for a week, but I wasn't raised
+that way. When I have fish I have fish and done with it, and when I have
+onions I have onions, and I ain't very wild over maybe boarding my fish
+and my onions in my best bonnet henceforth and forever.
+
+"Mrs. Brown was telling me yesterday as she heard of some city woman as
+had a system of ventilation put into her house, and the rats and mice
+used it so freely that you couldn't sleep nights. They nested in it, and
+they fought in it, and they died in it, all as happy and gay as you
+please, and the family had to have it picked out of the walls in the end
+and all new paper put on. That's the kind of ideas young men call modern
+improvements, and that young man on the woodpile is about as modern and
+improving as they make 'em, I take it.
+
+"I can't say what it is about that young man that I don't like, but,
+being as I'm always frank and open with you, I will remark that so far I
+ain't found one thing about him as I _do_ like. He's been down cellar
+hammering on the wall wherever the wind blew him to listeth to hammer,
+and I had to sit up-stairs and listen without no chance to blow myself.
+I caught him down on all fours this morning peeking under my front
+porch, and he didn't even have the manners to blush. As to the way he
+makes free with the outside of _your_ house, I wouldn't waste breath
+with trying to tell you, but my own feeling is that an architect learns
+his trade on a tight-rope to judge from that young man's manner, and
+from what I've seen while he was swinging by one arm from your premises,
+I wouldn't feel safe to take a bath even on top of a chimney, myself."
+
+Susan rose at this and went to the window and looked out; from her
+expression as she turned, it was plain to be seen that the artist was
+still at his task.
+
+"I don't know, Mrs. Lathrop," she said, coming back to her seat, "I d'n
+know, I'm sure, as I'm took with this idea a _tall_. I never was one for
+favors either given or asked, and although I know this isn't no favor,
+but just a evidence of what I've been through with you first and last,
+still it's done in spite of me and I've got no feeling that I'm going to
+enjoy it. There's something about kindness as is always most trying to
+the people who've got no choice but to stand up and be tried. People who
+get freely given to is in the habit of getting what they don't want and
+can't use, but I ain't. I'm very far from it. There's nothing in me
+that's going to be pleased with getting a green hat when I needed a pink
+coat--no, sir.
+
+"And I don't need nothing. Or if I do, I can buy it. I know Jathrop
+means it kindly, but Jathrop can't enter into my ways of thinking.
+Jathrop is looking into life from the Klondike gold-fields and I'm
+looking at it from my back stoop. That young man was out swishing his
+pocket handkerchief about and sucking his thumb and holding it up all
+yesterday afternoon, and about the time I'd made up my mind to bolt him
+out of the kitchen for a lunatic, he come in and told me he really
+thought there was wind enough in your back yard and my back yard
+together to run a windmill, in which case a water system could be easy
+inaugurated. I told him I didn't know you could inaugurate anything but
+a president, but he said anything as you hadn't had before and thought
+was going to work fine and be a great improvement could be inaugurated.
+I told him I supposed I could stand a windmill if you could.
+
+"What do you think--what _do_ you think, Mrs. Lathrop, if that young man
+didn't ask if he might go and look up the parlor fireplace! Well, I told
+him he could, and I give him a newspaper to shake his head on after he
+was done looking, too. He's been in my garret until I bet he knows every
+trunk label by heart, and I must say I feel as if I'd have very little
+of my own affairs to tell on Judgment Day if he gets dressed and out of
+his grave quicker than I get dressed and out of mine. But that isn't
+all, whatever you may think. There's a many other things about him as I
+don't like and don't like a _tall_.
+
+"For one thing, he's got a way of looking around as if it was my house
+that was the main thing and I was the last and smallest piece of
+cross-paper tied in the kite's tail. To my order of thinking, that's a
+far from polite way for a young man as Jathrop's hiring and boarding to
+look on a woman whose house he may thank his lucky stars if he may get
+the chance to build over. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says architects is
+all like that, but I'm far from seeing why. I don't consider that young
+man superior a _tall_. I consider his brains as very far from being
+equal to my own. When he asks me to hold the other end of his tape-line
+and does it just as if a pin would do as well, only I was handier at the
+moment, I'm very far from feeling flattered. I never saw just such a
+young man before, and when I think of being delivered up to him--house
+and all--for the summer, I'm also very far from feeling easy. I d'n
+know, I'm sure, what will be the end of this, but I do know that it
+looks to me like a pretty bad business."
+
+Susan paused again and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop just
+rocked onward. Life had widened so tremendously for her that she
+couldn't possibly be perturbed in any way or by anything. If the roof
+fell in, Jathrop would buy her another, and if she were smashed by it,
+Jathrop would have her put together again. Why worry?
+
+The young man remained ten days in all, and when his visit of
+investigation was completed, he returned to New York. Jathrop took him
+to the Lotus Club to wash and to the Yacht Club to lunch and to
+Claremont in the afternoon (in his motor), and they talked it all over.
+The young man had his sketches, ideas, ideals, and plans all tied into a
+neat patent cover with cost-estimates lightly glued in the back. Jathrop
+was deeply interested, and the young man expounded the inmost soul of
+all his measurements and proposed altitudes and alterations. The young
+man reminded Jathrop of his pertinent hypothesis that a house should
+express its owner. Jathrop's own view of "express" was that if you
+could pay the bill, it beat freighting all out of sight, but he felt
+that perhaps the young man meant something different, so he merely gave
+him a cigar.
+
+The young man took the cigar and proceeded to elucidate his hypothesis
+by explaining that, having carefully studied both Mrs. Lathrop and Miss
+Clegg, he should suggest that Miss Clegg's house express her by being
+severely Doric and that Mrs. Lathrop's should be rambling and Queen Anne
+with wide, free floor spaces. He further suggested a hyena-headed
+door-knocker for Miss Clegg and an electric button to press, so that the
+door opened of itself for Mrs. Lathrop. Also a roofless pergola to
+connect the two houses. Jathrop liked all his ideas and sketches very
+much, but as he was really good-hearted and had not the least desire to
+present green hats to those who wanted pink coats, he had the whole book
+sent down to his mother and begged her to carefully inspect it in
+company with Susan Clegg. They inspected it.
+
+"Well," said Susan, "all I can say is I'll have to carry this book home
+and sit down and try and make out what he _does_ mean. He's done it very
+neat, that I will say, but between crosses and dotted lines and your
+house behind mine like two Roman emperors on a cameo pin, I can't make
+head or tail of what's going to be done to either of us. I can't even
+find my own house in this plan on some pages, and as for this bird-cage
+walk that I'm supposed to run back and forth in like a polar bear in a
+circus all day long, my own opinion is that if it's got no roof, it's
+going to be very hard indeed about the snow in winter, for I'll have to
+carry every single solitary shovelful to one end or the other so as to
+throw it out of either your kitchen window or mine. That's all the good
+that will do us."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop swung to and fro, totally unconcerned. No sort of
+proposition could disconcert her now. If the house when built over
+proved a failure, Jathrop would build her another.
+
+Susan took the prettily-bound portfolio home with her and spent the
+evening over it. She studied it profoundly and to some purpose, for the
+next morning when she brought it back to Mrs. Lathrop, it held but few
+secrets, other than those of a purely technical character, for her.
+
+"I've been all through it," she said to her friend, "and now I can't
+really tell what I think a _tall_. But this I _do_ know, if we ever
+really get these houses, I will be running back and forth from dawn to
+dark through that wire tunnel in a way as'll make the liveliest polar
+bear that ever kept taking a fresh turn look like a petrified tree
+beside me. Why, only to keep the conveniences he's got put in scoured
+bright would take me all of every morning in my house, to say nothing of
+wiping up the floors, for Jathrop isn't intending to buy us no carpets
+ever. We're to sit around on cherry when we ain't on Georgia pine, and
+he's got every mantelpiece marked with the kind of wood we're to burn in
+it, and he's been kind enough to tell us what colored china we're to
+use in each bedroom. We're to shoot our clothes into the cellar through
+a hole from up-stairs and wash 'em there in those two square boxes as we
+couldn't make out. That thing I read 'angle-hook' is a 'inglenook,' and
+so far from sitting in it to fish we're to set in it to look at the
+fire, if we can get any mahogany to burn in that particular fireplace.
+
+"Those fans are stairs, we're to go up 'em the way the arrow points, and
+heaven knows where or how we're to get down again. What we thought was
+beds is closets, and what we thought was closets is beds, and it's
+evident with all his hopping and hanging he didn't really charge his
+mind with us a _tall_, for he's got a bedroom in your house marked 'Mr.
+Lathrop,' when the last bit of real thought would have made him just
+_have_ to remember as you're a widow. He's give me a sewing-room when he
+must have seen that I always do my mending in the kitchen, and he's give
+us each enough places to wash to keep the whole community clean. I must
+say he's tried to be fair, for he's give both houses the same number of
+rooms and the same names to each room. We've each got a summer kitchen,
+but he left the spring and autumn to scratch along anyhow; we've each
+got a bathtub, and we've each got a china-closet as well as a pantry,
+which shows he had very little observation of the way _you_ keep things
+in order."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop absorbed all this with the happy calm of a contented (and
+rocking) sponge.
+
+"But what takes me is the way he's not only got a finger, but has just
+smashed both hands, into every pie on the place," Susan continued. "He's
+moved the chicken-house and give us each a horse and give the cow a calf
+without even so much as 'by your leave.' I don't know which will be the
+most surprised if this plan comes true--me with my horse, or the cow
+finding herself with a calf in the fall as well as the spring this year.
+Then it beats me where he's going to get all his trees, for both houses
+is a blooming bower, and the way tree-toads will sing me to sleep shows
+he's had no close friends in the country. Trees brushing your window
+mean mosquitos at night and spiders whenever they feel so disposed. And
+that ain't all, whatever you may think, for you haven't got a
+window-pane over four inches square and, as every window has fifty-six
+of them, I see your windows going dirty till out of very shame I get 'em
+washed for your funeral. And that ain't all, whatever you may think,
+either, for the snow is going to lodge all around all those little
+gables and inglenooks he's trimmed your roof with, and you'll leak
+before six months goes by, or I'll lose my guess."
+
+But it was impossible to impress Mrs. Lathrop. If things leaked, Jathrop
+would have them mended. She just rocked and rocked.
+
+"I don't know what to write Jathrop about these plans," Susan Clegg said
+slowly. "Of course, I've got to write him something, and I declare I
+don't know what to say. He means it kindly, and there's nothing in the
+wide world that makes things so hard as when people mean kindly. You can
+do all sorts of things when people is enemies, but when any one means
+anything kindly, you've got to eat it if it kills you. Mrs. Allen was
+telling me the other day that since she's took a vow to do one good
+action daily, she's lost most all of her friends.
+
+"That just shows how people feel about being grabbed by the neck and
+held under till you feel you've done enough good to 'em. Jathrop means
+this well, but I've got a feeling as we'll go through a great deal of
+misery being built over, and I really don't think we'll be so much
+better off after we've survived. You'll have to be torn right down, and
+the day that that young man was up on my porch post, he said he couldn't
+be positive that I'd keep even my north wall. He pounded it all over in
+the dining-room until the paper was a sight, and then when he saw how
+very far from pleased I was, he tried to get out of it by saying the
+wall would have to come down, anyhow. I think he saw toward the last
+that he'd gone too far in a many little ways. I didn't like his taking
+the hens off their nests to measure how wide the henhouse was. I
+consider a hen is one woman when she's seated at work and had ought not
+to be called off by any man alive. But, laws, that young man wasn't any
+respecter of work or hens or anything else! He called himself an artist,
+and since I've been studying these plans, I've begun to think as he was
+really telling the truth, for artists is all crazy, and anything crazier
+than these plans I never did see. Not content with having us wash in the
+sink and the cellar, we're to wash under the front stairs, too, not to
+speak of all but swimming up-stairs."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop just smiled and rocked more.
+
+"I'm not in favor of it," said Miss Clegg, rising to go. "I don't
+believe it'll be any real advantage. We'll be like the Indians that die
+as soon as you civilize 'em--that's what we'll be. The windmill will
+keep us awake nights, and you don't use any water to speak of, anyhow.
+So I don't see why I should be kept awake. As for that laughing tiger
+he's give me on my front door, I just won't have it, and that's all
+there is about it. A laughing tiger's no kind of a welcome to people you
+want, and when people come that I don't want, I don't need no tiger to
+let 'em know it. No, I never took to that young man, and I don't take to
+his plans. I don't like those four pillars across my front any more than
+I do that mouse-hole without a roof that he's give me to go to you in. I
+consider it a very poor compliment to you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he's fixed
+it so if I once start to go to see you, I've got to keep on, for I can't
+possibly get out so to go nowhere else."
+
+Susan Clegg paused. Mrs. Lathrop rocked.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Clegg, impatiently.
+
+But Mrs. Lathrop just rocked. If Susan didn't like it, she needn't like
+it. Jathrop would pay the bill.
+
+Susan Clegg went home, her mind still unconvinced.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SUSAN CLEGG UPROOTED
+
+
+Many things against which we protest bitterly at first we eventually
+come to accept and possibly even to enjoy. It was that way, to a degree
+at least, with the reconstruction of the houses of Susan Clegg and her
+friend Mrs. Lathrop, neither lady being particularly charmed with the
+idea when it was originally presented, and Miss Clegg being even frankly
+displeased with the plans that were sent down for approval. But the
+plans were accepted, nevertheless, after some alterations, and by easy
+stages Susan Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop arrived at that degree of philosophy
+which enabled them to face with commendable composure the fact that they
+must vacate their dwellings for an indefinitely extended period.
+
+It was not that Miss Clegg had ceased to entertain doubts as to the
+advisability of "being renovated," nor was it that Mrs. Lathrop looked
+forward gladly to a temporary transplanting of herself and her rocker.
+But Jathrop's glory as a millionaire was now so strongly to the fore in
+their minds that both bowed, more or less resignedly, to his wishes.
+
+"I must say I d'n know how this thing is going to work out in the end,"
+Susan observed to Mrs. Lathrop, as the date set for the beginning of the
+work drew nearer. "I'm against it myself, but I ain't against Jathrop,
+so I'm giving up my views just to see what will happen. My own opinion
+is as it's all very well to build over most anything, but if your house
+is to be built over, you've got to get out of it, and I must say as I
+don't just see as yet when we get out of our houses what we're going to
+get into. Jathrop says we can go to the hotel, and that he'll pay the
+bill. Well, I must say it's good he'd pay the bill, for I'd never go to
+any hotel if somebody else didn't pay the bill--I know that. But even
+if I haven't got the bill to pay, I don't feel so raving, raring mad to
+go to the hotel. It wouldn't matter to you, Mrs. Lathrop, for nothing
+ever does matter to you, and anyway, even if anything had mattered to
+you before, you'd not mind it now that Jathrop's come back. But just the
+same a hotel does matter to me. They take very little interest in their
+housekeeping in hotels, and no matter who's eat off of what, if they can
+use it again--and they generally can--they always do. Why, they churn up
+the melted odds and ends of ice-cream and serve 'em out as fresh-made
+with that cheerful countenance as loveth no giver. And what we'd throw
+to the cat they scrape right back into the soup pot, and glad enough to
+get it. I don't suppose you'd mind what you ate, nor what kind of a
+cloth had dusted your plate, but I was brought up to be clean, and I
+don't want to sleep with spiders swinging themselves down to see how I
+do it. No, Mrs. Lathrop, I can't consider no hotel, not even in common
+affection for Jathrop. I'd go down a well on my hands and knees to dig
+coal for him if necessary, or I'd do any other thing as a woman as
+respects Jathrop might do if she didn't respect herself more. But live
+in a hotel I will not, and you can write and tell him so, for _I_ don't
+want to hurt his feelings. But all kindness has its limits, and if I let
+a boy architect run through the heart of my house, I consider as I've
+done enough to prove my Christian spirit for one year."
+
+"What--?" ventured Mrs. Lathrop, but Susan Clegg went right on.
+
+"I don't see where we're ever going to put our things while they haul
+our walls down and rock our foundations. That young man says there won't
+be a room as won't have to have something done to it, and I don't want
+my furniture spoiled, even if I do have to have my house built over
+against my will. My furniture is very good furniture, Mrs. Lathrop. It's
+been oiled, and rubbed, and polished ever since it was bought, and none
+of the chairs has ever had their middles stepped on, and nothing of
+mine has got a sunk hole from sitting,--no, sir! My mattresses is all
+slept even, from side to side, and there ain't a bottle-mark in the
+whole house. It's a sin to take and wreck a happy home like mine. I
+shall have untold convenience hereafter, but I shall never take any more
+real comfort. That's what I see a-coming. And where under the sun we are
+going to put our things the Lord only knows."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was one of those who rarely take a question as a personal
+matter. She made no suggestion; she just rocked.
+
+"I can see what I've got to be doing," said Susan, a clearer light
+breaking. "I've got to be getting up and seeing where you and me can go,
+and where we can put our goods. I don't want to live under the same roof
+with you if I can possibly help it. And not to do it's going to be hard,
+for knowing we're such friends, folks is going to naturally plan to take
+us together. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop, and yet I
+can't in Christian courtesy deny that to live with you would drive me
+distracted, and so I shan't consider it for a minute. Not for one single
+minute. Still, I can't live far from you, for we are old friends, and
+the brother that leaveth all else to cleave to his brother wasn't more
+close when he done it than I am to you. Besides, if they're building our
+houses over, I shall naturally be pretty lively in watching them do it,
+and as one of the houses is yours, you'll like to be where I can easy
+tell you how it's being done. And so it goes without saying we've got to
+be close together. But not too close together."
+
+All these premises were so undeniably true that the passive Mrs. Lathrop
+could not have gainsaid them even had she been so disposed; which she
+wasn't.
+
+Accordingly, upon the very next day, Susan began her search for an
+abiding place, and the right abiding place was--as she had
+predicted--not to be easily found.
+
+"There's plenty of places," said Susan, when she returned from her task,
+"but they don't any of them suit my views. You're easily suited, Mrs.
+Lathrop, but I'm not and never will be. I'm of a nature that never is to
+be lightly took in vain, nor yet to be just lightly took either. And no
+one isn't going to put me in a room that'll be sunny in July, nor yet in
+one that will be shady in September. No room as is pleasant in September
+can help being most hot in summer; and although I'm willing to be hot in
+my own house, I will not be hot in any place where I pay board. You'll
+do very well almost anywhere, Mrs. Lathrop, for Lord knows whatever
+other virtues you may have, being particular could never be left at your
+door in no orphaned basket. But I'm different. Mrs. Brown would take us
+until young Doctor Brown and Amelia gets back, and Mrs. Allen would be
+glad of the very dust of our feet; but I couldn't go to either of those
+two places. Mrs. Brown would have to have both of us, for there's no one
+else to take you, and Mrs. Allen would want to read us her poetry. It's
+all right to write if you ain't got brains or time for nothing better,
+but I have, and I ain't going to knowingly board myself with no one as
+hasn't."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop made no comment. She merely rocked and waited.
+
+"As for our things," Susan continued, "I've found where we can put
+_them_. It wasn't easy, but I never give up, and Mr. Shores says he's
+willing we should have all the back of his upper part. I told him as I
+should want to be able to go to 'em any time, and he said far be it from
+him to desire to prevent no woman from visiting what was her own. I
+could see from his tone as he was thinking of his wife as run off with
+his clerk, and it does beat all how you can even make a misery out of a
+woman's visiting her furniture if you feel so inclined. So the goods is
+off our minds, and now it's just us as has got to be put somewheres till
+our own doors is opened to us again. I must say I'd like to know where
+we'll end."
+
+On the very next day the solution was effected.
+
+"I've got it all fixed," said Susan, returning, dovelike, with the
+evening shadows. "Mrs. Macy'll take one of us and Gran'ma Mullins the
+other. Gran'ma Mullins says with Hiram gone to the Klondike and Lucy
+gone to her father, either you or me can have their room; only for the
+love of heaven we mustn't look like Hiram in bed; for her heart is
+aching and breaking, and the car-wheels of his train ain't grinding on
+any track half as much as they're grinding in her tenderest spot. Now
+the question is, Mrs. Lathrop, which'll go which, and it's a thing as I
+must consider very carefully, for Lord knows I don't want to be no more
+miserable than I've got to be. And it goes without saying I wouldn't
+choose to live with Gran'ma Mullins, nor Mrs. Macy, nor nobody else if I
+had my choice. I'm too much give to liking to live alone with myself. Of
+course, Mrs. Macy is a pleasanter disposition than Gran'ma Mullins, for
+she ain't got Hiram to wear my bones into skin over; but I feel as
+living with Mrs. Macy all summer will surely lead to her trying to make
+it come out even for the rent up to next January, so I would have to
+worry over that. Then, too, even if Gran'ma Mullins is wearing, she's
+soothing too, and I shall need soothing this summer. I declare, Mrs.
+Lathrop, I can't well see how I'm ever going to pack up my things. I
+can't see what's to keep 'em from getting scratched and the corners
+knocked. How can I fix a toilet set smooth together? A toilet set don't
+never fit smooth together; the handles always stick out. And the
+frying-pan's got a handle too, and a clothesbar ain't any ways adaptable
+to nothing. Chair legs is very bad and table legs is worse, and there's
+Mother's wedding-present clock as found its level years ago and ain't
+been stirred since. Father give it to her, and it's so heavy I couldn't
+stir it if I wanted to, anyhow. But I don't want to stir it. It's my
+dead mother's last wish, and as such is sacred. I wasn't to stir Father
+nor the clock. It's a French clock, and it's marble. It's a handsome
+clock. It was Father's one handsome present to Mother. And now I've got
+to put it in storage. And then there's our hens. I don't know but what
+it'd be wisest to set right to eating them. I know one thing--I'll never
+board chickens. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, this is going to be an awful business!
+Think of the carpets! Think of the window shades, and my dead mother's
+lamberquins! Think of the things in the garret! And the things in the
+cellar! And the things in the closets! I don't know, I'm sure, how we'll
+ever get moved."
+
+As the days went on, the slow trend of life brought the problem still
+more pressingly to the front. Susan decided to lodge herself with
+Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins, whose heart was still very heavy over
+Hiram's escape from the home nest, would have preferred Mrs. Lathrop.
+Mrs. Lathrop's capacity for listening would have meant much to Gran'ma
+Mullins in these hours of bitter loneliness; but Mrs. Macy wanted Mrs.
+Lathrop, and Susan didn't want Mrs. Macy, so the outcome of that
+question was a fore-gone conclusion.
+
+When all was settled, Jathrop dispatched emissaries who, with a deftness
+and dexterity possessed only by the hirelings of millionaires, descended
+on Mrs. Lathrop, and in the course of a single afternoon transferred
+her, her rocker, and the whole contents of her bedroom to Mrs. Macy's.
+The emissaries offered to do the same thing for Susan Clegg, but she
+rejected their aid. Alone and unassisted Susan wrestled with her
+packing, and no one ever knew just how she accomplished it. It took her
+several days, and it introduced a new order of things into not only her
+life but her speech. Her struggle was valiant, but towards the end she
+had to call on Felicia Hemans and Sam Durny for help. When, on Saturday
+night, Susan arrived at Gran'ma Mullins's, her first observation was
+that when the Lord got through with the creation it was small wonder He
+arranged to rest on the seventh day.
+
+"I d'n know as I shall ever get up again," she said to Gran'ma Mullins,
+who was watching her take off her bonnet. "A apron as has been used to
+carry things in for six days is bright and starched beside me. Oh,
+Gran'ma Mullins, pray on your folded knees as Hiram won't come back rich
+and want to build you over! Anything but that."
+
+"Oh, if he'll only come back, it's all I'll ask!" returned Gran'ma
+Mullins sadly. "To think he can't get there for four weeks yet. And
+think of Hiram in a boat! Why Hiram can't even see a mirror tipped back
+and forth without having to go right where he'll be the only company.
+And then to be in a boat! A boat is such a tippy thing. I read about one
+man being drowned in one last week. They're hooking for him with
+dynamite to see if they can even get a piece of him back for his wife.
+His wife isn't much like Lucy, I guess. Oh, Susan, you'll never know
+what I've stood from Lucy! Nobody will."
+
+Miss Clegg shook her head and looked about her quarters with an eye that
+was dubious.
+
+"I've got some eggs for supper," said Gran'ma Mullins, "one for you and
+one for me, and one for either of us as can eat two."
+
+"I can eat two," said Susan, who thought best to declare herself at the
+outset.
+
+"Is your things all out of the house?" Gran'ma Mullins asked, as they
+seated themselves at the table.
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Susan, "everything is out! Towards the last we acted
+more like hens being fed than anything else, but we got everything
+finished."
+
+"Did you get the clock out safe?"
+
+Susan's expression altered suddenly. "The clock! Oh, the clock! What
+_do_ you think happened to that clock? And I didn't feel to mind it,
+either."
+
+"Oh, Susan, you didn't break it!"
+
+"I did. And in sixty thousand flinders. And I'm glad, too. Very glad.
+It's a sad thing as how we may be found out, no matter how careful we
+sweep up our trackings. And I don't mind telling you as the bitterest
+pill in my cup of clearing out has been that very same clock."
+
+"It was such a handsome clock," said Gran'ma Mullins, opening her
+naturally open countenance still wider. "Oh, Susan! What did happen?"
+
+"You thought it was a handsome clock," said Susan, "and so did I. It was
+such a handsome clock that we weren't allowed to pick it up and look at
+it. Father screwed it down with big screws, so we couldn't, and he wet
+'em so they rusted in. I had a awful time getting those screws out
+to-day, I can tell you. You get a very different light on a dead and
+gone father when you're trying to get out screws that he wet thirty-five
+years ago. Me on a stepladder digging under the claws of a clock for two
+mortal hours! And when I got the last one out, I had to climb down and
+wake my foot up before I could do the next thing. Then I got a block and
+a bed-slat, and I proceeded very carefully to try how heavy that
+handsome clock--that handsome marble clock--might be. I put the block
+beside it, and I put the bed-slat over the block and under the clock.
+Then I climbed my ladder again, and then I bore down on the bed-slat.
+Well, Gran'ma Mullins, you can believe me or not, just as you please,
+but it's a solemn fact that nothing but the ceiling stopped that clock
+from going sky-high. And nothing but the floor stopped me from falling
+through to China. I come down to earth with such a bang as brought
+Felicia Hemans running. And the stepladder shut up on me with such
+another bang as brought Sam Durny."
+
+"The saints preserve us!" ejaculated Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"It wasn't a marble clock a _tall_," confessed Susan. "It was painted
+wood. That was why Father screwed it down. Oh, men are such deceivers!
+And the best wife in the world can't develop 'em above their natural
+natures. I expect it was always a real pleasure to Father to think as
+Mother and me didn't know that marble clock was wood. I don't know what
+there is about a man as makes his everyday character liking to deceive
+and his Sunday sense of righteousness satisfied with just calling it
+fooling. Well, he's gone now, and the Bible says 'to him as hath shall
+be given,' so I guess he's settling up accounts somewheres. Give me the
+other egg!"
+
+After supper they stepped over to Mrs. Macy's, which was next door, and
+the four sat on the piazza in the pleasant spring twilight. Mrs. Macy
+was so happy over having Mrs. Lathrop instead of Susan Clegg that she
+smiled perpetually. Mrs. Lathrop sat and rocked in her old-gold-plush
+rocker. Gran'ma Mullins and Susan Clegg occupied the step at the feet of
+the other two.
+
+"Well, Susan," Mrs. Macy remarked meditatively, "I never looked to see
+you leave your house any way except feet first. Well, well, this
+certainly is a funny world."
+
+"Yes," returned Susan, brief for once, "it certainly is."
+
+"It's a very sad world, I think," contributed Gran'ma Mullins with a
+heavy, heavy sigh. "My goodness, to think this time last spring Hiram
+was spading up the potato patch! And now where is he?"
+
+"Nobody knows," answered Susan. "See how many years it was till Jathrop
+come back. But I do hope for your sake, Gran'ma Mullins, that when Hiram
+does come back he won't take it into his head to buy this house and
+build it over for you."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins looked at Mrs. Macy, and Mrs. Macy looked back at
+Gran'ma Mullins, and a message flashed and was answered in the glances.
+
+"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins with neighborly interest, "you do
+see that the house needs fixing up, don't you?"
+
+Susan was the owner and Mrs. Macy only the tenant, and the implication
+was not at all pleasing to her. She turned with the air of the weariest
+worm that had ever done so and gave Gran'ma Mullins a look that could
+only be translated as an admonition to mind her own business. Whereupon
+Gran'ma Mullins promptly subsided, and the subject did not come up
+again.
+
+It was on a Monday--the very next Monday--that the workmen arrived and
+set to work to demolish the outer casing of the homes of Susan and Mrs.
+Lathrop. Susan went up and stood about for an hour, viewing the way they
+did it with great but resigned scorn. She went every day thereafter, and
+her heart was rent at the sight of the sacrilege. Then, to add to her
+woe, Gran'ma Mullins proved less soothing than had been expected, and
+Susan suffered keenly at her hands.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she said one morning, when the exigencies of
+shopping left the two old friends full freedom of intercourse, "if I'm
+going to live in that house for this whole summer, the first thing that
+I'll have to do is either to change Gran'ma Mullins or change me! I can
+see that. Why, I never heard anything like Gran'ma Mullins' views on
+Hiram. You've heard Mrs. Macy, and I've told you what Lucy's told me
+whenever I've met her, but I never had no idea it was anything like
+what it is. I'm stark, raving crazy hearing about Hiram. Gran'ma Mullins
+says no child was ever like Hiram, and I begin to wonder if it ain't so.
+No child ever made such an impression on his mother before,--I can take
+my Bible oath on that, for she's talking about him from the time I wake
+till long after I'm asleep,--and she remembers things in the stillness
+of the night and wakes me up to hear 'em for fear she'll forget 'em
+before morning. Last night she was up at two to tell me how Hiram used
+to shut his eyes before he went to sleep when he was a baby. She said he
+had a different way of doing it from any other child that's ever been
+born. He picked it all up by himself. She couldn't possibly tell me just
+how he did it, but it was most remarkable. He had it in May and well
+into June the year he was born, but along in July he began to lose it,
+and by October he opened and shut just like other people's babies.
+That's what I was woke up to hear, Mrs. Lathrop, and Herod was a sweet
+and good-tempered mother of ten compared to me as I listened. And then
+at daybreak if she didn't come in again to explain as Hiram was so
+different from all other babies that he crept before he walked, and the
+first of his trying to walk he climbed up a chair leg."
+
+"Why, Jathrop--" volunteered Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Of course. They all do. But I must say I don't see how I'm going to
+stand it till my house is ready to receive me back with open bosom if
+this is the way she's going on straight along. I wouldn't stay with Mrs.
+Macy because I was tired of hearing what she said Gran'ma Mullins said
+about Hiram, but it never once struck me that if I stayed with Gran'ma
+Mullins I'd have it all to hear straight from the fountain mouth. My
+lands alive, Mrs. Lathrop, you never hear the beat! Hiram used to
+wrinkle up his face when she washed it, and he never wanted to have a
+bath. And he used to bring mud turtles into the house; and when she
+thinks of that and how now he's off for the Klondike, she says she feels
+like going straight after him. She says she could be very useful in the
+Klondike. She could polish his pick and his sled-runners, and hang up
+his snowy things, and wash out his gold and his clothes. She says she
+can't just see how they wash out gold, but she knows how to polish
+silver, and she says mother-love like hers can pick up anything. She
+goes on and on till I feel like going to the Klondike myself. I'm
+getting a great deal of sympathy for Lucy. Lucy always said she could
+have been happy with Hiram--maybe--if it hadn't been for his mother.
+Lucy's got no kind of tender feeling for Gran'ma Mullins, and I
+certainly don't feel to blame her none."
+
+"Is your--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, striving towards pleasanter paths.
+
+"Well, it ain't burnt up yet," answered Susan. "I stopped at Mr. Shores'
+coming back and took a look at it, and I was far from pleased to find
+the door as opens into the next room to the room as my furniture is
+locked up in a little open. Goodness knows who'd opened it, but it
+looked very much like some one had been trying my door, to me. I asked
+Mr. Shores, and I saw at a glance as it was news to him, which shows
+just how much interest he's taking in looking out for my things. He said
+maybe the cat had pushed it open. The cat! I unlocked my door and went
+in. The furniture's all safe enough, but it's enough to put any
+housekeeper's heart through the clothes wringer only to see how it's
+piled. The beds is smashed flat along the wall, and wherever they could
+turn a table or a chair upside down and plant something on the wrong
+side of it, they've done it. As for the way the dishes is combined, I
+can only say that the Lord fits the back to the burden, so the
+wash-bowls is bearing everything. They've put Mother's picture in a
+coal-hod for safety, and the coal-hod is sitting on the bookcase. It's a
+far from cheering sight, Mrs. Lathrop, but you know I was against being
+built over from the start. When I see the walls of my happy home being
+smashed flat and then picked over like they was raisins to see what'll
+do to use again, and then when I see my furniture put together in a way
+as no one living can make head or tail of, and when I see myself woke up
+at three in the night to be told that sometimes when Hiram was a baby he
+would go to sleep and sometimes he wouldn't, why I feel as if that Roman
+as they rolled down hill in a barrel because he wouldn't stay anywhere
+else where they put him was sitting smoking cross-legged compared to me.
+I d'n know what I'm going to do this summer. It would just drive an
+ordinary woman crazy. But I presume I'll survive."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop looked slightly saddened. "Well, Susan,--" she began to
+murmur sympathetically.
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Susan. "Of course, if it gets where I
+can't stand it, we'll just have to change houses, that's all."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG UNSETTLED
+
+
+Life under the roof of Gran'ma Mullins eventually--and eventually was a
+matter of days rather than weeks--became unbearable for Susan Clegg. At
+least, she so decided, and finding opportunity in the fact that both
+Gran'ma Mullins and Mrs. Macy had gone to market, Susan hastened to her
+old friend, Mrs. Lathrop, and laid open her fresh burden of woes.
+
+"I can't stand it, Mrs. Lathrop," she declared with strongest emphasis,
+"I can't stand it. No matter what the Bible says, a saint on a gridiron
+would smile all over and wriggle for nothing but joy only to think as
+where he was and wasn't boarding with Gran'ma Mullins. It's awful.
+That's what it is--awful. I never had no idea that nothing could be so
+awful. I've got to where I'm thinking very seriously of leaving my
+property to Lucy. I'm becoming very sorry for Lucy. Lucy isn't properly
+appreciated. Why, Hiram was stung by a bee once,--no ordinary bee, but a
+bee a third bigger than the usual bee,--and it swelled up all different
+from common, and Gran'ma Mullins thought he was surely going to die
+right there before her streaming eyes. But Hiram was so bright he
+remembered about putting mud on bee-bites, and he did it. Only there
+wasn't no mud, and nobody knew what they could do about it. But Hiram's
+mind wasn't like the mind of a ordinary person. Hiram's mind is all
+different, and Hiram said, just as quick as scat, to mix water and earth
+and make some mud. So they did, and the water and earth, Gran'ma Mullins
+says, made the finest mud she ever saw. They covered up Hiram's bee-bite
+with it, and it didn't leave so much as a scar. And now there's Hiram in
+the Klondike, knowing just what to do when bit by a bee, but without a
+notion what to put on if a seal catches him unawares. And all this going
+on hour after hour, Mrs. Lathrop, and me sitting there waiting for my
+dinner, half mad anyway over the way my dead-and-gone father's home is
+being torn limb from limb, and in no mood to listen to anything. Oh,
+laws, no! It's no use. I can't stand it, and I won't either."
+
+Susan paused expressively.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop gasped. "What will--?"
+
+"I'm going to find another place to live right away," Susan went on.
+"I've too much consideration for you to ask you to go there, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and besides, I feel it would be exchanging the fire for the
+stew-pan for me to come here. I'm going this town over this very
+afternoon, and I think I'll find some place where I can sleep part of
+the night, at any rate. I guess I got about three quarters of a hour's
+sleep last night. Gran'ma Mullins woke me up weeping on the foot of my
+bed before daylight. Just before daylight is her special time for
+recollecting how Hiram used to drink milk out of a cup when he was a
+baby, and how he used to eat candy if anybody gave him any, and other
+remarkable doings that he did. My lands, I wish Job could have met
+Gran'ma Mullins! His friends and his boils would have just been pleasant
+things to amuse him, then. I'm going first to Mrs. Allen, and then I'm
+going to every one. I shan't make no bones about my errand, for
+everybody knows Gran'ma Mullins. I'll have the sympathy of the whole
+community. I need sympathy, and I feel I can soak up a good lot of it if
+I'm let to."
+
+"How's the--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"They're still pulling 'em down," said Susan gloomily. "It's a awful
+sight, and one that doesn't give me more strength for Gran'ma Mullins. I
+shall never have another house that will suit me as mine did, Mrs.
+Lathrop. I know that Jathrop means it kindly, and I'm far from being one
+to hold any gift-horse by the tail, but the truth is the truth, and I
+must say nothing teaches you to really prize your cupboards like seeing
+men going through 'em with pick-axes. There was many little conveniences
+in my house as I never really thought much of until now I see 'em gone
+forever. But it's a poor cat that lives on spilt milk, so I'll say no
+more of that, but go back and get ready to hunt up a place to live. For
+live I must, Mrs. Lathrop, and live I will. And I won't live by eating
+and drinking and breathing Hiram Mullins the twenty-four hours round,
+neither."
+
+Miss Clegg's round of visits ended, curiously enough, in her
+establishing herself with Lucy Mullins.
+
+"Which I don't doubt is a very great surprise to you, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+confessed to her friend that evening. "But Lucy ran across me in the
+street, and when she saw me, those two women who met in the Bible and
+knew all each other's business directly was strangers passing on express
+trains beside Lucy and me. I took one look at Lucy, and I see she knowed
+it all. Judge Fitch is going to be away a lot this month, seeing where
+he can hire his witnesses for a big lawsuit, and Lucy says she and me'll
+be alone and able to be silent from dawn to dark and on through the
+night. She don't want to have to listen to no manner of talk, she says,
+and I can have the second floor all alone to myself, for her and her
+father sleep in the wings down-stairs."
+
+"So you--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I didn't look no more. I was suited, so I didn't see no use in
+further fussing. I shall tell Gran'ma Mullins to-night and go there
+to-morrow. And I may in confidence remark as no howling oasis in a
+desert ever howled for joy the way I'll feel like howling when I get my
+trunk on a wheelbarrow again. I've spoke for the wheelbarrow at eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning, so I'll be over at Lucy's and settled before
+you wake up, Mrs. Lathrop."
+
+The next day Susan went, and, surprising as it may seem, Gran'ma Mullins
+was singularly content over her going.
+
+"I don't want to make no trouble between friends," said Gran'ma Mullins,
+clambering up Mrs. Macy's steps to sit with Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Lathrop.
+"But really, Susan is become most changed since her house is begun to be
+built over. I wouldn't hardly have known her. I wouldn't say stuck-up
+and I wouldn't say airy, but I will say as she's most changed. I
+wouldn't say rude, neither, but I didn't consider it exactly friendly to
+always either pull her breath in long and loud or else let it out short
+and sharp whenever I mentioned Hiram. Hiram is my only legal and natural
+child, and with him in the Klondike, and my heart aching and quaking and
+breaking for fear the ice'll thaw and let him through into some
+unexpected volcano all of a sudden, how can I but mention him? You know
+what Hiram is to me, Mrs. Macy. We haven't lived in these two houses for
+forty years without your knowing what Hiram is to me. You remember him
+as a baby, Mrs. Macy, but you don't, Mrs. Lathrop, so I'll tell you what
+Hiram was as a baby. Hiram was a most remarkable--"
+
+When Mrs. Lathrop saw Susan Clegg again, Miss Clegg was looking far from
+happy.
+
+"Are you--?" enquired Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I d'n know," came the answer more than a little dubiously. Then:
+"Seeing that I am always frank and open with you, Mrs. Lathrop, I may as
+well say plainly as I ain't. Very far from it. I never knew when I went
+to live with Lucy as Judge Fitch has got a dog as barks. He ain't no
+ordinary dog--he's a most uncommon dog. He only barks when it's
+moonlight, or when he hears something, and I must say he's got the
+sharpest ears I ever see. But it isn't his barking that's so bad, as it
+is that whenever he barks, Lucy gets right up to see whether it's Hiram
+come back. It seems the reason Lucy took me to board is she hates to go
+around the house alone nights with the dog and a candle. That's a pretty
+thing for me to never mistrust till I got there with my trunk. I must
+say I don't blame Lucy for not liking to go around alone, for the dog
+smells your heels all the time, and if he was in the Klondike with Hiram
+his nose couldn't be colder. But all the same I think she ought to of
+told me. For whatever it may be to others, a cold nose is certainly most
+new to my heels. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, we was out hunting with our dog
+three times last night, and Lucy says often enough he gets her up nine
+and ten times. Lucy's so nervous for fear Hiram'll come back that she
+can't possibly sleep if she thinks there's a chance of it. She says if
+Hiram's come back, she wants to know it right off. She says that's her
+nature. If she's got to have a tooth out, she wants it out at once. She
+says she never was one to shrink from nothing. And the dog's prompt,
+too. He's quite of the same mind as Lucy. He gives one bark, and then he
+don't dilly-dally none. He gets right up, and by the time he's got to
+Lucy, Lucy's got up too, and they both come racing up-stairs for me to
+join 'em. My door don't lock, so the dog's licking my face before I
+know where I am. And then, before I know much more where I am, we're
+all three capering down-stairs together again. Then we take the whole
+house carefully around and listen at every door and window, with the dog
+smelling while we listen. Then, when we know for sure as it ain't Hiram,
+the dog scrambles back into his basket, and Lucy tucks him up, and she
+and I go back to bed alone and untucked. That's a pretty kettle of fish.
+And you can believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I
+never had no notion of having my heels smelled by a cold dog's nose
+three times, and maybe nine, a night when I went to live at Judge
+Fitch's, and if it keeps on, I shall just leave. Lucy's got no lease on
+me, and although I'm sorry for her, I ain't anywhere near sorry enough
+for her to be woke up to pussy-cornering all over the premises with a
+dog the livelong night through. As between having Gran'ma Mullins
+sitting on my feet wailing over Hiram, and Lucy's dog smelling of my
+heels while we hunt for Hiram, I think I'd rather have Gran'ma Mullins.
+I was warm and comfortable and laid out flat at Gran'ma Mullins, but I'm
+goodness knows what at Lucy's. And I do hate having my face licked. I
+don't like it. I never was used to such things, and I can't begin now."
+
+"What will--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I shall look up another nice place to live," said Miss Clegg, "and I
+shall take a leaf out of the dog's book and be prompt about it, too.
+I've spoke for the wheelbarrow to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I shall
+move then, whether or no."
+
+Susan, again on the lookout for a new abiding place, discovered a most
+attractive proposition in Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Allen and her husband lived
+alone, were neat and well-fed, and kept no dog.
+
+"I'll never go where there's a dog again, I know that," said Susan.
+"Why, Mrs. Lathrop, if I was in a blizzard in Switzerland and fifty of
+those little beer-keg dogs they've got there came scurrying up to rescue
+me, I wouldn't get up and let 'em have the joy of seeing me obliged. I
+won't ever get up for no dog again in my life, I know that. And I know
+it for keeps. And there's a bolt on my side of my door at Mrs. Allen's.
+I've looked to that, too; and no one is to wake me nights; I've looked
+to that. I told Mrs. Allen all the story of what I'd suffered, and she
+said she'd see as I had peace in her house. She told me that I'd
+suffered because I needed to suffer, but now I was to have peace, and
+I'd have it with her. I didn't bother to ask what she meant, for I guess
+if she's got any secret thorn, I'll find it out quick enough, anyhow.
+And if it's anything that wakes me up nights, my present feeling is as I
+won't be well able to bear it. Well, the wheelbarrow is set for ten
+o'clock, and so I must go, and when I see you, I'll know what's wrong
+with Mrs. Allen, and the Lord help me if it's something as makes me have
+to move again. That's all I can say."
+
+Susan did not visit her old friend directly after her third change of
+residence. Two whole days passed by, and Mrs. Lathrop was openly
+troubled.
+
+"Don't you worry," said Gran'ma Mullins soothingly. "There's nothing the
+matter with her, because I see her in the square this very morning. But
+she looked at me odd and went down a side street. I'm sure I hope
+Susan's not losing her mind."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't that be awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy with real sympathy.
+"We'd have to appoint a commission to catch her and sit on her, and then
+if she was put in the insane asylum, I guess Susan Clegg would be mad."
+
+"Oh, Susan wouldn't like that a bit," said Gran'ma Mullins meditatively.
+"They make little cups and saucers out of beads. I know, because Hiram
+had one once. And they read books with the letters all punched out at
+you."
+
+"You're thinking of the Home for the Blind," corrected Mrs. Macy. "I was
+there once, too. I don't think Susan would mind going there so much,
+because of course she can see, which would give her a great advantage
+over the others, and Susan does like to have an advantage over anybody
+else. But I don't believe she'd like going to the Insane Asylum much.
+The Insane Asylum's so limited. My husband's sister went to the Insane
+Asylum once, but it didn't help her none, so she came home. It wouldn't
+ever suit Susan."
+
+"Well, maybe not," said Gran'ma Mullins amicably. "And I don't think she
+could go there, anyway, for she isn't crazy, and she's got her own
+money. So why should she be a charge on the county?"
+
+The very next day Susan came wearily in to see her old friend.
+
+"Well, I d'n know what I've ever done to have this kind of a summer,"
+she began, seating herself sadly. "Why didn't I stay in my own house and
+just simply take you to board while they laid violent hands on your
+house? I was against being built over all along, Mrs. Lathrop, you know
+that. And now the fox has his cheese and the cow has her corn, just as
+the Scripture says, but Susan Clegg's absolutely forced to live with
+Mrs. Allen. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, you don't know what living with Mrs. Allen
+is, and you can't imagine, either. I never dreamed of such a thing
+before I went there. I was a little afraid she'd want to read me her
+poetry, but her poetry would have been paradise to what is. Seems as if
+Mrs. Allen has got a new kind of religion, and heaven help the present
+run of mankind if any more new religions is sprung on us, and heaven
+help me if I've got to live long with Mrs. Allen's new one. Mrs. Allen's
+new religion is most peculiar. I never see nothing like it. It's
+Persian, and it's very singular just to look at. But it's most awful to
+live with. Lucy and her dog is simple beside it, and as to Gran'ma
+Mullins, she's nothing but a baby dabbing a ball in comparison.
+According to Mrs. Allen's new religion, you mustn't find fault with
+nothing or nobody--never. Everything's all right, no matter how wrong it
+is; and if you lose your purse, you was meant to lose it, so why
+complain? You was give your purse for just a little while, and in place
+of wildly running here and there trying to find it, you must just thank
+heaven for kindly letting you have it so long, and think no more about
+it. If you're meant to see any more of that purse, it'll kindly look you
+up itself. But it's no manner of use your looking for it, because if
+heaven takes back a purse deliberately, never intending to return it, it
+never does return it, and that's all there is to be said on the subject.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you think perhaps you can see what it would be to
+live with any one that feels to see life in that way; but you don't
+really know what you think a good deal of the time, and never less than
+now. Mrs. Allen's things is mostly back in heaven's hands again, and her
+biscuits is mostly burnt, and not one bit does she care, seeing as she
+don't consider as she has the least thing to do with any of it. She's
+happy and singing and forgetting from dawn to dark. She says the day'll
+soon be that the whole earth will see the truth and be singing with
+her. She says the toiling millions will cease to toil then, and life'll
+be all Adams and Eves and no manner of misery. In the meantime, I don't
+get nothing to eat, and when I feel to holler down-stairs, she says
+dinner was meant to be late that day, or it couldn't possibly have been
+late. Not by no manner of means."
+
+"Well, I--" commented Mrs. Lathrop blankly.
+
+"Just my way of seeing it," said Susan, "and she aggravates me still
+more with pointing her moral, from dawn to dark. She says it's beautiful
+to see how beautiful life comes along. You and me needed quiet, and we
+got quiet. And now we need our houses built over, and we're getting 'em
+built over. I told her I didn't need my house built over a _tall_, and
+she said as I just thought so, but that I really did, or it wouldn't be
+being done. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, what I will run up
+against next. But I don't believe I can stay at Mrs. Allen's. I really
+don't. There's one thing--it'll be mighty easy to leave her, for I
+shan't have to say nothing. I shall say I was meant to leave and then
+and there leave. It's a poor religion as don't fit others as easy as its
+own selves; and I ain't washed in the Allens' dirty rain water full of
+dead and drowned bugs for two days because I was meant to wash and they
+was meant to drown, without learning how to turn even a drowned bug to
+my advantage. No, sir, I'm going out this afternoon and see what I can
+get, and if I can't do no better, I'll buy a bolt for my door and come
+back to Gran'ma Mullins. Gran'ma Mullins has her good points. I always
+said that, Mrs. Lathrop, Gran'ma Mullins certainly has her good points.
+And I must learn to bear Hiram if I must. There's one thing certain: I
+can hear about Hiram in bed, and I don't have to get up and out of bed
+to hunt for him. And whatever else Gran'ma Mullins does, she don't burn
+her bread and blame it on the Almighty. Mrs. Allen's got the Bible so
+pat that you don't need to do nothing, according to her--nothing a
+_tall_, but just sit still and let the world turn you around with its
+turning. She says Solomon said the little lilies didn't spin, and so why
+should she? Well, if we're to quit doing everything that lilies don't
+have a hand in, I must say we'll soon be in a pretty state. I never was
+one to admire Solomon like some people, and as for David, I think he was
+a fool--dancing around the ark like he'd just got it for Christmas!"
+
+Susan searched long and wearily for a fourth abiding place that
+afternoon, but in the end she had to speak for the wheelbarrow for the
+next morning and move back to Gran'ma Mullins's.
+
+And Gran'ma Mullins was very glad to see her back.
+
+"Your bed's all made up with the same sheets for you, Susan," she said
+cordially, "and I ain't even swept so as to spoil the homelike look.
+You'll see your own last burnt matches and all, just as you left 'em."
+
+"I've bought a bolt for my door," said Susan, "and I'll beg to borrow a
+screwdriver and something sharp to put it on with."
+
+"I'll get 'em," agreed Gran'ma Mullins happily, "and I won't wake you no
+more nights, Susan. I suppose it's only natural that you, never having
+been married, can't possibly know the feelings of a mother. But I meant
+it kindly, Susan. When Lucy speaks of Hiram, she means it unkindly. But
+when I speak of Hiram, I always mean it kindly."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Susan, "and if I believed like Mrs. Allen does, I'd
+know I was meant to listen and wouldn't mind. But I don't take no stock
+in that religion of Mrs. Allen's, and I won't be woke up. And although I
+don't want to hurt your feelings, I do want that understood right from
+the beginning."
+
+"I'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins submissively. "And now I'll fetch
+the screwdriver."
+
+That evening the four friends sat pleasantly once again on Mrs. Macy's
+piazza.
+
+"Mrs. Lathrop had a letter from Jathrop to-day. Did you know that,
+Susan?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, I didn't," returned Susan Clegg. "What did he say?"
+
+"He's going sailing to the West Indies in his new boat," Mrs. Macy
+informed her. "He's going for his health, and he's going to take three
+other millionaires and their own doctor."
+
+Susan appeared unimpressed.
+
+"He sent his mother a book about the place where he's going," said Mrs.
+Macy. "Do you want to see it?" She went in and brought it out.
+
+Susan took the volume and viewed the title with an indifferent eye.
+
+"_Stark's Guide to the Bahamas_," she read aloud. "What are
+they--something to eat?"
+
+"You're thinking of bananas," suggested Mrs. Macy. "It's islands. It's
+where Columbus hit first. Nobody knows just where he hit, but he hit
+there; everybody knows that."
+
+Susan placed the book under her arm. "I'll read it," she said briefly.
+"But I must say as to my order of thinking Jathrop's setting off just
+now is very much like a hen getting up from her eggs. Here's you and
+me--" addressing Mrs. Lathrop directly--"with our houses done away with,
+and him as has engineered the wreck skipping away with a parcel of men."
+
+"He isn't skipping," interposed Mrs. Macy. "He's sailing--sailing in his
+own private boat, like the tea-man with the cup."
+
+"Oh, I don't care what he's doing," said Susan, rising. "I'm about beat
+out, and I'm going home and going to bed. Such a week! The Bible says
+'Whom the Lord loveth He chaseth,' and heaven knows I've been chased
+this week till my legs is about wore off. Such a week! I've had all the
+chasing I want for one while. And I never was great on being loved, so
+I'm going home and going to bed."
+
+Whereupon, with the _Guide to the Bahamas_ under her arm and a heavy
+fold between her brows, Susan Clegg stalked over to her temporary
+domicile.
+
+"I don't think Susan's very well," said Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Maybe she's worried over Jathrop," suggested Mrs. Macy.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. She just rocked.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE
+
+
+"I d'n know, I'm sure, what star this town could ever have been laid out
+under," said Susan Clegg, one exceptionally hot night as the four
+friends sat out on Mrs. Macy's steps, "but my own opinion is as it must
+have been a comet, for we're always skiting along into some sort of hot
+water. When it ain't all of us, it's some of us, and when it ain't some
+of us, it's one of us, and now the walls of my house is up I'd be
+willing to bet a nickel as a calamity'll happen along just because
+something's always happening here and my walls is the youngest and
+tenderest thing in the community now."
+
+"Your roof ain't--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Of course not; how could it be, when my walls is only just up? I don't
+wish to be casting no stones at him as is the least among us, but I will
+say, Mrs. Lathrop, as Jathrop's orders seem to be taking you up under
+the loving protection of their wings, while I'm running around like I
+was a viper without no warm bosom to hatch me. _Your_ walls have been up
+and a-doing for a week, but my walls have been sitting around waiting
+until I was nigh to put out. To see your laths going in and your plaster
+going on, while I stay lumber and nails, is a lesson in yielding to the
+will of heaven as I never calculated on. There's few things more
+aggravating than to see some other house speeding along while your own
+house sits silently, patiently waiting. Of course I can't say nothing,
+as even the boy as carries water knows my house is going to be a present
+to me in the end. It's all right, and likely enough the Lord has seen
+fit to send this summer to me as a chastisement; but I will say that if
+I'd known how this summer was going, the Lord would most certainly have
+had to plan some other way to punish me. I don't say as it wasn't
+natural that your walls should go up first, Jathrop being your son, and,
+now that he's rich, no more to me than a benefactor--"
+
+"Oh, Susan!" expostulated Mrs. Macy.
+
+"That's what he is, Mrs. Macy; he's my benefactor, and I can't escape if
+I want to. You may tend a man's mother ten years, day and night, house
+cleanings and cistern cleanings, moths and the well froze up, and if the
+man comes back rich, he's your benefactor."
+
+"Susan!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, "you--"
+
+"Don't deny it, Mrs. Lathrop; it's the truth. It's one of those truths
+that the wiser they are, the sadder you get. It's one of those truths as
+is the whole truth and a little left over; and I'm learning that I'm to
+be what's left over, more every day. After a life of being independent
+and living on my own money, I'm now going down on my knees learning the
+lesson of being humbly grateful for what I don't want. I may sound
+bitter, but if I do it isn't surprising, for I feel bitter; and Gran'ma
+Mullins knows I'm always frank and open, so she'll excuse my saying that
+there's nothing in living with _her_ as tends to calm me much. A woman
+as sleeps in a bed as Hiram must have played leap-frog over all his life
+from the feel of the springs, and pours out of a pitcher as has got a
+chip out of its nose, ain't in no mood to mince nothing. I never was one
+to mince, and I never will be--not now and not never. Mincing is for
+them as ain't got it in them to speak their minds freely; and my mind is
+a thing that's made to be free and not a slave."
+
+"Well, really, Susan," expostulated Mrs. Macy, "what ever--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Macy. I'm full of goodness knows what, but
+whatever it is, I'm too full of it for comfort. There's nothing in the
+life I'm leading this summer to make me expect comfort, and very little
+to make me feel full, but there's things as would make a man dying of
+starvation bust if he experienced them. And I'm full of such things. I
+never had no idea of being out of my house all summer, and now, when my
+walls is up at last, and it looks like maybe I'd get back a home feeling
+some day soon, I must up and get quite another kind of feeling--a
+feeling that something is going to happen. It's a very strange feeling,
+and at first I thought it was just some more of Gran'ma Mullins'
+cooking; but it kept getting stronger, and when I was in the square, I
+spoke to Mr. Kimball about it; and he says this is cyclone weather, and
+maybe a cyclone is going to happen. He says a man was in town yesterday
+wanting to insure everybody against fire and cyclones. Most everybody
+did it. Mr. Kimball says after the young man got through, you pretty
+much had to do it. Them as had policies with the company could get the
+word 'cyclone' writ in for a dollar. I guess the young man did a very
+good day's work. Mr. Kimball says if it's true as there's any cyclones
+coming nosing about here, he wants his dried-apple machine insured
+anyhow. It's a fine machine, and every kind of fruit as is left over
+each night comes out jam next day, while all the vegetables make
+breakfast food. He says it's a wonder."
+
+"What makes him think we're going to have a cyclone?" inquired Mrs. Macy
+anxiously.
+
+"He says the weather is cyclony. And he says if I feel queer that's a
+sign, for I'm a sensitive nature."
+
+"I never--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, nor me, neither. But Mr. Kimball seemed to feel there wasn't no
+doubt. He says I'm just the kind of sensitive nature as could feel a
+cyclone. Why, he says cyclones take the roofs off the houses!"
+
+"Ow!" cried Gran'ma Mullins in surprise.
+
+"If one's coming, I'm glad to know, for I never see one near to," said
+Mrs. Macy pensively.
+
+"You won't see it a _tall_," said Susan, "for Mr. Kimball says the only
+safe place in a cyclone is the cellar; and to pull a kitchen table over
+you to keep the house from squashing you flat when it caves in."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's what he said. But he says not to worry, for the young man told
+him as they're getting so common no one notices them any more. He says
+they're always going hop, skip, and jump over Kansas and everywhere, and
+no one pays no attention to 'em. He knows all about it. But he wanted it
+clear as he was only insuring for _cyclones_; he says his firm wouldn't
+have nothing to do with tornadoes. You can get as much on a cyclone as
+on a fire, but you can't get a penny on a tornado--"
+
+"What's the diff--" asked Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"That's the trouble; nobody can just tell. A cyclone is wind and
+lightning mixed by combustion and drove forward by expulsion, the young
+man told Mr. Kimball. He said they'd got cyclones all worked out, and
+they can average 'em up same as everything else, but he says a tornado
+is something as no man can get hold of, and no man will ever be able to
+study. Tornadoes drive nails through fences--"
+
+"Where do they get the nails?" asked Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"I d'n know. Pick 'em out of the fences first, I guess. And they strip
+the feathers off chickens and scoop up haystacks and carry them up in
+the air for good and all."
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Mr. Kimball said the young man told him that a tornado dug up a
+complete marsh once in Minnesota and spread it out upside down on top of
+a wood a little ways off; and when there's a tornado anywhere near, the
+sewing-machines all tick like they was telegraphing."
+
+"No!" cried Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Yes, the young man said so."
+
+"But do you believe him?"
+
+"I don't know why not. I wouldn't believe Mr. Kimball because he's
+always fixing up his stories to sound better than they really are, which
+makes me have very little faith in him; but Judge Fitch says he'd make
+a splendid witness for any one just on that very account. Judge Fitch
+says with a little well-advised help Mr. Kimball would carry convictions
+to any man,--he don't except none,--but I see no reason why the young
+man wasn't telling the truth. Young men do tell the truth sometimes;
+most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries 'em
+miles and pulls up trees by the roots. I don't wonder they won't insure
+'em."
+
+"The pigs?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, the tornadoes."
+
+"What's the signs of a tornado?" asked Gran'ma Mullins uneasily.
+
+"Well, the signs is alike for both. The signs is weather like to-day and
+a kind of breathlessness like to-night. Mr. Kimball says a funnel-shaped
+cloud is a great sign; and when you see it, in three minutes it's on
+you, and off goes your roof if it's a cyclone, and off you go yourself
+if it's a tornado."
+
+"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, clutching the arms of her
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker.
+
+"Do people ever come down again?" Gran'ma Mullins inquired; she was very
+pale.
+
+"Elijah didn't, Mr. Kimball says."
+
+"Elijah Doxey?" cried Mrs. Macy. "Why, is he off on a cyclone? No one
+ever told me."
+
+"No, Elijah in the Bible, you know. The Elijah as was caught up in a
+chariot of fire. Mr. Kimball says there ain't a mite of doubt in his
+mind but that it was a tornado. I guess Mr. Kimball told the truth that
+time, for it's all in the Bible."
+
+"That's true," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I remember Elijah myself. He kept
+a tame raven, seems to me, or some such thing."
+
+"Oh, Susan!" Mrs. Lathrop cried out suddenly. "There's a fun--" Her
+voice failed her; she raised her hand and pointed.
+
+Susan turned quickly, and her face became suddenly gray-white. "It can't
+be a cy--" she faltered.
+
+With that all four women jumped different ways at once.
+
+"Where shall we go?" shrieked Mrs. Macy. "Oh, saints and sinners
+preserve us! Oh, Susan, where shall we go?"
+
+But Susan Clegg stood as if paralyzed, staring straight at the
+funnel-shaped cloud.
+
+Gran'ma Mullins started for her own house; Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and
+clasped the piazza post nearest; Mrs. Macy grabbed her skirts up at both
+sides and faced the cyclone just as she had once faced the cow.
+
+The funnel-shaped cloud came sweeping towards them. The town was
+between, and a darkness and a mighty roar arose. Buildings seemed
+falling; the din was terrible.
+
+"I knew it," said Susan grimly. "It _is_ a cyclone!" She faced the
+worst--standing erect.
+
+The next instant the storm was on them all. It lifted Mrs. Lathrop's
+old-gold-plush stationary rocker and hurled it at that good lady,
+smashing her hard against the post. It raised the roof of Mrs. Macy's
+house and dropped it like an extinguisher over the fleeing form of
+Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Oh, Gran'ma Mullins, it _is_ a cyclone!" Susan shrieked. But Gran'ma
+Mullins answered not.
+
+A second mighty burst of fury blew down two trees, and it blew Susan
+herself back against the side wall of the house which shook and swayed
+like a bit of cardboard.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's a cyclone," Susan screamed over and over. "Oh, Mrs.
+Lathrop, it's a real cyclone! It isn't a tornado; you can see the
+difference now. It's a cyclone; look at the roof; it's a cyclone!"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop could see nothing. She and the old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker were all piled together under the piazza post.
+
+And now came the third and worst burst of fury. It crashed on the
+blacksmith's shop; it carried the sails of the windmill swooping down
+the road, and then "without halting, without rest" lifted Mrs. Macy
+with her outspread skirts and carried her straight up in the air. "Oh!
+Oh!" she shrieked and sailed forth.
+
+Susan gave a piercing yell. "Oh, Mrs. Macy, it's a tornado, it's a
+tornado!" But Mrs. Macy answered not.
+
+Tipping, swaying, ducking to the right or left, she flew majestically
+away over her own roof first and then over that of Gran'ma Mullins'
+woodshed.
+
+"Help! Help!" cried Gran'ma Mullins from under the roof.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop was oblivious to all, smashed by her own old-gold-plush
+stationary rocker.
+
+Susan Clegg stood as one fascinated, staring after the trail which was
+all that was left of Mrs. Macy.
+
+"It was a tornado!" she said over and over. "Mrs. Macy'll always believe
+in the Bible now, I guess. It was a tornado! It _was_ a tornado!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No, they ain't found her yet," Susan said, coming into the hotel room
+where Mrs. Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins had found a pleasant and
+comfortable refuge and were occupied in recuperating together at
+Jathrop's expense. Neither lady was seriously injured. Gran'ma Mullins
+had been preserved from even a wetting through the neat capping of her
+climax by Mrs. Macy's roof; while Mrs. Lathrop's squeeze between the
+piazza post and her well beloved old-gold-plush stationary rocker had
+not--as Gran'ma Mullins put it--so much as turned a hair of even the
+rocker.
+
+"No one's heard anything from her yet," continued Susan, "but that ain't
+so surprising as it would be if anybody had time to want to know. But
+nobody's got time for nothing to-day. The town's in a awful taking, and
+I d'n know as I ever see a worse situation. You two want to be very
+grateful as you're so nicely and neatly laid aside, for what has
+descended on the community now is worse'n any cyclone, and if you could
+get out and see what the cyclone's done, you'd know what _that_ means."
+
+"Was you to my house, Susan?" asked Gran'ma Mullins anxiously.
+
+"I was; but the insurance men was before me, or anyhow, we met there."
+
+"The insurance men!"
+
+"That's what I said,--the insurance men. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, we all know
+one side of what it is to insure ourselves, but now the Lord in his
+infinite wrath has mercifully seen fit to show us the other side. The
+Assyrian pouncing down on the wolf in his fold is a young mother
+wrapping up her first baby to look out the window compared to those
+insurance men. They descended on us bright and shining to-day, and if we
+was murderers with our families buried under the kitchen floor, we
+couldn't be looked on with more suspicion. I was far from pleased when I
+first laid eyes on 'em, for there's a foxiness in any city man as comes
+to settle things in the country as is far from being either soothing or
+syrupy to him as lives in the country; but you can maybe imagine my
+feelings when they very plainly informed me as I couldn't put the roof
+back on Mrs. Macy's house till it was settled whether it was a cyclone
+or a tornado--"
+
+"Settled--whether--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Cyclone or tornado," repeated Susan. "The first thing isn't to get to
+rights, but it is to settle whether we've got any rights to get. I never
+dreamed what it was to be injured--no, or no one else neither. Seems if
+it's a tornado, we don't get a cent of our insurance. And to think it
+all depends on Mrs. Macy."
+
+"On Mrs.--" cried Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Yes, because she's the only one as really knows whether she was carried
+off or not. Well, all I can say is, if she don't come back pretty quick,
+we're going to have a little John Brown raid right here in town; we--"
+
+"But what--?"
+
+"I'm telling you. It'll be the town rising up against the insurance men,
+and the insurance men will soon find that when it comes to
+dilly-dallying with folks newly cycloned upside down, it's life and
+death if you don't deal fair. What with chimneys down and roofs turned
+up at the corner like the inquiring angels didn't have time to take the
+cover all off but just pried up a little to see what was inside,--I say
+with all this and everything wet and Mrs. Macy gone, this community was
+in no mood to be sealed up--"
+
+"Sealed up!" cried Mrs. Lathrop and Gran'ma Mullins together.
+
+"That's what it is. Sealed up we are, and sealed up we've got to stay
+until Mrs. Macy gets back--"
+
+"But--" cried Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Everybody's just as mad as you are. Charging bulls is setting hens
+beside this town to-night. Even Mr. Kimball's mad for once in his life;
+he's losing money most awful, for he can't sell so much as a paper of
+tacks. They've got both his doors and all his windows sealed, and he's
+standing out in front with nothing to do except to keep a sharp eye out
+for Mrs. Macy. He says it ain't in reason to expect as she'll fly back,
+but she's got to come from somewhere, and he means to prevent her
+getting away again on the sly. He says his opinion is as she'd have
+stood a better chance before airships was so common. He says ten years
+ago folks would have took steps for hooking at her just as quick as they
+saw her coming along, but nowadays it'd be a pretty brave man as would
+try to stop anything he saw flying overhead. I guess he's about right
+there. It's a hard question to know what to do with things that fly,
+even if Mrs. Macy hadn't took to it, too. My view is that we advance
+faster than we can learn how to manage our new inventions. I d'n know,
+I'm sure, though, what Mrs. Macy is going to do about this trip of hers.
+She went without even the moment's notice as folks in a hurry always has
+had up to now. She's been gone most twenty-four hours. She's skipped
+three meals already, not to speak of her night and her nap; and you know
+as well as I do how Mrs. Macy was give to her nights and her napping."
+
+Susan shook her head, and Mrs. Lathrop looked wide-eyed and alarmed.
+
+"But now--" Gran'ma Mullins asked.
+
+"I've been all over the place," Susan continued. "I didn't understand
+fully what was up when I scurried off to try and get those men to put
+the roof back on Mrs. Macy's house, but I know it all now. It's no use
+trying to get anybody to do nothing now; the whole town's upside down
+and inside out. I never see nothing like it. And the insurance men has
+got it laid down flat as nobody can't touch nothing till it's settled
+whether it's a cyclone or a tornado. Seems a good many was insured for
+cyclones right in with their fires without knowing it; but there ain't a
+soul in the place insured against a tornado, because you can't get any
+insurance against tornadoes--no one will insure them. The insurance men
+say if it's a tornado, we won't have nothing to do except to do the best
+we can; but if it's a cyclone, we mus'n't touch anything till they can
+get some one to judge what's worth saving and how much it's worth and
+deduct that from our insurance. That's how it is."
+
+"But what has--?" began Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"How long--?" demanded Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Nobody knows," said Susan. "The whole town is asking, and nobody knows.
+The insurance company won't let anybody go home or get anything unless
+they'll sign a paper giving up their insurance and swearing that it was
+a tornado. Mr. Dill just had to sign the paper because he was taking a
+bath and had nothing except the table cover to wear. He signed the paper
+and said he'd swear anything if only for his shoes alone; and it seems
+that his house isn't hurt a mite, and he didn't have no insurance
+anyhow. A good many is blaming him, but he says he really couldn't think
+of anything in the excitement and the table cloth. It's a awful state of
+things. The cyclone has tore everything to pieces, and the insurance
+men has put their seal on the chips. People is being drove to all
+lengths. The minister and his family is camping in the henhouse. Our
+walls is fell in so goodness knows what will happen to you and me next,
+Mrs. Lathrop. The wires is all down, so we can't hear nothing about the
+storm. The rails is all up, so there's no trains. The church is stove
+in, so we can't pray. But I must say as to my order of thinking, it
+looks as if no one feels like praying. The insurance men is running all
+over, like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more
+windows every minute and getting more signatures as it was a tornado
+before they'll unstick them. Nothing can't be really settled till Mrs.
+Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation."
+
+"But why--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"The Jilkins is in from Cherry Pond, and all it did there was to rain.
+The Sperrits was in, too, and the storm was most singular with them. It
+hailed in the sunshine till they see four rainbows--they never see the
+beat. Mr. Weskins is advising everybody to go into their houses and make
+a test case of it. Judge Fitch is advising everybody not to. It's plain
+as he's on the side of the insurance men. He says just as they do, that
+we'd better wait till Mrs. Macy comes back and hear her story. He says
+in the very nature of things her view'll be a most general one. He says
+all there is to know she'll know; she'll know the area affected and be
+able to tell whether it was electricity or just wind. Mr. Kimball said
+if she went far enough, she'd be a star witness; but no one thinks that
+jokes about Mrs. Macy ought to be told now. The situation is too
+serious. It may be _very_ serious for Mrs. Macy. If the storm stopped
+sudden, it may be very serious indeed for Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy isn't as
+young as she was, and she hadn't the least idea of leaving town; she
+wasn't a bit prepared, that we can all swear to. She was just carried
+away by a sudden impulse--as you might say--and the main question is
+how far did she get on her impulse, and where is she now? To my order
+of thinking, it all depends on how she come down. Cycloning along like
+she was, if she come down on a pond or a peak, she'll be far from
+finding it funny. I was thinking about her all the way here, and I can't
+think of any way as'll be easy for her to come to earth, no matter how
+she comes. And if she hits hard, she isn't going to like it. Mrs. Macy
+was never one as took a joke pleasant; she never made light of nothing.
+She took life very solemn-like--a owl was a laughing hyena compared to
+Mrs. Macy. It's too bad she was that way. My own view is as she never
+got over not getting married again. Some women don't. She always took it
+as a reflection. There's no reflection to not getting married; my
+opinion is as there's a deal of things more important and most thing's
+more comfortable. If Mrs. Macy was married, she'd be much worse off than
+she is right now, for instead of being able to give her whole time and
+attention to whatever she's doing and looking over, she'd be wondering
+what he was giving his time and attention to doing and prying into. When
+a man's out of your sight, you've always got to wonder, and most of the
+time that's all in the world you can do about a man. Now Mrs. Macy's
+perfectly independent, she can go where she pleases and come down when
+she pleases, and she hasn't got to tell what she saw unless she wants
+to. Mrs. Brown says she ain't never been nowhere. It's plain to be seen
+as Mrs. Brown's envying Mrs. Macy her trip."
+
+"But why--?" began Gran'ma Mullins with great determination.
+
+"That's just it," replied Susan promptly. "I declare, I can't but wonder
+what'll happen next. I'm in that state that nothing will surprise me.
+Everything's so upset and off the track there's no use even trying to
+think. My walls is fell into my cistern, and Mrs. Macy's roof is sitting
+on the ground beside her house yet. The insurance men has sealed up
+Gran'ma Mullins' house, and they wouldn't leave the henhouse open till I
+signed a affidavit on behalf of the hens and released 'em from all
+claims for feed. Mr. Dill said they tried to seal up his cow. They've
+got Mr. Kimball's dried-apple machine tied with a rope. It's awful."
+
+"But Susan--" interrupted Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Mr. Weskins says the great difficulty is the insurance men say they
+don't see how anything is going to be settled or decided until we hear
+from Mrs. Macy. The point's right here. If she comes back, it's evidence
+as it was a tornado, because if she comes back it proves as she was
+carried off, in which case the insurance men won't have to pay nothing
+anyhow, and we'll all be unsealed and allowed to go to work putting our
+roofs back on our heads and clearing up as fast as we can. But Mr.
+Weskins says if Mrs. Macy don't come back, there'll be no way to prove
+as she was even carried off by the storm for you, Mrs. Lathrop, had your
+back turned; and you, Gran'ma Mullins, was under the roof; and I'm only
+one, and it takes two witnesses to prove anything as is contrary to law
+and nature."
+
+"Do they doubt--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop, quite excited--for her.
+
+"Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men don't take nothing
+for granted. They've decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy,
+and there's Mrs. Macy gone away to, heaven knows where."
+
+"Well, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins, "we must look on the bright side.
+Mrs. Macy'll have something to talk about as'll always interest
+everybody if she does come back, and if she don't come back, we'll
+always have her to remember."
+
+"Yes, and if we don't get our houses unstuck pretty soon, we'll remember
+her a long while," said Susan darkly.
+
+Three days passed by and no word was heard from Mrs. Macy. As soon as
+the telegraph assumed its usual route, messages were sent all about in
+the direction whither she had flown, but not a trace of her was
+discovered by any one. The town was very much wrought up, for although
+its members were given to having strange experiences, no experience so
+strange as this had ever happened there before. The exasperation of
+being barred out of house and home until Mrs. Macy should be found,
+naturally heightened the interest. Everybody had had just time to add
+the magic word "cyclone" to their policies before the cyclone came
+"damaging along"--as Susan Clegg expressed it. Susan was much perturbed.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop,"--she said on the afternoon of the third day, as
+she came into the hotel room where the mother of the millionaire was now
+equal to her usual vigorous exercise in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you may well be grateful as Jathrop has got
+money enough for us to be living here, for the living of the community
+is getting to be no living a _tall_."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins, still in bed, turned herself about and manifested a
+vivid interest, "Well, Susan," she said, "it's three days now; how long
+is this going to keep up?"
+
+"It can't keep up very much longer, or we'll have a new French
+Revolution, that's what we'll have," said Susan. "Why, the community is
+getting where it won't stand even being said good morning to pleasantly.
+The children is running all over, pulling each other's hair, and Deacon
+White says he's going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pass
+when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol, for he's just as afraid of one
+end as the other. But it's a straw as shows which way the cyclone blew
+his house."
+
+"But isn't something--?"
+
+"Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the
+door of the insurance men's room this morning, and they fell in a heap
+when they started out; and some one as nobody can locate poured a
+pitcher of ice water through the ventilator as is over their bed. Seeing
+that public feeling is on the rise, they sent right after breakfast for
+the appraisers, and they're going to begin appraising and un-sealing
+to-morrow morning. They've entirely give up the idea of waiting for
+Mrs. Macy. The town just won't stand for any more hanging around waiting
+for nothing. I never see us so before. Every one is so upset and divided
+in their feelings that some think we'd ought to horsewhip the insurance
+men, and some think we'd ought to hold a burial service for Mrs. Macy."
+
+"I wouldn't see any good in holding a service for Mrs. Macy," said
+Gran'ma Mullins. "She wouldn't have been buried here if she was dead;
+she was always planning to go to Meadville when she was dead."
+
+"Yes," said Susan, "I know. Because Mrs. Lupey's got that nice lot with
+that nice mausoleum as she bought from the Pennybackers when they got
+rich and moved even their great-grandfather to the city."
+
+"I remember the Pennybackers," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Old man
+Pennybacker used to drive a cart for rags. It was a great day for the
+Pennybackers when Joe went into the pawnbroker business."
+
+"Yes," said Susan, "it's wonderful how rich men manage to get on when
+they're young. Seems as if there's just no way to crowd a millionaire
+out of business or kill him off. I'm always reading what they went
+through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a
+thing as when it's going to be is going to be, and you've just got to
+let 'em do it once they get started."
+
+"It was a nice mausoleum," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Mrs. Macy has told me
+about it a hundred times. It's so big, Mrs. Lupey says, she can live up
+to her hospitable nature at last, for there's room for all and to spare.
+Mrs. Macy was the first person she asked. Mrs. Macy thought that was
+very kind of just a cousin. There's only Mrs. Kitts there, now, and Mrs.
+Lupey's aunt, Mrs. Cogetts."
+
+"Mrs. Macy didn't know she had a aunt," said Susan. "Mrs. Cogetts came
+way from Jacoma just on account of the mausoleum. That's a long ways to
+come just to save paying for a lot where you are, seems to me; but some
+natures'll go to any lengths to save money."
+
+"I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now," said Gran'ma Mullins, with a sigh.
+
+"Nobody knows. A good many is decided that it's surely a clear case of
+Elijah, only nobody pretends to believe in the Bible so much as to think
+that she can go up and stay there. Mrs. Macy'd have to come down, and
+the higher she went the more heaven help her when she does come down.
+Mrs. Macy was very solid, as we all know who've heard her sit down or
+seen her get up, and I can't see no happy ending ahead, even though we
+all wish her well. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming
+back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure; but even insurance men
+can't have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view
+is as it's no use worrying. Spilt milk's a poor thing to cook with. If
+you're in the fire, you ain't in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is
+this community, as is all locked out of their houses. The Browns is
+living in the cellar to the cowshed, with two lengths of sidewalk laid
+over them. Mrs. Brown says she feels like a Pilgrim Father, and she
+sees why they got killed off so fast by the Indians,--it was so much
+easier to be scalped than to do your hair. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes
+turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change
+regular, for whoever turns over spills out, and the other one is sitting
+looking at the moon and waiting all ready to get in."
+
+"I declare, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins warmly, "I think it's most
+shocking. I won't say outrageous, but I will say shocking."
+
+"But what are you going to do about it?" said Susan. "That's the rub in
+this country. There's plenty as is shocking, but here we sit at the
+mercy of any cyclone or Congress as comes along. Here we was, peaceful,
+happy, and loving, and a cyclone swishes through. Down comes half a
+dozen men from the city and seals up everything in town. I tell you you
+ought to have heard me when they was sealing up your house and Mrs.
+Macy's. I give it to 'em, and I didn't mince matters none. I spoke my
+whole mind, and it was a great satisfaction, but they went right on and
+sealed up the houses."
+
+"Oh, Susan," began Mrs. Lathrop, "how are--?"
+
+"All in ruins," replied Susan promptly. "I don't believe you and me is
+ever going to live in happy homes any more. Fate seems dead set against
+the idea. And nobody can get ahead of Fate. They may talk all they
+please about overcoming, and when I was young I was always charging
+along with my horns down and my tail waving same as every other young
+thing; but I'm older now, and I see as resignation is the only thing as
+really pays in the end. I get as mad as ever, but I stay meek. I wanted
+to lam those insurance men with a stick of wood as was lying most handy,
+but all I did was to walk home. Mr. Shores says he's just the same way.
+We was talking it over this morning. He says when his wife first run off
+with his clerk, he was nigh to crazy; he says he thought getting along
+without a wife was going to just drive him out of his senses, and he
+said her taking the clerk just seemed to add insult to perjury, but he
+says now, as he gets older, he finds having no wife a great comfort."
+
+"I wish Jathrop would--" sighed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, he will, likely enough," said Susan. "Now he's rich, some girl
+will snap him up, and he won't find how he's been fooled till three or
+four months after the wedding."
+
+"I suppose Jathrop could marry just any one he pleased now," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, sighing in her turn. "Hiram didn't have no choice;
+Jathrop'll have a choice."
+
+"He may be none the better for that," said Susan darkly. "If Jathrop
+Lathrop is wise, he'll not go routing wildly around like a president
+after a elephant; he'll stick to what's tried and true. But I have my
+doubt as to Jathrop's being wise; very few men with money have any
+sense."
+
+"Who do _you_ think--?" began Mrs. Lathrop, looking intently at Susan.
+
+"I d'n know," said Susan, looking hard at Mrs. Lathrop; "far be it from
+me to judge."
+
+"They do say, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins wisely, "as he'll end up by
+marrying you. Everybody says so."
+
+Susan shook her head hard. "It's not for me to say. Affairs has been
+going on and off between Jathrop and me for too many years now for me to
+begin to discuss them. What is to be will be, and what isn't to be can't
+possibly be brought about."
+
+Gran'ma Mullins sighed again, and Mrs. Lathrop went on rocking. As she
+rocked, she viewed Susan Clegg from time to time in a speculative
+manner. It was many, many years since she had suggested to Susan the
+idea of marrying Jathrop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the next morning that Mrs. Macy re-appeared on the scene. The
+insurance men had unsealed all the houses, and the result was her
+discovery.
+
+"Well, you could drown me for a new-born kitten, and I'd never open my
+eyes in surprise after _this_," Susan expounded to the friends at the
+hotel. "But Mrs. Macy always _was_ peculiar; she was always give to
+adventures. To think of her living there as snug as a moth in a rug,
+cooking her meals on the little oil-stove--"
+
+"But where--?" interposed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I'm telling you. She's been sleeping in a good bed, too, and being
+perfectly comfortable while we've all been suffering along of waiting
+for her to come back."
+
+"But Susan--" cried Gran'ma Mullins, wide-eyed.
+
+"I'll tell you where she was; she was in your house--that's where she
+was. The cyclone just gave her a lift over your woodshed, and then it
+set her down pretty quick. She says she came to earth like a piece of
+thistledown on the other side. Her story is as your back door was open,
+so she run in, and then it begun to rain, so she saw no reason for going
+out again. When it stopped raining, she looked out and seen nobody. That
+isn't surprising, for we wasn't there. She thought that it was strange
+not seeing any lights, but she started to go home, and she says _what_
+was her feelings when she fell over her own roof in the path. She says
+of all the strange sensations a perfectly respectable woman can possibly
+ever get to start to go home and fall over her own roof is surely the
+most singular. She says she was so sleepy she thought maybe she was
+dreaming, and not having any lantern, it was no use trying to
+investigate, so she just went back to your house and went to bed in my
+bed. She says she dreamed of Hiram's ears all night long. I'd completely
+forgot Hiram's ears, which is strange, for they was far and away the
+most amusing things in this community. I think that way he could turn
+'em about was so entertaining. That way he used to cock 'em at you
+always give him the air of paying so much attention. They say he never
+cocked 'em at Lucy but once--"
+
+"Oh, my, that once!" exclaimed Gran'ma Mullins involuntarily.
+
+"It was a sin and a shame for Lucy to choke Hiram's ears off like she
+did," Susan declared warmly. "She just seemed to take all the courage
+right out of 'em. Hiram always reminded me of a black-and-tan as long as
+he had the free use of his ears, but after Lucy broke their backbone
+like she did, he never reminded me of much of nothing." Susan paused to
+sigh. Gran'ma Mullins wiped her eyes.
+
+"You and Hiram give up to Lucy too much," said Susan. "I wish she'd
+married me."
+
+"I wish she had, Susan," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I wouldn't wish to seem
+unkind to the wife of my born and wedded only son, but I do wish that
+she'd married you, and if Hiram could only see Lucy with a mother's
+clear blue eye, he'd wish it, too."
+
+"Where is--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, desiring to recur to the main object
+under discussion.
+
+"Oh, she's gone straight over to Meadville," said Susan. "Oh, my, she
+says, but think of her feelings as she sat inside that nice, comfortable
+house and realized that she was the only person in town with a roof
+over her head! You see, she heard me talking with the insurance men, and
+she didn't know why we was to be sealed up, but she got it all straight
+as we was going to be turned out of house and home, and she says she
+made up her mind as no one should ever know as she was in a house and so
+come capering up to put her out. She says she settled down as still as a
+mouse, made no smoke, and never lit so much as a candle nights. Mrs.
+Macy is surely most foxy!"
+
+"And she's gone to Meadville?" said Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"Yes, she didn't want to pay board here, and her own house hasn't got no
+roof, so she's gone to Mrs. Lupey. Old Doctor Carter was over here to
+appraise the damage done to folks, and he took her back with him."
+
+"I wonder if she'll ever--" wondered Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"I d'n know. If folks talk about a marriage long enough, it usually ends
+up that way. Doctor Carter and Mrs. Macy has been kind of jumping at
+each other and then running away for fifteen years or so. They say he'd
+like her money, but he hates to be bothered with her."
+
+"She wouldn't like to be bothered with him, either," said Gran'ma
+Mullins.
+
+"I know," said Susan. "That's what's making so few people like to get
+married nowadays. They don't want to be bothered with each other."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop fixed her little, black, beady eyes hard on Susan.
+
+Susan stared straight ahead.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND
+
+
+"Mrs. Sperrit can't stand it no longer, and she's going visiting,"
+announced Susan Clegg to the three friends who, seated together on Mrs.
+Macy's piazza, had been awaiting her return from down-town. Both Mrs.
+Macy and Gran'ma Mullins were now back in their own houses after the
+temporary absence due to the cyclone, and Mrs. Lathrop and she who might
+yet be her daughter-in-law were reestablished as their paying guests.
+
+"Why, I never knew that Mr. Sperrit was that kind of a man," said
+Gran'ma Mullins, opening her eyes very wide indeed. "I wouldn't say he's
+han'some, and I wouldn't say he's entertaining; but I always thought
+they got on well together."
+
+"He isn't that kind of a man a _tall_," rejoined Susan, who had been
+holding one hatpin in her mouth while she felt for the other, but now
+freed herself of both. "It's just that Mrs. Sperrit's sick of all this
+clutter of mending up after the cyclone. She says she's nervous for the
+first time in her life and has got to have a change. She says the
+carrying off of the barn and its never being heard from any more has got
+on her nerves somehow, even if it was only a barn. She says God forgive
+her and not to mention it to you, Mrs. Macy, but she wishes every hour
+of her life as the cyclone had took you and left their barn, because the
+barn had her sewing-machine in it, and she'd as leave be dead as be
+without that sewing-machine."
+
+"Where--?" mildly interpolated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Mr. Sperrit says wherever she likes. He's been upset by the barn too,
+because it had his tool-chest in it, and he's such a handy man with his
+tools that he feels for her in a way as not many women get felt for."
+
+"Where does--?" began Gran'ma Mullins.
+
+"She didn't know at first, but now she thinks she'll go and stay with
+her cousin. She hasn't had much to do with her cousin for years, and she
+says she feels as maybe the barn was a judgment. She never got along
+well with her cousin. She says her cousin was pretty, with curls, and
+she herself was freckled, with straight hair, and so it was only natural
+as she always hated her. I don't feel to blame her none, for curls is
+very hard on them as is born straight-haired. But there was more reasons
+than one for Mrs. Sperrit not to get along with her cousin, and she says
+it never was so much the curls as it was her not being practical. Mrs.
+Sperrit is practical, and she's always been practical, and her cousin
+wasn't. They didn't speak for years and years."
+
+"Whatever set 'em at it again?" asked Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Sperrit says it come by degrees. She says she first noticed
+as her cousin was trying to make up about five years ago, but she
+thought she'd best wait and be sure. Mrs. Sperrit's practical; she don't
+never look in anywhere until she's leaped around the edge enough to know
+what she's doing. She says her cousin named her first boy Gringer, which
+is Mrs. Sperrit's family name; but then, it is the cousin's family name,
+too, so she didn't pay any attention to that. Then she named her first
+girl Eliza, which, as we know, is Mrs. Sperrit's own name, but seeing as
+it was the name of the grandmother of both of them, she didn't pay any
+attention to _that_, either. Then she named the second boy Sperrit,
+which was a little pointed, of course; and Mrs. Sperrit says if her
+cousin had been practical, she would certainly have thought that the
+Sperrits ought to have given the child something. But she wasn't and
+didn't, and they didn't. Then she named the second girl Azile--which is
+Eliza spelt backwards--and Mrs. Sperrit says it was the spelling of
+Eliza backwards as first showed her how awful friendly her cousin was
+trying to get to be. Then, when she named the third boy Jacob, after
+Mr. Sperrit, and the fourth boy Bocaj--which is Jacob spelled
+backwards--Mrs. Sperrit says that it was no use pretending not to see.
+Besides, naming the baby Bocaj just did go to her heart, particularly as
+the baby wasn't very strong, anyway. So since then the Sperrits has sent
+'em a turkey every Thanksgiving and a quarter apiece to the children
+every Christmas."
+
+"What's she named the other children?" asked Mrs. Macy with real
+interest.
+
+"Why, there ain't no more yet. Bocaj is only six months old."
+
+"Oh, then they ain't sent no turkey yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy.
+
+"No, not yet, but when they begin, they'll keep it up steady. And now
+Mrs. Sperrit says she'll go and visit and see for herself how things
+are. She's not very hopeful of enjoying herself, for she says visiting a
+person as isn't practical is most difficult. She knows, because when she
+taught school, she used to board with a family as was that way. She says
+she kept the things she bought then, and she shall take 'em all to her
+cousin's. She says when you stay with any one as isn't practical, you
+must take your own spirit-lamp, and teapot, and kettle, and tea, and
+matches, and a small blanket, and pen and ink, and a box of crackers,
+and a sharp knife, and some blank telegrams, and a good deal of
+court-plaster, and a teacup, and sugar if you take it, and a ball of
+good heavy string, and your own Bible, and a pillow. And never forget to
+wear your trunk-key round your neck, even if you only go down-stairs to
+look at the clock. She's got all those things left over from her
+school-teaching days. She says everything always comes in handy again
+some time if you're practical, and she thanks God she's practical."
+
+"I don't think that I should care to visit that way," said Gran'ma
+Mullins thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say I wouldn't, and I wouldn't say I
+couldn't, but I don't think--"
+
+"She's going Tuesday," continued Susan Clegg. "Mr. Sperrit says she can,
+and she's going Tuesday. She's written her cousin, and her cousin's
+written her. Her cousin says they'll be too glad for words, and for her
+to stay till Christmas--or till Thanksgiving, anyway. Mrs. Sperrit says
+she won't do that, but she'll stay until the end of next week if she can
+stand her cousin's husband. She says she never had any use for her
+cousin's husband, because he isn't practical either, and when he was
+young, his tie was never on straight. Mrs. Sperrit says a man that wears
+his tie crooked when he's young is the kind to keep shy of later. She
+says he'll never have a pocket knife and borrow hers, and never have a
+pencil and borrow hers. And then, too, she's almost sure as by this time
+he's spoilt her cousin's temper; and visiting a cousin whose temper's
+spoilt wouldn't be fun, even if she was practical. Which this one
+ain't."
+
+"If her cousin's got a sharp tongue I--" began Gran'ma Mullins in quiet,
+sad reminiscence.
+
+"She was buying some wood alcohol and a cheap spoon at Mr. Kimball's,"
+Susan went on. "She took me in her buggy and drove me up to look at our
+houses, which is trying feebly to climb again to where they was before
+the cyclone. But they're a sorry sight. I don't know when we're ever
+going to get into them, I'm sure. I only wish Jathrop was to see how
+slow those carpenters can be." Then Miss Clegg's countenance assumed a
+coy expression, her eyes lowered bashfully, and her fingers nervously
+sought to touch between the buttons of her waist some treasured object
+hidden within. "I--I had a letter from him to-day."
+
+And at that all three listeners started in more or less violent
+amazement.
+
+"What!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Nothing that I can tell any one," said Susan serenely. "So it's no use
+asking me another word about it."
+
+Mrs. Sperrit left on Tuesday precisely and practically as she had
+planned; but she returned very much sooner than she had expected.
+
+"And no wonder," declared Susan, just back from the Sewing Society, to
+Mrs. Lathrop, who never went. "I should say it was no wonder. Well, Mrs.
+Sperrit has had an experience, and I guess no lost barn will ever lead
+her into looking up no more cousins after this."
+
+"She's so worn-looking," said Gran'ma Mullins, who had returned with
+Susan. "I wouldn't say white, and I wouldn't say worried, but I call it
+peaked."
+
+"Why, she's been through enough to make a book," said Mrs. Macy, who had
+come in with the others, "--a book like _The Jungle_, as makes you right
+down sick in spots."
+
+"Oh, _The Jungle_ isn't so bad," said Susan. "If it was, Roosevelt would
+have straightened it out soon enough when he was in it himself. But
+what's awful about Mrs. Sperrit is what she has suffered, for that woman
+certainly has suffered. She's a lesson once for all as to visiting. No
+one as hears her is ever going lightly visiting after this. She lost her
+trunk-key as soon as she landed in the house, and she says she was too
+took up to miss it for three days, which shows what kind of a time she
+had. Why, her cousin went right to bed as soon as she got there, because
+she said as she knowed that Mrs. Sperrit was practical and could do
+everything better than she could. So that was a nice beginning to begin
+with. Well, she says such a house you never see. The chickens come into
+the dining-room, and they was raising mud turtles in the bathtub, and
+caterpillars in the cake-box. The children was awful right from the
+start. She slept in the room with two of them, and they woke her up
+mornings playing shave with the ends of her braids. She found out as
+they dipped 'em first in the water pitcher and then in the tooth powder
+to make it like lather."
+
+"My heavens alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Then Jacob, who's only two and a half, ate mashed potatoes with his
+fingers, which is a thing, Mrs. Sperrit says, as must be seen to be
+believed, and they all just swum in jam from dawn to dark. She says she
+never see such children, anyway. Whenever anybody sat down, they'd play
+she was the Alps, and go back and forth over her wherever they could get
+a purchase. And she says--would you believe it?--her cousin is got to be
+so calm that it drives you out of your senses only to see the way she
+takes things. Mrs. Sperrit says all she can say is as when a woman as
+isn't practical does go to bed, she's resigned to that degree that you
+wish you could blow her up with dynamite if only to see her move quick
+just once."
+
+"Why didn't she come home?" asked Mrs. Macy. "My view would be as I'd
+come home. I said so to her to-day."
+
+"She did come home, didn't she?" said Miss Clegg. "You heard her, and
+you know she's home. It's Mrs. Lathrop as all this is new to, isn't it?
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it would go to your heart to hear what happened to
+all those little conveniences as she took. There wasn't no sharp knife
+in the house but hers, so she never see hers after she unpacked it.
+There wasn't no string or court-plaster either, so they disappeared
+too. Then they run out of tea the minute they see she brought some, and
+not being practical, her cousin's teapot naturally didn't have no nose,
+so she lost her teapot, too. The whole family took her hairbrush and
+used it for a clothes brush, and she thinks for a shoe brush when she
+was down-town. Her cousin wore her stockings and her collars, and her
+cousin's husband slept on the pillow with the blanket folded around him.
+Not being practical, he liked his feet free."
+
+"Well, I nev--!" ejaculated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Mrs. Sperrit said by the third day she had to begin to do something, so
+she asked if she could clean her own room, and her cousin said she was
+going to let her make herself happy in her own way and just to go ahead
+and clean the whole house if she liked. So she went to work and cleaned
+the whole house, and she says such a house she never dreamed could
+exist. She found families of mice, and families of swallows, and
+families of moths. She found things as had been lost for years, and
+they was wild with delight to see 'em again. She found things as, she
+says, she wouldn't like to say she found, because when all's said and
+done a cousin is still a cousin, but she says--Good lands, what she
+found! Well, she says when she got the house cleaned, her cousin was
+still in bed, so she took heart of grace and asked if she might teach
+the children to mind. Her cousin said she didn't care, so Mrs. Sperrit
+went to work on those six children. Well, she says that was a job, and
+it was that as led to her coming away like she did. She says the
+children was the very worst children anybody ever saw. She says she
+taught school, and she thought she knew children, but anything like
+those children nobody--even those as is chock full of things not fit to
+eat--could ever by any possibility of dreamed of. Why, she says they was
+used to heating the poker and jabbing one another with it when mad; and
+while you was leaning down to tie your shoe, they'd snatch your chair
+away from behind you, and such games. But Mrs. Sperrit is practical,
+and she believes in her Bible, and she thought as how the Lord had
+delivered them into her hands and set to work. She said she begun by
+washing them all--for they was always slippery from jam. And then she
+cut their nails very short and started in. Well, she says it was some
+work, for they was so funny she could hardly keep from laughing. She
+says they're mighty bright children--she must say that for 'em, although
+it don't soften her feelings a mite towards 'em. Well, she says you
+couldn't do nothing a _tall_ with 'em. But she didn't lose courage. When
+she talked serious, they took it as a great joke, and she had to stop
+for meals so often that it used her all up; for she says such steady
+eating she never see. She says the meals was most terrible, too, as they
+always had herring, and of course the bones made so much picking that
+the children kept telling her she ate with her fingers, herself. She
+says that was the most awful part, the way they talked back. But she
+didn't despair. She kept washing them out of the jam and taking a fresh
+cut at their nails, until finally come the last hour of wrath. And then,
+she says, they did make her mad--good and mad."
+
+"But what did--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, seems the worst child was 'Zile. Of course, Mrs. Sperrit, having
+taught school, thought they'd pronounce it like Azalea, and make a real
+pretty name out of Eliza spelt backwards, but seems they dropped the A
+and just called her 'Zile to rhyme with file; and Mrs. Sperrit says she
+rhymed with file all right."
+
+"Go on, Susan," urged Mrs. Macy.
+
+"Well, the cousin and the husband was invited to go on a all-day
+excursion, so the cousin got up and dressed and went. She said she might
+as well, seeing as Mrs. Sperrit was there with the children. When they
+was gone, Mrs. Sperrit made up her mind as now was her chance to bring
+those children to time, once and for all. So she rolled up her sleeves
+and give 'em all a good bath--for she says the way they'd get freshly
+jammed was most astonishing--and then she went up-stairs to get her
+scissors to cut their nails. She was opening her trunk to get out the
+scissors when she heard a click. Well, when she run to the door, what do
+you suppose? She found they'd locked her in.
+
+"Well, maybe you can imagine her feelings! She says she was never so mad
+in all her life. She called through the door, but not a sound. There was
+a crack big enough to put your hand through under the door, and she
+tried to look through it, but it wasn't high enough to put your eye to.
+Then she heard a shout and run to the window. There they all was, out on
+the grass in front,--all but Bocaj, who was asleep in his cradle
+down-stairs. Well, such doings! She says 'Zile, who was always full of
+ideas, was just outstripping herself in ideas this time. They had a old
+pair of scissors, and first they went to work for half an hour cutting
+each other's hair. She says you can maybe think of her feelings in the
+upper window, left in charge of 'em, with full permission to whip 'em
+if necessary, and having to sit and watch 'em trim each other anyway
+the notion hit 'em. She says tying a man to a tree while cannibals eat
+up his family is the only thing as would express it a _tall_. After they
+got done cutting hair, they went in and got a pot of jam and brought it
+out and sat down in full sight and eat jam with their fingers till there
+was no more jam. She says she'd stopped calling things to 'em by that
+time and was just sitting quietly in the window, thanking God for every
+minute as they stayed where she could see what they was doing. But when
+they had finished the jam, they went in the house and was so deathly
+quiet she was scared to fits. She thought maybe they was setting fire to
+something. But after a while they begun to bang on the piano, and when
+she was half crazy over the noise, she looked towards the door, and
+there was the key poked under. She made a jump for the key, and it was
+jerked back by a piece of string. And her own string at that. Then she
+was called to the window by Gringer yelling, and while she was trying
+to hear what he had to say--the piano jangling worse than ever--they
+opened the door suddenly and bundled Bocaj into the room and then locked
+the door again.
+
+"The baby was just woke up and hungry, and it was a pretty kettle of
+fish. She says she made up her mind then and there to quit that house
+and adopt Bocaj. She says she saw as there was no use trying to reform
+the rest; but Bocaj was so little and helpless, and nothing in her heart
+made her feel as he couldn't be raised to be practical. She went to work
+and fed him crackers soaked in boiling water while she packed her trunk.
+And when her cousin came home, she was sitting with her bonnet on ready
+to go. Her cousin just naturally felt awful. She wanted to call it a
+joke; but Mrs. Sperrit is a woman whose feelings isn't lightly took in
+vain. She left, and she took Bocaj with her. She telegraphed Mr.
+Sperrit, and he met her at the train. He was some disappointed because
+he'd forgotten about the baby's name and thought from reading it in the
+telegraph that she was bringing back a monkey. Seems Mr. Sperrit has
+always wanted a monkey, and she wouldn't have one. But now she says he
+can have a monkey or anything else, if he'll only stay practical. She
+says she doesn't believe she could ever live with any one as wasn't
+practical, after this experience."
+
+Susan paused, Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma Mullins rose to go to their kitchens
+and get suppers for their guests. When they had gone, Susan, having Mrs.
+Lathrop alone, eased a troubled conscience.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Lathrop," she confided, "do you remember me saying the other
+evening I'd had a letter from Jathrop?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop suddenly stopped rocking. "Yes--yes, Susan," she answered
+eagerly. "I--"
+
+"Well, I didn't have one. It was just as everybody in this community has
+got their minds fixed on Jathrop's being wild about me, so I felt to
+mention a letter, and I shall go on mentioning getting a letter from
+him whenever the spirit moves me."
+
+"Why, Susan--!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"It doesn't hurt him a _tall_," said Susan Clegg with calm decision,
+"and it saves me from being asked questions. And you know as well as I
+do, Mrs. Lathrop, that I can have him if I want him."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sat open-mouthed, dumb.
+
+"If I don't have him, it'll be because I don't want him," added Miss
+Clegg with dignity. "So it's no use your saying one other word, Mrs.
+Lathrop."
+
+And Mrs. Lathrop, thus adjured, refrained from further speech.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+SUSAN CLEGG DEVELOPS IMAGINATION
+
+
+"Far be it from me, Mrs. Lathrop," said Susan Clegg, returning from an
+early errand down-town and dropping in at Mrs. Macy's to find her friend
+still in her own room and rocking in her old-gold stationary rocker. It
+was now autumn, and to take the chill off the room an oil burner was
+brightly ablaze. "Far be it from me to say anything disrespectful of
+such a good Samaritan as your son Jathrop, but as we have it in the
+scriptures, he certainly does move in a mysterious way his neighbors to
+inform. It's mighty good of him to go to all the expense of building
+over my house in a way I'd never in this wide world have had it if I
+could 'a' understood those plans of that boy architect, and it may
+be--providing we escape earthquake, fire, blood, and famine--that I'll
+get into it once more before next summer, notwithstanding it's all of
+two months behind yours, you being his mother, Mrs. Lathrop, and me only
+your friend. But a early frost is sure to crack the plaster, and, seeing
+as the glass blowers has gone on a strike, there's no telling when
+they'll blow the panes for the windows. Just the same, kind and good as
+Jathrop is, he might have had more consideration for me as would this
+day have been his wife, if I'd felt to answer him with a three-letter
+word instead of a two, than to put me on the pillar of scorn before a
+community as has known me always as a scrupulous lover of the voracious
+truth."
+
+"You don't--" began Mrs. Lathrop, in mild astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I do," continued Susan, with growing indignation. "Jathrop has
+done his best to make me out a liar, and I don't know as I'll ever be
+able to hold my head up again. He's struck me in the tenderest spot he
+could strike me in, and not boldly neither, but in a skulking,
+underhand way that makes it all the bitterer pill to swallow."
+
+"I can't see--" objected Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, nor me neither. But he did, and in no time everybody'll know it
+from Johnny, at the station, to Mrs. Lupey in Meadville, not forgettin'
+the poor demented over to the insane asylum. And it all comes of those
+letters I have been getting from Jathrop during the summer."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Yes, I know and you know there was no letters a _tall_. But everybody
+else, except you and me and the postmaster, believed I had a letter
+regular every week. Whenever I run short of subjects at the Sewing
+Society, I just fell back on my last letter from Jathrop and told them
+all about what he was doing in those islands. I'd read the book he sent,
+and I'd read it to good profit. There was some things as I didn't quite
+understand, of course, but on them I just put my own interpretations,
+and knowing Jathrop as I did, it was easy enough for me to figure out
+how he'd be most likely to act in a strange, barbaric land. The book
+didn't have a word to say about the costumes of the native tribes, but
+I'm not so ignorant as not to know how those South Sea Islanders never
+wear nothing more hamperin' than sea-shell earrings and necklaces of
+sharks' teeth; and I'd read, too, that foreign visitors, on account of
+the unbearable heat, was in the habit of adoptin' the native fashions in
+dress. When you get started makin' things up, there's no knowing just
+where you're likely as to end. It's so easy to go straight ahead and say
+just whatever you please that seems in any way interesting. And so, when
+Mrs. Fisher asked me one day whether I supposed there was any cannibals
+there, I said there was one cannibal tribe that was most ferocious and
+had appetites that there was no such thing as quenchin'. I said that in
+Jathrop's last letter he had written me about how this tribe had
+captured the cook off the yacht and that when they finally found his
+captors and defeated them in a desperate battle lasting three days, all
+that was found of the cook was two chicken croquettes."
+
+"For gra--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's what Mrs. Fisher said. Of course, with the cook eat up--all but
+what was in the two croquettes, that is,--Jathrop and his millionaire
+friends was a good deal put about. There wasn't a one of 'em as knew the
+first thing about cooking, and after the exercise of the three days'
+battle they was most awful hungry. And then, I says, quoting from the
+letter from Jathrop which never came, they had a piece of real luck,
+just as millionaires is always having. They had taken one prisoner, and
+by means of signs, not knowin' a word of the cannibal language, they
+discovered that the prisoner was the cook of the tribe. He pointed to
+the croquettes as a example of his handiwork, and Jathrop said that he
+never saw anything in the cookin' line that looked more toothsome than
+they did. So, of course they engaged the cannibal cook on the spot and
+carried him back to the yacht with 'em. Everything went well for a few
+days, but on a day when they had invited the chief of a friendly tribe
+to dinner, there was something as aroused their suspicions. The
+principal dish for the feast was, so far as they could make out from the
+cook's sign-language, a savory rabbit stew. Now as they had never seen
+or heard tell of a rabbit in the Bahamas, they was naturally curious to
+learn where the cook had managed to dig it up. He either couldn't or
+wouldn't tell. I says that Jathrop says you might 'a' thought that the
+cook was a thirty-second degree mason and that the origin of the rabbit
+was a thirty-second degree masonic secret. The millionaires gathered in
+council and discussed the question, pro and con, from every obtainable
+or imaginable angle. Then, just as they were about to adjourn without
+having reached any conclusion whatever, they rang for the cabin boy to
+fetch some liquid refreshment. But there wasn't no answer. And they
+might 'a' been ringing yet as to any good it would do. They never did
+see that cabin boy, and the only one to eat the savory rabbit stew was
+the visiting chief."
+
+"I don't--" observed Mrs. Lathrop, rocking faster.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you're right about that," Susan confirmed,
+loosening her shawl, for the oil-stove was rapidly lifting the room's
+temperature. "I don't see, myself, why anybody should ever have known
+any better, and nobody would have, if it hadn't been as Jathrop took it
+into his head to talk to a newspaper man at Atlantic City on about the
+same day as I had him missing the cabin boy and refusing a helping to
+the rabbit stew. Mr. Kimball showed me the paper as came from New York
+wrapped around a new ledger he just received by express. The reporter
+had written two columns and over about the 'Klondike Bonanza King,' and
+if Jathrop had set his mind to makin' me out a Ananias and a Saphira
+boiled into one, he couldn't have succeeded better. He hasn't been in
+the Bahamas a _tall_. The yacht started for there, but it went to Cuba
+instead, and he and his friends only stayed in Cuba a week. From there
+they went down to Panama and looked over the canal as far as it's gone.
+They spent the summer sailin' from one summer resort to another, and I
+must say I should think there was better ways of passin' the time than
+that. When it comes to eatin', I'd about as leave eat the dishes of a
+cannibal cook as eat things made of the salt water that people go
+bathin' in, and that's what they do at Atlantic City. The minister
+showed me some candy 'Liza Em'ly sent him from Atlantic City in July,
+and I know what I'm talkin' about, for it was printed on the paper
+around each piece. 'Salt-water Taffy.' Think of that! It's plain to be
+seen that they ain't got any fresh water there, or they wouldn't use
+salt. Jathrop and the other millionaires, I suppose, drink nothin' but
+wine, but the poor folks must drink salt water or go thirsty. I suppose
+it saves salt in seasonin', but I'd rather have my vituals unseasoned
+than have 'em salted with water that folks has swum in. They certainly
+ain't got no enterprise, that's sure. If they had they'd pipe
+water--fresh water--from somewheres. And if there's no place near enough
+to pipe it from, they'd build cisterns. But water's not the only thing
+as shows their shiftlessness. Our town isn't exactly a metropolis, but
+we got a few cement sidewalks. Atlantic City ain't got a one. I heard
+about that long ago. And in these days of progress, too! Nothing but a
+board walk on its principal street--nothing a _tall_."
+
+"What did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"He said a good deal more'n his prayers, I can tell you that. He said
+his object in going to the Bahamas, to which he never went, after all,
+was to look into the possibility of securin' a large tract of land there
+for the cultivation and growth of sisal. Now what under the sun would
+you suppose sisal was? I saw in the book that sisal was being grown in
+increasing quantities in the islands, and I just naturally supposed it
+was some sort of animal. It might of been buffalo, or it might of been
+guinea pigs, but when I spoke at the Sewing Society of how Jathrop had
+mentioned the great number of sisal, and Mrs. Allen says: 'What is
+sisal?' I just right then and there on the spur of the minute says:
+'Why, don't you know? Sisal is a sort of small oxen striped like a zebra
+and spotted like a leopard.' And would you believe it, Mrs. Lathrop,
+when Mr. Kimball asked me that same question to-day, I said the very
+same thing--small oxen striped like a zebra and spotted like a leopard.
+'That's what Mrs. Allen told me you said, Miss Clegg,' says he, 'but
+accordin' to the paper, Jathrop Lathrop don't quite agree with you.' I
+don't know, Mrs. Lathrop, I d'n know, I'm sure, why Jathrop should take
+pleasure in making me appear like a ignoramus, but there ain't no
+question about it that that's what he did when he gave that interview to
+that there reporter. 'What kind of animal is a sisal, then, Mr.
+Kimball?' I asked, and you can believe me my blood was boilin' in my
+veins. 'It ain't no animal a _tall_,' he says. 'It's hemp what they
+make ropes out of to hang murderers with. And the seeds they feed
+canaries on.' 'Well,' I says, 'that may be the reporter's sisal, but it
+ain't mine, and it ain't Jathrop's. The newspapers never get nothin'
+right nohow, but when it comes to reducin' cattle into rope and
+birdseed, they are certainly goin' one better on the Chicago pork
+packers.' In all my life I have never been a respecter of the untruth,
+but I know enough on the subject to tell a good lie when necessity calls
+upon me and to stick to it as long as it has an eyelid to hang by. But I
+will say this for your son Jathrop, Mrs. Lathrop, and that is that
+before he got done with that reporter, he didn't leave so much as a
+eyelash, let alone a lid. It wasn't only that he'd never been to those
+islands a _tall_, and I'd been tellin' everybody in town as how I'd had
+a letter from him there every week the whole summer through, but he must
+air his acquaintance with things on the islands just as if he'd been
+born and raised there. And it seems there ain't no natives within miles
+of the Bahamas, and hasn't been since Columbus and his people was there,
+goin' on fifteen hundred years ago. Columbus told 'em that he'd take 'em
+to the land where all their dead relatives and friends had gone to, a
+land flowin' with milk and honey, and he kept his word. Seems he shipped
+every last mother's son and daughter of 'em back to Spain with him, and
+left the islands bare for the next comers. It may have appeared a rather
+roundabout way for the native Bahamians to reach heaven and their
+departed folks, seeing as it led through hard work in the Spanish mines,
+but there ain't no question whatever that they every one got there in
+the end."
+
+"You mean--" suggested Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"I mean that unless Lathrop or the reporter made it up, or the pair of
+'em together, that nobody lives there now except whites and blacks, and
+there's not enough whites to make a nice shepherd's plaid out of the
+combination. But savagery, except for pirates, has never had any place
+there, and cannibalism is absolutely unknown. It's all very
+humiliating, and it'd 'a' been much better to let people ask me and
+never said nothing back a _tall_. When people is in the dark, they've
+got to imagine for themselves, and as long as they don't tell what they
+imagine to others, no piece in a newspaper can never make 'em blush. I
+can tell you it's learnt me a lesson as I won't soon forget. I'll never
+get over the way Mr. Kimball looked at me when he said as how sisal was
+hemp; and me thinking all the time it was a animal when it was a herb.
+Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it's a ill wind that don't chill the shorn lamb. I'm
+that chilled that I feel I never shall talk again. I'll never say black
+is black or white is white until I've looked at the color twice with my
+glasses on. Accuracy is the best policy, I says, from this day
+henceforth."
+
+"You might--" began Mrs. Lathrop sympathetically.
+
+"That's true, too. I might have known that it didn't sound true to be
+getting letters every week from a man who went away to the Klondike and
+never sent his mother so much as a picture postal card in all the years
+he was there. But then, too, you've got to consider the kind of folks as
+you're telling things to, and with all due respect to the ladies of the
+Sewing Society, from Mrs. Allen to Gran'ma Mullins, they're not
+over-burdened with the kind of intellect as can add two and two and get
+the same answer twice in succession. There wasn't a one of 'em as
+thought of that, or they'd 'a' said it straight out, without once
+considering my feelings. And I'll say this much for you, Mrs. Lathrop:
+you're not the best housekeeper I ever see, and you're about a match for
+Mrs. Sperrit's cousin when it comes to being practical, but you have got
+some brains, and I'd no more think of trying to deceive you than I'd
+think of trying to deceive Judge Fitch when he'd got a big retainer to
+get the truth out of me."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop leaned down and turned out the oil burner.
+
+"Was that--?"
+
+"No, it wasn't all. There was something else that has set me all of a
+flutter. If it wasn't as you never can tell whether a newspaper is
+voracious or just bearing false witness, I'd certainly feel as if
+Jathrop was playing fast and loose with my affections. I can remember,
+and you can remember, too, when the freedom of the press didn't mean
+freedom to make a Pike's Peak out of a ant hill. But in these days
+there's no telling whether, when we read of a poor soul being attacked
+by a wild beast, it's a jungle tiger or just a pet yellow kitten. Folks
+would rather read about the tiger than the kitten, and so the papers
+give 'em what they want without any regard for the real facts a _tall_.
+Elijah Doxey, who's a real editor if there ever was one, and knows all
+about the paper business, says that the newspaper, like everything else,
+has to keep abreast of the times or go to the wall, and that since
+people in these days 'ld rather read fiction than history, it stands to
+reason a paper can't stand in its own light by sticking always to cold
+commonplace facts."
+
+"Did the--?" Mrs. Lathrop attempted mildly to question.
+
+"I don't know, I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop. But the interview
+with Jathrop wasn't all interview, by no means. It said a lot about his
+party, and it mentioned each of the millionaires as was in it. Seems the
+interview was given on one of those Atlantic City board walks, and it
+was given--from what on earth do you think, Mrs. Lathrop? From a wheel
+chair. Jathrop in a wheel chair! Think of that! And not alone, either.
+'Beside him,' wrote the interviewer, 'was the beautiful, dark-eyed Cuban
+senora who, rumor says, is soon to become his bride.' My lands! If it
+hadn't been for Mr. Kimball's apple barrel, I certainly would have
+dropped. It would 'a' been bad enough if they was both strong and well,
+but to think of Jathrop being too weak to walk and going to marry a
+foreigner no more robust than himself. You can't imagine the shock it
+give me. For a minute I was clean speechless, and I'd 'a' been dumb yet,
+I do believe, if it wasn't as I begun to figure things out in my head
+and got sight of a ray of hope. Just as like as not, I says, Jathrop was
+suffering from the sudden change of climate,--from the Klondike to Cuba
+seems to me a pretty rigorous switch for any constitution,--and the
+Cuban woman was more'n likely his trained nurse fetched from the island.
+Either that or the woman was just recovering from a illness, and Jathrop
+got in to ride with her out of pure kindness of heart. Then, too, I
+remembered that: 'rumor says,' and cheered right up. Rumor never told
+the truth yet, as far as I know, and it's not in reason to believe the
+shameless thing is going to reform in these degenerate days. Jathrop may
+be going to marry the senora, I don't say he isn't, and I don't say he
+is. But before I believe it, I've got to have some better authority than
+what rumor says. He's steered clear of wives in the Klondike, and he's
+steered clear of 'em in other places, and I don't see as there's any
+reason to think his steering apparatus come to grief while he was in
+Cuba. 'How's Susan Clegg?' That was what he wrote in the first letter
+you'd had from him in a dog's age, Mrs. Lathrop, and it showed pretty
+clear to me who he was thinking of while engaged in the steering
+operation."
+
+"You don't think--" Mrs. Lathrop began distressfully.
+
+"No man as was seriously sick, Mrs. Lathrop, ever talked two whole long
+newspaper columns to a reporter. You can bank on that. He was well
+enough to make me out the king of prevaricators, and it took some
+strength and a good deal of attention to small details to do it, and as
+the Cuban senora never said one word in all that time, I can't think as
+she is cutting any figure eights in his affairs. Consequently, I don't
+believe it'll pay either of us to do any great lot of worrying."
+
+"If--" Mrs. Lathrop attempted once more to interpolate.
+
+"That's just what I told Mr. Kimball. 'If Mrs. Lathrop could only see
+this paper,' I says, 'I know she'd be delighted.' It stands to reason
+as a mother must be proud of a son who, after having no more sense than
+to take a kicking cow for a bad debt, goes to the Klondike and comes
+back a millionaire; but it stands to reason, too, that she'd be more
+proud of him to get two columns of free advertising in a New York paper
+that can sell its columns to the department stores for real money. Well,
+I asked him for the paper just to show you, and though he didn't feel to
+part with it, just the same he did in the end, and I carried it away in
+triumph."
+
+"You've brought--"
+
+"No, I haven't. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Lathrop, more sorry
+than I am to disappoint Mr. Kimball in not being able to return it, but
+the truth is I lost it on the way home."
+
+"Lost--"
+
+"Every last scrap of it. And I can't say as it was altogether accidental
+either. As Shakespeare says: 'Self-protection is the best part of
+valor.' If that paper was ever to get before the Sewing Society, my
+character would be stripped off me to the last rag. Mr. Kimball can say
+what was in it, but without the paper itself, he'll have a hard time
+proving anything, and my word when it comes to a dispute is as good as
+his and a thousand times better."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop leaned forward and for a moment stopped rocking.
+
+"You--" she said quietly but tensely.
+
+"Tore it into small bits," returned Susan, rising, "and scattered them
+to the winds of heaven. There's a paper trail all the way from the
+square to Mrs. Macy's gate."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop resumed her rocking and relapsed into silence.
+
+Susan Clegg, laying her finger to her lips as a parting warning, went
+quietly out.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT
+
+
+"Well," said Miss Clegg to her dear friend in the early fall of that
+same year, while they still waited under alien roofs the completion of
+their own made-over houses, "the men who write the Sunday papers and say
+that when you look at the world with a impartial eye in this century you
+can't but have hopes of women some day developing into something, surely
+would know they spoke the truth if they could see Elijah Doxey now."
+
+"But Eli--" expostulated Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"No, of course not. But 'Liza Em'ly is, and it's her I'm talking about.
+She was up to see me this afternoon, and she says she'll spare no money
+nowhere. The trained nurse is to stay with him right along forever if
+he likes, and the two can have her automobile and ride or walk or do
+anything, without thinking once what it costs. There was a doctor up
+from the city again yesterday, and that makes four visits at a hundred a
+visit. But 'Liza Em'ly says even if Elijah hadn't anything of his own,
+she'd pay all the bills sooner'n think anything that could be done was
+being left out. It's a pretty sad case, Mrs. Lathrop, and this last
+doctor says he never see a sadder. He said nothing more could be done
+right now, for there really is nothing in this community to remind
+Elijah that he ever wrote a play, if they only could get those clippings
+from the newspapers away from him. But that's just what they can't do.
+He keeps looking them over, and then such a look of agony comes into his
+eyes,--and Elijah was never one to bear pain as you must know,
+remembering him with the colic,--and he clasps his hands and shakes his
+head, and--well, Mrs. Lathrop, Elijah just wasn't strong enough to write
+a play, and some one as was stronger ought to of restrained him right
+in the first of it."
+
+"He--" said Mrs. Lathrop pityingly.
+
+"Yes, that's it," confirmed Susan, "and oh, it's awful to take a bright
+young promising life like his and wreck it completely like that! To see
+Elijah walking about with a trained nurse and those clippings at his age
+is surely one of the most touching sights as this town'll ever see.
+'Liza Em'ly says she offered a thousand dollars to any newspaper as
+would print one good notice, 'cause the doctors say just one good notice
+might turn the whole tide of his brain. But the newspapers say if they
+printed one good notice of such a play, the Pure Food Commission would
+have 'em up for libel within a week, and they just don't dare risk it.
+This last doctor says he can't blame Elijah for going mad, 'cause he
+knows a little about the stage through being in love with a actress
+once, and he says he wasn't treated fair. He says play-writing is not
+like any other kind of writing, and Elijah wasn't prepared for the
+great difference. Seems all words on the stage mean something they don't
+mean in the dictionary, and that makes it very hard for a mere ordinary
+person to know what they're saying if they say anything a _tall_. And
+then, too, Elijah never grasped that the main thing is to keep the
+gallery laughing, even if the two-dollar people have tears running down
+their cheeks. And you can't write for the stage nowadays without you
+keep folks laughing the whole time. Elijah never thought about the
+laughing, because his play was a tragedy like _Hamlet_, only with Hamlet
+left out. For the lady is dead in the play, and her ghost is all that's
+left of her. But 'Liza Em'ly told me to-day as his trouble came right in
+the start, for the people who look plays over no sooner looked Elijah's
+over before they took hold of it and fixed it. And they kept on fixing
+it till it was _Hamlet_ with nobody but Hamlet left in. And then, so as
+to manage the laughs, they dressed everybody like chickens if they
+turned back-to. So that while the audience was weeping, if any one on
+the stage turned 'round, they went off into shrieks of laughter. 'Liza
+Em'ly says they never told Elijah about the chicken feathers, and the
+opening night was the first he knew about that little game, for he was
+laid up for ever so long before then. He got all used up in the first
+part of the rehearsals; for it seems you can only have a theater to
+rehearse in at times when even the people who sweep it don't feel to be
+sweeping. And so they always rehearse from one to six in the morning.
+And Elijah naturally wasn't used to that. But they'd had trouble even
+before then; for right from the start there was a pretty how-d'ye-do
+over the plot. Seems Elijah wanted his own plot and his own people in
+his own play, and they had a awful time getting it through his head as
+it's honor enough to have your own play, and it's only unreasonable to
+stick out for your own plot and your own people too. 'Liza Em'ly says
+they had a awful time with him over it all, and there was a time when he
+felt so bad over giving up his plot and his people that any one ought
+to have seen right there as he'd never be strong enough to stand all the
+rest of what was surely coming. 'Liza Em'ly didn't tell me the whole of
+the rest what come, but Mr. Kimball told me that what was one great
+strain on Elijah, right through to the hour he begun to scream, was that
+the leading lady fell in love with him and used to have him up at all
+hours to fix up her part, and then kiss him. And Elijah didn't want to
+fix up her part, and he hated to be kissed. But they told him the part
+must be fixed up to suit her, and that the kisses didn't matter, because
+they was only little things after all.
+
+"He was wading along through the mire as best he could, when all of a
+sudden it come out as she had one husband as she'd completely overlooked
+and never divorced. He turned up most unexpectedly and come at Elijah
+about the kisses. Then they told Elijah he couldn't do a better thing by
+his play than to let the man shoot him two or three times in places as
+would let him be carried pale and white to a box for the opening night;
+and then, between the last two acts, marry the lady and let it be in all
+the morning papers. You can maybe think, Mrs. Lathrop, how such a idea
+would come to the man as is to be shot. But, oh, my, they didn't make
+nothing of Elijah's feelings in the matter. Nothing a _tall_. They just
+set right to work and called a meeting of the play manager and the stage
+manager and the leading lady's manager and Elijah's manager, and the man
+who really does the managing. They all got together, and they drew up a
+diagram as to where Elijah was to be hit, and a contract for him and the
+leading lady to sign as they wouldn't marry anybody else in the
+meantime. And if it hadn't been for 'Liza Em'ly, the deal, as they
+called it, would have gone straight through. For Elijah was so dead beat
+by this time that about all he was fit for was to sit on a electric
+battery with a ice bag on his head, and look up words in a stage
+dictionary and then cross 'em out of his play."
+
+"Oh, I--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"That's just what 'Liza Em'ly said she said," rejoined Susan Clegg. "I
+tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'Liza Em'ly is no fool since her book's gone
+into the thirty-seventh edition, and that's a fact. She told me to-day
+as when she realized the man she loved--for 'Liza Em'ly really loves
+Elijah; any one can see that just by looking at the trained nurse she's
+got him--was being murdered alive, she went straight up and took a hand
+in the matter herself. I guess she had a pretty hard time, for the
+leading lady wouldn't hear to changing any of what they call the
+routing, and said if Elijah wasn't shot and married according to the
+signed agreement, she wouldn't play. And when a leading lady won't play,
+then is when you find out what Shakespeare really did write for,
+according to 'Liza Em'ly. For a little they was all running this way and
+that way, just beside themselves, with the leading lady in the
+Adirondacks and two detectives watching her husband. And the man as was
+painting the scenery took a overdose of chloral and went off with all
+his ideas in his head, and that unexpected trouble brought 'em all
+together again. The husband came down off his high horse and said he'd
+take five per cent, of the net--Don't ask me what that means, for Mr.
+Dill don't know either--and the littlest chorus girl and go to Europe.
+And he said, too, as he'd sign a paper first releasing Elijah from all
+claim on account of his wife. So they all signed, and he sailed. He was
+clear out to sea before they discovered as he had another wife as he'd
+never divorced, so the leading lady could of married Elijah, after all.
+Well, that was a pretty mess, with a husband as had no claim on nobody
+gone off to Europe with five percent of the net. The stage manager and
+Elijah's manager took the _Mauretania_ and started right after him, for
+when it comes to five per cent. on any kind of stage thing, Mr. Kimball
+says, any monkeying counts up so quick that even hiring a yacht is
+nothing if you want to catch that five per cent. in time. So they was
+off, one in the captain's room and the other in the bridal suite, while
+'Liza Em'ly was down in Savannah getting local color to patch up the
+scenery, leaving Elijah totally unprotected on his battery with his
+ideas.
+
+"But Elijah wasn't to be left in peace even now. Seems they was having a
+investigation into the poor quality of the electricity in the city, and
+a newspaper opened a referendum and made 'em double the power. The
+company was so mad, they didn't give no warning to a soul, but just slid
+up the needle from 100 to 200 right then and there; and one of the
+results was they blew Elijah nearly through the ceiling. Nothing in the
+world but the ice bag saved him from having his skull caved in, and the
+specialist thinks he's got a concussion in his sinus right now. Poor
+Elijah!"
+
+"But--?" Mrs. Lathrop queried.
+
+"They took him to the hospital, and from then on to the opening night
+he had nothing to do with his own play. The leading lady married the
+stage manager till she got the stage to suit her, and then she married
+the man who really does the managing until she got everything else to
+suit her. Next, without letting any of the others know, she married
+Elijah's manager secretly, so that when poor Elijah in the hospital
+thought he was looking at his manager, he was really nursing a viper in
+his bosom. When 'Liza Em'ly came back with her local color, they told
+her they didn't want it because they was going to have the camping-out
+scene in the parlor, and play the people all liked a joke. When she went
+to a lawyer to protest, the lawyer looked through all Elijah's contracts
+and said Elijah had never stipulated as the camping-out scene should be
+in the woods. So 'Liza Em'ly paid him fifty dollars and come away a good
+deal wiser than she went.
+
+"Then come the opening night, and Mr. Kimball says he shall never forget
+that opening night as long as he lives. You know he bought himself one
+of those hats as when you sit on 'em just gets a better shape, and then
+he went up to see his own nephew's own play. Seems he sat on his hat in
+Elijah's own box, but he says Elijah was looking very bad even before
+the curtain went up. Seems Elijah didn't expect much, but he did have
+just a little hope that here and there in spots he'd see some of his own
+play. But the hope was very faint. After the curtain went up, it kept
+getting fainter. Of course Elijah meant it for a tragedy and called it
+_Millicent_; and seeing the title changed to _Milly Tilly_ was a hard
+blow to him right in the beginning. Seems the woman poisoned herself
+because she was unhappy, and after she's dead, she remembers there was
+some poison left in the bottle, and so she wants to warn the family. It
+was a very nice plot, Polly White thinks, and Elijah was wild over it
+'cause there's never been a plot used like it. But of course his idea
+was as it should be took seriously. Do you wonder then, Mrs. Lathrop,
+that the first time in the play when one of the play actors turned
+round he nearly died? Mr. Kimball says he nearly died himself. He says
+he never saw anything so funny as those chicken backs in all his life.
+He says people was just laying any way and every way in their seats,
+wailing to stop, so they could stop too. He says he was laughing fit to
+kill himself when all of a sudden he looked up to see Elijah, and he
+says nothing ever give him such a chill as Elijah's then-and-there
+expression. Seems Elijah was just staring at the leading lady as was
+flapping her wings and playing crow, while the gallery was pounding and
+yelling like mad. And then Elijah suddenly shot out of the box and round
+behind the scenes and vanished completely."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop gasped and lifted her hands, but no word issued from
+between her lips.
+
+"Well, of course we know now what happened, but nobody did then. Nobody
+was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr.
+Kimball didn't know where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece
+before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high
+or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would
+have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it
+was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of
+advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought
+it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way.
+Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while,
+you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it.
+It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he
+was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr.
+Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was
+plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his
+interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the
+afternoon of that day, whatever do you suppose? There was Elijah, just
+where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him
+off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the
+baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him,
+ending up even with the chicken feathers."
+
+"Great heav--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it.
+Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed
+up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and
+pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was
+found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater
+that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw
+how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to
+let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every
+night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot
+out. Then she'd make a speech about his having been in the scenery car
+all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it
+would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that
+a _tall_. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and
+called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had
+in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one.
+Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where
+you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he
+told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can
+talk all you please about will power--and it may be true of people in
+general--but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one
+who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as
+takes all the marrow out of your bones and the blood out of your body.
+And he says he wasn't no more responsible when he signed that contract
+to go mad in a box every evening and at least one matinee every week
+than a grasshopper. He says his one and only thought by that time was
+to get away from 'em and make a break to where he'd never hear about his
+play again. But after he'd signed, they never let him out of sight. They
+locked him up in a dressing-room with the leading lady's pet mouse until
+after the performance, and then they took him and introduced him to two
+very big managers as was engaged to do nothing except manage him nights
+in the box.
+
+"Well, you know the rest, Mrs. Lathrop. He really did go mad, then, and
+we've got him here now helpless, getting rich almost as fast as 'Liza
+Em'ly, and crazy as a loon. I declare, it's one of the saddest cases I
+ever see. I don't know whatever can be done. They say as fast as he gets
+sane, the play'll surely drive him crazy again, so I don't see what
+'Liza Em'ly will do. She set with me the whole afternoon and talked very
+nicely about it all. To see her here, you'd never think she could act
+the way Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher tell about. I can see she's got a
+little airy, and she says she misses her maid and her secretary more
+than she ever tells the minister's family; but on the whole I like her
+very much, and her devotion to Elijah is most beautiful. She says he's
+the one love of her life, and she shall marry him if ever he gets sense
+enough to know what he's doing. If he doesn't, she says she shall take a
+yacht and sail with him and write books until he dies. She says they can
+land once in a while to get their provisions and their royalties. But
+she says the only possible salvation for Elijah, as things are now, will
+be to stay where he never sees a car to remind him of scenery, or a
+house to remind him of a stage, for years and years to come. I asked her
+what she _really_ thought of his play, and she said she thought the
+leading lady was just right and very clever, only Elijah was too
+sensitive a nature to understand little artistic touches like the
+chicken feathers. She says folks are too tired nowadays to be bothered
+to laugh. They want to be made to laugh without even thinking. She says
+Elijah is a earnest nature as likes to work his laughs out very
+carefully and conscientious; but the leading lady understands getting
+the same effect, only a million times quicker, with chicken feathers and
+divorces. 'Liza Em'ly says the leading lady is very fair according to
+her own idea of fairness. She didn't have no money to put in the play,
+so she agreed to put in four divorces and one scandal as her part of the
+stock. Now the play's only been on a month, and she's paid up everything
+except one divorce and the scandal; and she's done so well they're
+trying to work up some scheme to let her pay both those off at the same
+time. The play is going fine. They print columns about Elijah and his
+madness, and the whole company is learning to crow together at the end
+of the second act. Every night they take out a little of what Elijah
+wrote, and the main manager says that there'll soon be nothing of Elijah
+left in except the ghost, and the ghost of the bottle, and the agreement
+to pay Elijah his royalties. And according to the main manager's views,
+that's being pretty fair and square with Elijah."
+
+"Do you--?" queried Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Well, I don't know," answered Miss Clegg, "I really d'n know what to
+say. I'm kind of dumb did over both 'Liza Em'ly and Elijah, for you know
+as well as I do, Mrs. Lathrop, that nobody ever looked for those kind of
+things from them."
+
+"Shall--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, if it ever comes where I can," responded Miss Clegg, "I shall like
+to see it very much."
+
+"Did--?" pressed Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Oh, yes, I asked her," Susan admitted, "I asked her fair and square. I
+says: ''Liza Em'ly, there's no use denying as you've used real people in
+this community in your book, and now I want to know who is Deacon
+Tooker?' She said Deacon Tooker was just the book itself. She seemed
+more amused than there was any particular sense in; but I thought if
+anything could give her a good laugh, it wasn't me would begrudge her.
+There's this to be said for our young folks when they do get rich, Mrs.
+Lathrop, and that is that they're nice about it, and it makes every one
+feel kindly towards 'em. Every one feels kindly towards Jathrop, and
+every one feels kindly towards 'Liza Em'ly, and as for poor, dear
+Elijah--Well!"
+
+The tone was expressive enough. Mrs. Lathrop shook her head sadly. Then
+both were silent.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+The "building-over" of Susan Clegg and her friend, Mrs. Lathrop, was
+completed during the second week in December, and in less than
+twenty-four hours they were once more established in their own
+dwellings, surrounded by their own goods and chattels. For only the
+briefest space, however, did Miss Clegg remain where she was put. Then
+she hurried through the passageway afforded by the connecting pergola
+and burst excitedly into her neighbor's brand new kitchen in the very
+center of which sat Mrs. Lathrop in her old-gold-plush stationary
+rocker, calmly surveying her domiciliary spick-and-spanness. On her lap
+lay a just-opened letter; but for once the scrupulously observing Miss
+Clegg failed to observe. She was too full of fresh trials.
+
+"I d'n know whatever sins I committed in this world, Mrs. Lathrop," she
+began, dropping into the nearest chair and facing her friend in an
+upright, a little bent forward attitude that was clearly pugnacious,
+"that I should have these things visited upon me. The Lord knows, just
+the same as you do, as I've always been a good and pure woman, loving my
+neighbors like myself and doing all my Christian duties as I was give to
+see 'em. When I was tore up from my home by the roots and cast wilted
+and faded upon Gran'ma Mullins, where the infant memories of Hiram
+certainly wasn't calculated to do no reviving, I made the best of it. I
+made the best of Lucy and a dog with a cold nose, too; and I bore up
+with courage and no complaint under Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion.
+And I did it all to please you, Mrs. Lathrop, and your fool of a son,
+Jathrop, whose money, it's my opinion, has acted on him in a most
+injurious way. He never had much sense, as you yourself know, but now he
+ain't got no sense a _tall_."
+
+"I don't--" Mrs. Lathrop started gently to protest.
+
+"Well, I do," rejoined Susan Clegg spiritedly; "and if you don't, you
+ought to. Anyhow, I mean to tell you, if it's the last act of my life.
+Anybody as has any sense a _tall_ must have seen that building over was
+just a mite removed from building new; and what's new never did go with
+what's old, and it never will. If we was to be built over, we ought to
+have been all built over or let alone. Jathrop's built the houses over,
+but he ain't built over the furnishings, and the built-over houses and
+the not-built-over furniture and carpets and window shades and pots and
+kettles and pans and china and linen and everything else don't agree and
+just naturally can't and never can. They're fighting now like sixty, and
+they'll go on fighting the longer they're kept together. My house was
+restful and peaceful before, but now it's like a circus with all the
+wild animals let loose. And I can tell you this, Mrs. Lathrop; my things
+is getting the worst of it. Why, before they went to storage at Mr.
+Shores', they was in the best repair you ever see, and now it would make
+your heart ache to look at 'em. They've aged a century at least during
+the summer. They're wrinkled and halt and lame and blind, and the new
+paper on the walls and the new polish on the floors and the new paint on
+the woodwork is making 'em look sicker and sicker every minute. If
+there's a society for the prevention of cruelty to furniture and other
+household goods, it ought to put Jathrop Lathrop in prison. I feel so
+sorry for those poor tables and chairs and bedsteads and all the rest of
+'em as I could cry my eyes out this very minute. There's one walnut,
+haircloth sofa as Father laid on before he was took to his bed as is
+pitiful to behold. It looks sicker than Father did even in his last
+hours, and I wouldn't be surprised any minute to see it just turn over
+all of itself and give up the ghost. And everything has on such a
+reproachful look it's more than human nature can bear to face it. If I'd
+ever thought as being built over would of come to this, I'd of gone on
+my knees and worked 'em to the bare bones before I'd of put up with it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop continued to rock in silence.
+
+"Still, there's no cloud, however black, as hasn't got some silk in its
+lining, and the silk in this is the clock as Father gave Mother, which
+was supposed to be marble and wasn't. Much as I hated that clock, I
+couldn't have borne to see its agonies when set on by the new fireplace
+below, and the pink and gold wall paper behind, and the roses and cupids
+in the cornish above. It must just of shriveled in shame instead of
+going out in glorious flight, as it did when I set it flying at the end
+of the bed-slat. Lord knows, though, Mrs. Lathrop, that's a small thing
+to be thankful for; and it's the only thing. I haven't begun yet to tell
+you all. And I don't intend to. There's a limit to my temper, and if I
+once got started, there's no saying where I'd end. But there's one thing
+more as I can't hold in, and it's the thing as was marked on the plans:
+'But. Pan.' I never did understand why I should be give a separate room
+to keep butter pans in, seeing as I ain't got no cow, let alone no
+dairy. And even if I had, why I should keep my butter pans or my milk
+pans either in a little alley-way between the kitchen and the
+dining-room, just where the heat and smells could get at 'em from one
+side and the flies from both, not to mention the added footsteps put on
+me journeying from the stove to the dinner table. You can see for
+yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, there's no sense in it, whatever. But I'd never
+say a word about it, if that was all. But it ain't all. It's the
+littlest part. For Jathrop's cruelty hasn't stopped with torturing the
+furniture. It's clear he couldn't be satisfied till he fixed up a trap
+as sooner or later would hit me square in the face and break my nose. At
+both ends of his 'But. Pan.' he's had hung doors as swing, and springs
+on 'em to make 'em swing hard and deadly. What either one of those
+swinging doors might do to my features, let alone to the pudding or stew
+I might be carrying, it isn't in mortal tongue to express. If I could
+find one thing as was right in the whole house, I'd be fair and square
+enough to overlook the others; but there ain't to my mind a single
+solitary betterment. There's glass knobs on all the doors as will show
+every finger mark, and will keep me busy wiping from dawn to dark. The
+old brown knobs never showed nothing and didn't never have to be thought
+of, let alone polished. It's always been my idea as a cupboard was a
+place to shut things up in out of sight, and here if he hasn't gone and
+put glass doors on the one in the corner of the dining room, so as every
+one can see just what's meant to be hid. It's clear to be seen he's
+crazy on the subject of glass, which I ain't and never have been. And I
+don't like the way he's stinted things as is necessary and put all the
+money in things as had better been left out. Necessities before
+everything is my motto. What use, I'd like to know, is that cupid and
+rose cornish? But he puts that there just to catch dust and leaves out
+the whole of one parlor wall. If you'll believe me, Mrs. Lathrop,
+there's not a hair or hide of a wall between my entry hall and my
+parlor. Nothing but a pair of white posts as most people use on their
+piazzas. How I'm ever going to keep that parlor dark I don't see; for
+he's got glass over the front door and on both sides of it, and no
+shutters to keep the sun out. He's built in both the kitchen stove and
+the ice box, and for the life of me, I can't find no reasonable way of
+taking the ashes out of the one or the water out of the other. The
+builder says the ashes dump into a place in the cellar and the water
+from the ice drains down a pipe underneath the house. But I don't like
+neither plan. The drip from a ice box is a very cheering sound, I think,
+and with hot ashes going down cellar where you can't see 'em, I'll be in
+deadly fear of the house going up in smoke while I'm dreaming in my bed.
+The long and the short of it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I feel as I have been
+assaulted and robbed. Jathrop's took away my home and left me a house as
+isn't a home to me and never can be. And as far as I can see, he's done
+the same to you, which is ten thousand times worse, you being his
+mother."
+
+"I--" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking up the letter from her lap so that at
+last it was forced upon Susan's observance.
+
+"From him, I suppose," Miss Clegg instantly concluded, reaching for it.
+"If he's got anything to say in his defence, I'm sure I'd delight to
+read it. But no matter what he says, he can't undo to me what he's done
+to me. I'll never feel the same towards Jathrop, your son or not your
+son, Mrs. Lathrop, as long as I live."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop passed the letter to Miss Clegg. Like all of Jathrop's
+letters, it was brief and to the point. He announced that he would spend
+Christmas with his mother in her rebuilt home and would bring with him a
+friend as his guest. Susan read it over twice, turning the page each
+time, evidently in hope of finding an enlightening postscript.
+
+"Well, of all things!" she exclaimed, as she passed the letter back to
+her friend. "Coming to see his work of destruction and going to bring
+_her_ with him!"
+
+"He don't--" Mrs. Lathrop endeavored to explain.
+
+"He don't, because he don't dare; but there's no question what he means.
+He's bringing the senora. And he wouldn't bring her if it wasn't that
+he's going to marry her. Even you must see that. And if there was ever a
+insult multiplied by perjury, Jathrop's done it in that action. It's a
+good thing he didn't ask: 'How's Susan Clegg?' this time, as he did the
+time he was coming back from the Klondike. For I don't believe I could
+ever have stood that. All I can say, Mrs. Lathrop, is as I'm sorry for
+you from the soles of my feet up. You'll never in the world be able to
+get up a Christmas dinner as will please any senora, you can take my
+word on that. And not to please her will be a bad beginning with a
+senora as is to be your future daughter-in-law. Senoras don't care
+shucks for turkey and mince pie. They're not used to 'em and likely to
+get indigestion from 'em, and think what it would mean to Jathrop, let
+alone to her, if she should be carried off by a acute attack right here
+in your new, built-over house, at the dinner table. He'd blame it on
+you, and like as not she'd haunt you the rest of your living days. No,
+sir. You've got to give her Spanish omelets with lots of red peppers in
+'em, and everything else Creole style, which means all he't up with
+tabasco sauce fit to burn out your insides. It's eating like that as
+makes those Spaniards and Cubans so dark colored you can't tell 'em from
+mulattoes. The peppers and the tabasco sauce bakes 'em brown on the
+outside, after leaving 'em all scorched and parched within."
+
+For once, however, Susan Clegg was wrong in her deduction. Jathrop
+arrived in a red automobile on the day before Christmas, with a
+chauffeur in bear-skins driving, and a guest in sealskin beside him. But
+the guest was not the senora. It was one of Jathrop's millionaire
+friends who, Jathrop said, could buy and sell him twenty times over. He
+was a small man with a bald head and a red beard and old enough to be
+Jathrop's father.
+
+Miss Clegg viewed the arrival from her bedroom window and was so glad it
+wasn't the senora that she at once set about baking extra doughnuts and
+mince pie to contribute to the festivities of the morrow. This occupied
+her until supper time. Then she made a hurried meal, washed her one
+plate and cup and saucer, and loaded down with her thank offering,
+flitted through the pergola and in at Mrs. Lathrop's kitchen door. The
+kitchen was empty, but voices penetrating from the dining room told her
+that her friend and her visitors were still at table. Being a trifle
+nervous and unable to sit quietly, she began at once to put the
+disordered kitchen into some degree of order, purely for the sake of
+occupation.
+
+She had just finished washing and scouring the pots and pans and was
+flushing the waste-pipe of Mrs. Lathrop's new porcelain sink with
+lye-water so strong that her eyes ran tears from the fumes, when the
+voices growing more and more audible told her that Jathrop was leading
+his mother and his guest toward the kitchen. She just had time hurriedly
+to dry her hands on the roller towel when they appeared.
+
+"Well, well," exclaimed Jathrop, in apparent surprise, "if here ain't
+our old friend, Susan Clegg!"
+
+There is no question that Miss Clegg was slightly flustered at thus
+being taken unawares, but she recovered herself promptly, and shook
+hands cordially with Jathrop and not less cordially with the little
+millionaire, whom he introduced as Mr. Kettlewell. And Mr. Kettlewell
+was cordiality itself. Everybody sat down, right there in the kitchen
+and talked for a full hour, and in the course of the talk, Jathrop told
+Susan that he had arranged with a department store in New York to let
+her have whatever she needed for her built-over house and charge the
+same to his account. She could select the things from the firm's
+catalogue, or go to the city at his expense and pick out the actual
+articles. It was his Christmas present to his mother's and his own
+oldest friend. In conclusion, Jathrop joined with his mother in an
+invitation to Susan to take Christmas dinner with them; and Mr.
+Kettlewell smilingly begged her, for his sake, not to refuse. Altogether
+Susan had the pleasantest evening she had experienced in years, and the
+next morning, while Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell were off in the car after
+evergreens with which to decorate the two houses, she ran over with the
+express purpose of telling Mrs. Lathrop so.
+
+"Jathrop mayn't have much judgment when it comes to selecting
+architects," she began, "nor again when it comes to selecting servants,
+as was proved by his bringing that Hop Loo all the way from the
+Klondike. Nor again, neither, when it comes to wives, if it's a real
+fact that he's going to marry a brown-baked senora; but there's no
+getting away from the fact that he's a king in choosing his men friends.
+I've seen men in my life of all sorts and descriptions, from the
+minister to the blacksmith, but I ain't never see before such a
+handsome, high-minded, superior gentleman as Jathrop's friend, Mr.
+Kettlewell. I never thought much of bald-headed men before, but his head
+is so white and shiny, it's a pleasure to look at it. And I always just
+hated a red beard; but Mr. Kettlewell's beard is of a different red.
+It's a nice, warm, comforting red as makes you feel as cosy as the glow
+of a red-hot stove when the thermometer's down around zero. I can't say
+either, Mrs. Lathrop, as I wasn't more or less prejudiced against men as
+never rightly grew up, but stopped in the women's sizes. But there's a
+something about Mr. Kettlewell's proportions as gives you the idea he's
+really taller than he seems. And there's only one thing to compare his
+voice to. It's milk and honey. My lands, what a sweet, clear-rolling,
+liquid voice that Mr. Kettlewell has!"
+
+"Ja--" began Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"Yes, I heard him. But I don't put that against Mr. Kettlewell, not a
+_tall_. I'm sure he made every penny of it honestly, and if he's retired
+from business now, it don't mean he's quit work. It's no easy job
+cutting coupons off all the bonds he must have, and collecting rents is
+a occupation I don't envy nobody. It's the penalty that rich men have to
+pay for their success. They work hard to get the principal, and then
+they're made to work twice as hard to get the interest. There's no such
+thing as rest for the rich any more'n there is for the poor. I used to
+think before Father died as I'd like to roll in wealth, but it ain't no
+easy rolling, I can tell you that, Mrs. Lathrop, especially when you've
+got a tenant like Mrs. Macy, who won't buy so much as a gas-tip or do so
+much as drive a nail without charging it up to the owner."
+
+Miss Clegg's participation in the Christmas dinner at her neighbors' was
+twofold. She took part in its preparation as well as in its discussion.
+It was her soup which began it, it was her "stuffing" which added zest
+to the roast turkey, it was her cranberry sauce which sweetened
+contrastingly the high seasoning, and it was her mince pie which brought
+the repast to a fitting and enjoyable close. Seated opposite to Mr.
+Kettlewell, where she could revel in a full view of his shining pate and
+his warmly comforting whiskers, her enjoyment was ocular as well as
+gustatory; and under the caressing sweetness of his voice it was
+likewise auricular. For the occasion Jathrop had provided a fine vintage
+champagne, and though Miss Clegg, whose total-abstinence principles
+forbade her to even taste, refrained from so much as touching her lips
+to the edge of her glass, she unquestionably warmed in the stimulating
+atmosphere of the sparkling, bubbling, golden juice of the grape. To her
+it was indeed the red-letter Christmas of her life, and every incident,
+of the dinner especially, was a matter for reflection and rumination in
+the succeeding hours.
+
+In this vale of tears, however, there is apparently no great joy without
+its compensating sorrow; and in Susan Clegg's case the one followed
+swiftly on the heels of the other. In the pale gray of the dawn of the
+following day, Susan Clegg dashed wildly out of her kitchen door and
+flitted with lifted skirts across the brief intervening space that led
+to Mrs. Lathrop's back door. As pallid as the morning itself, her scant
+hair streaming, her eyes wide with mixed terror and indignation, she
+burst into her neighbor's kitchen, where to her great relief she found
+her old friend already up and occupied.
+
+One glimpse of Susan was enough for Mrs. Lathrop. Up went her hands and
+down went she on to the nearest chair with an inarticulate gasp of
+horrified yet questioning astonishment, while Miss Clegg flopped limply
+into another at the end of the kitchen table.
+
+There she must have sat for a full minute before she could get breath to
+utter a word, which, being contrary to all her habits, was in itself
+terrifying to her friend. Eventually, however, she forced herself to
+assume an upright position and simultaneously attained a somewhat
+feeble attempt at speech.
+
+"Well, of all things in this world to happen to me!" Then she paused for
+a fresh breath, which being utterly without precedent, added mightily to
+Mrs. Lathrop's alarm. "And even now at this minute I don't really know
+whether I'm more dead than alive, or more alive than dead."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, believing that the situation being extraordinary, some
+extraordinary effort on her part was demanded, stirred herself to a
+prolonged speech.
+
+"Don't tell me I'm looking--"
+
+"No, I'm not a ghost, if that's what you mean. You are looking at Susan
+Clegg in the flesh--all the flesh that ain't been scared clean off her.
+But it's the greatest miracle as ever happened in this community that
+it's my body and not my spirit as is here to tell the tale. My house was
+broken into by a burglar, Mrs. Lathrop, and I was tied up and gagged in
+one of my own chairs."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop just gasped. Susan drew herself up a little straighter,
+gaining courage from the sound of her own voice, and striking something
+like her old oral gait.
+
+"I was gagged for five hours, Mrs. Lathrop, and knowing me as you do for
+all these years and years, maybe you can feel what being gagged for five
+hours and not able to say even 'boo' meant to a active person like me.
+Every one of those hours was like a eternity in a Spanish inferno of
+torture. And everything I possess in this world, from my bonnet and
+striped silk dress to Father's deeds at the mercy of that gagger. And
+all I've got to say is this: If I hadn't of been built over, it never in
+the wide creation would have happened. And if your son Jathrop thinks he
+can ever make up to me for being gagged by inviting me to a Christmas
+dinner, most of which I cooked with my own hands, and offering to give
+me strange pieces of furniture to take the place of pieces as is old
+friends and dearer than the apples of my two eyes, he'd better do some
+more thinking. There never was nothing about the house I was born in and
+my mother and father died in to make a burglar look at it twice. No
+burglar as had any respect for himself or his calling, Mrs. Lathrop,
+would have looked at it once or knowed as it was there. But built over
+it's as different as diamon's is from pebbles. It looks money from the
+tips of its lightning rods to its cellar windows and is as inviting to
+robbers as if it had a sign on the gatepost, reading: 'Walk in!' So,
+however you look at it, there's nobody responsible for my gagging and
+for whatever is missing but one man, and that man is Jathrop Lathrop.
+It's easy to be seen as he's no more fit to have money than a crow as
+steals gold trinkets that cost fortunes and goes and hides 'em in hollow
+trees. He was born poor, and the Lord meant him to stay poor, no matter
+what Mrs. Allen and her Persian religion has to say about things as
+happens being meant to happen. The Lord hadn't nothing to do with
+Jathrop going to the Klondike and getting rich, you can be certain
+about that. If he hadn't been fool enough to take a kicking cow for a
+perfectly good debt and then let it loose to ride over a peaceful and
+long-suffering community, he'd 'a' lived and died a pauper in this here
+very town. So's far as I can see it was the devil and not the Lord as
+guided Jathrop from the first, and everything as has happened since
+shows the devil is still guiding him. Everything he turns his mind to
+goes by contraries. I'm not saying anything against the goodness of
+Jathrop's intentions, mind you, Mrs. Lathrop, but no matter how good
+they are, evil and misery certainly seems sure to follow."
+
+The tirade stirred Mrs. Lathrop to her feet, but she was not resentful.
+She knew that Susan Clegg's bitterness was confined to her tongue, and
+that even with that she could salve as well as sting.
+
+"Can't I--?" she suggested.
+
+"Indeed you can," answered Miss Clegg. "I never felt as I needed a cup
+of tea more, and if the doughnuts I brought you ain't all eat up, I'd
+relish four or five of 'em right now."
+
+"You haven't--" began Mrs. Lathrop, taking down the teapot.
+
+"No; but I'm coming to it. I begun with the cause, and the effect'll
+come trailing after like the tails of Mary's little lambs. Only the
+tails in this case was bigger than the sheep. It may have been hearing
+the noise Jathrop makes when he eats, or it may have been your turkey
+gravy or your biscuits, Mrs. Lathrop, or all of 'em put together. Not
+knowing which, I'm not foolish enough to blame one more'n the other. But
+it's a fact as is undeniable that I never slept poorer than last night.
+I was in bed by nine, but I never closed my eyes till eleven, and I
+certainly heard the clock strike midnight. I counted goats jumping over
+a stile, and I counted 'em backward as well as forward, but I heard one
+struck, and I heard two. And then I heard something as set my hair up on
+end and the gooseflesh sprouting all over me. It sounded like footsteps
+in the 'But. Pan.,' and they was too heavy for the cat's, I could tell
+that at once, though at two in the morning it's surprising how loud a
+cat's footsteps can sound, especially when it's reached the pouncing
+stage, and the rat ain't got no hole to run to. I'd forgot to put the
+turkey leg in the ice-box as I'd carried home with me, and all I could
+think of was that if it was the cat, there'd be nothing left on that
+bone by morning, unless I stopped things right then and immediately.
+You'd never believe how cold a house can be at two o'clock in the
+morning of the day after Christmas unless you'd got up in it as I did;
+and now to look back at it, I see how lucky it was as it was as cold as
+it was, for if it hadn't of been, I'd a gone down just as I was, and I
+was in no trim to meet a man burglar, I can tell you _that_. So I just
+slipped into this flannel wrapper and a old pair of slippers, which I've
+got on now under these arctics, and I picked up the candle as I'd lit,
+and down-stairs I went. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I hope you may never in your
+born days in this world or the other have such a shock as met me there
+face to face in my own new, built-over kitchen. If there wasn't the
+biggest giant of a man I ever see coming out of the shadows between the
+cookstove and the cellar door. And he with his head all wrapped around
+in one of my best plaid roller towels, so that nothing of him was to be
+seen but two fierce, staring, bloodshot eyes as gleamed like a wild
+beast's. Oh, my soul and body, Mrs. Lathrop, that minute! How I ever
+kept my senses I don't pretend to say, more especially as he was on me
+with one jump. There was no such thing as holding on to the candle, you
+can see that. It dropped, and I never knew I dropped it. For, of course,
+I shut my eyes, and when your eyes is shut, there's no knowing whether
+there's a lighted candle about or whether there isn't."
+
+In her agitation over the recital, Mrs. Lathrop, who was placing cups
+and saucers on the table, let one of the cups slide crashing to the
+floor. "Oh, Su--!" she exclaimed.
+
+"You may well say: 'Oh, Susan!'" Miss Clegg continued. "There is times
+when 'Oh, Susan' don't half express the state of affairs, and this was
+one of 'em, Mrs. Lathrop. It wasn't in nature for me not to scream, so I
+screamed, and it was that scream that did the business. It showed the
+burglar I wasn't deaf and dumb, and people as isn't deaf and dumb is
+looked on by burglars as their natural enemies. Maybe some people can
+scream without opening their mouths, but I never was one of that kind,
+and the kind as open their mouths when they scream is the kind that all
+burglars prefer. It saves 'em the trouble of forcing apart their jaws. I
+never shut my mouth after opening it; for the burglar just shoved
+something in it as quick as scat, and then he tied a bandage around back
+of my head so I couldn't spit it out. Then he picked me up and plumped
+me down hard in a chair and tied me fast to it with my own clothesline.
+And all the time he never no more opened his lips to speak than if he
+couldn't. It's my opinion he must have had a cold and lost his voice.
+Either that, or his voice was such a unpleasant voice he was ashamed to
+let anybody hear it. For it ain't in common sense as a man, even if he
+is a burglar, could keep as still as he did, if he had a speaking voice
+that's in any way fit for use. I know in the time he took there was a
+lot of things I felt to say to him, and would if I could, and common
+sense'll tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he must have felt to say a lot of
+things to me. But he didn't make so much as a peep behind his roller
+towel."
+
+"Did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, pouring the tea.
+
+"I can't say as he did or he didn't. I haven't missed nothing yet, but
+then I haven't looked. Still, if he didn't I can't say as I'd have much
+respect for him. What sort of a burglar would a burglar be to take all
+that trouble of breaking in, binding and gagging, and then go away
+without helping himself to something for his trouble. I ain't got no
+love for burglars in general or in particular. But any burglar as 'ld
+do a fool trick like that I ain't got no respect for neither."
+
+"How--?" queried her neighbor as she passed Susan her cup.
+
+"It was something of a job I can tell you, but when I sets my mind to a
+thing I sets my mind to it, and ropes and a kitchen chair ain't got the
+power to stop me. I begun wriggling as soon as I heard the burglar shut
+the door behind him, and I kept on wriggling for every minute of the
+five hours. A tramped-on worm never did more turning and wriggling than
+I did between two and seven this morning, and at last wriggling being
+its own reward, I wriggled free, first with my hands and then with my
+feet. But before I got my feet free, I undid the band and ungagged
+myself and said just a few of the things that was bottled up all that
+time. The Bible says there's a time to talk and a time to be still, but
+there's such a thing as overdoing the still time, I think, and when
+you're gagged by a burglar is one of 'em."
+
+Susan sipped her tea for a moment in silence.
+
+"Where's Jathrop and Mr. Kettlewell?" she asked at length. "Ain't they
+up yet?"
+
+Mrs. Lathrop nodded. "They start--" she began.
+
+"You don't mean they've both lit out already?" asked Susan in surprise.
+Then: "I was hoping to see Mr. Kettlewell again. But it's a long journey
+back to New York, so I suppose they set off before light."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop nodded once more.
+
+"Aren't--?" she questioned.
+
+"I certainly am. I'm going to report the burglary at once. I've got a
+clue, and it ought to be easy enough to run down that burglar." She drew
+from her bosom a rather damp handkerchief. "That's what he left me to
+chew on for five hours," she said, as she spread it out. "And there's
+the clue right there in the corner."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop took it to the window and inspected it through her glasses.
+The handkerchief was initialed with a "K."
+
+The New Year came and January was passing and, so far as Susan Clegg
+cared to divulge at least, there was no news of her burglar. It was
+noted, however, not only by Mrs. Lathrop, but by Mrs. Macy and Gran'ma
+Mullins, and indeed by all the ladies of the Sewing Society, that Miss
+Clegg had adopted an air of secretiveness concerning the matter that was
+quite foreign to her usual frank, unreserved communicativeness. But the
+curiosity provoked by this strangely unfamiliar attitude was swallowed
+up in the sensational tidings which spread throughout the community
+shortly after. Without so much as a hint of warning, Susan Clegg had
+vanished between dark and dawn, leaving her house locked, bolted, and
+barred, the blinds drawn, and the shutters fast closed.
+
+For once Mrs. Lathrop, thus deprived of her prop and her stay, evinced
+sufficient initiative to have the cellar door forced and a search of the
+premises made; a rumor having got abroad that the burglar had returned,
+this time more murderously inclined, and that Miss Clegg's mangled
+corpse would be found stiff and stark within her own darkened domicile.
+To every one's infinite relief the search proved the rumor utterly
+unfounded; and it proved something more, as well. It proved that Susan's
+departure was plainly premeditated--"with malice prepense," to quote
+Judge Fitch--since all her best clothes had gone with her. Whereupon
+sentiment switched to the opposite pole, and it was openly declared that
+Miss Clegg had gone after the burglar.
+
+The wonder was of a magnitude calculated to extend far beyond the
+proverbial nine days, and it probably would have greatly exceeded that
+limit, had not the heroine of the affair chosen to cut it short of her
+own volition by reappearing quite as suddenly as she had vanished, at
+the end of a single week.
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, looking across from her bedroom window as she arose from
+her night's sleep on the morning of the eighth day, was joyously
+startled to see the Clegg windows unshaded, and the house otherwise
+displaying signs of rehabitation. Nor did she have long to wait for the
+explanation of the mystery, which to the exclusion of everything else
+had filled her mind ever since her friend's going. With a shawl over her
+head and shoulders, she hastened through the pergola, and the next
+moment was facing her neighbor with glad eyes across four yards of
+kitchen floor space.
+
+"Oh, Susan! Such a fri--" These were her four and a half words of
+greeting.
+
+"I knew it would," Miss Clegg caught her up, beaming as Mrs. Lathrop
+couldn't remember ever to have seen her beam before. "I knew it would
+frighten you all half to death, but when a thing's to be done, it's to
+be done, and there ain't no use shirking. I had to go, and I had to go
+quick, and I was never so glad of anything in my life, past or present,
+as that I went. Of course, it was all along of that burglary, as any
+fool might have guessed if they took the trouble. In the first place, I
+don't mind telling you now, I went straight to Mr. Weskin the morning
+after it happened, and I took him the clue and showed it to him. The way
+he spun around in his spinning chair was fit to make even a level-headed
+person like me dizzy. He examined the linen, and he examined the way the
+K was worked, and then he says, no it couldn't possibly be Mr.
+Kimball's. Now, what _do_ you think of that? Just as if I ever suspected
+it was. I guess I know Mr. Kimball well enough to know him, even if he
+has got his head wrapped up in one of my new roller towels, and I told
+Lawyer Weskin so. Mr. Kimball, indeed! But Lawyer Weskin said as he
+didn't never hear of a burglar whose name commenced with K, and he
+didn't know a soul in these parts either, burglar or no burglar, whose
+name did, except Mr. Kimball. There's only one way to ferret out the
+perpetrator of a crime, he says, and that's by deduction, and the first
+rule of deduction is to guess what the K stands for. I never thought
+much of Lawyer Weskin, I'm free to admit that, but if he don't know
+nothing else, it's as clear as shooting that he does know about
+education. For in the end it worked out just as he said, and the Lord be
+praised for it."
+
+"You don't--" began Mrs. Lathrop in astonishment.
+
+"I don't say as Mr. Kimball had a thing to do with it. I certainly
+don't. In the first place, Mr. Kimball would never dare to come to my
+house at such a hour of the morning, and in the second place Mr. Kimball
+never carried as fine a handkerchief as the one I chewed on. So that put
+it past Mr. Kimball. And the only other K I could possibly think of was
+old Mrs. Kitts over to Meadville, who could no more of got over here
+than could the king of the Sandwich Islands, whose name begins with K,
+too. There was the Kellys, of course, but the Kellys couldn't qualify
+neither, for they're too rich to need to do any burglarizing. Well, I
+can tell you, I soon come to a point where I didn't know where to turn,
+and I never would of turned neither, if it hadn't of been for a letter I
+got the day of the night I went away. You'd never guess in the world,
+Mrs. Lathrop, who that letter was from so I may as well tell you first
+as last. It was from Mr. Kettlewell."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth in astonishment, but no sound came forth.
+
+"I knew it'ld surprise you, but it's as true as we're both standing in
+this kitchen at this minute. It was a very nice letter, and it said as
+how he had admired me from the first minute he saw me, but more
+particularly after he'd sat opposite to me at the table and eat my
+cranberry sauce. He said he'd always loved cranberry sauce, but as he
+felt he'd never tasted none until he tasted mine. I certainly never see
+a more complimentary letter than that letter of Mr. Kettlewell's. But it
+was the end of the letter where he signed his name that lit me up with
+the clear light of revelation. Until I see his name spelled out there in
+black and white, I never once believed it begun with a K. I'd thought
+all along as his name was Cattlewell, with a C. Far be it from me, Mrs.
+Lathrop, to ever have suspected as Jathrop's friend would stoop to
+housebreaking and to binding and gagging a lone woman, but there's other
+ways as his handkerchief might have got to my mouth, and I felt to know
+the truth. His address was on the letter, and there was nothing as could
+have stayed me from getting to that address as fast as steam and steel
+could carry me. I left in the middle of the night, and I got to New York
+in the morning, and I didn't have that feeling for nothing. Mr.
+Kettlewell was at his hotel, and in all my born days I never see a
+person gladder to see anybody than Mr. Kettlewell was to see me. It's
+marvelous what a impression a little good cooking will make on a man,
+even if it's only in cranberry sauce. His mouth actually hadn't stopped
+watering yet. Leastwise he said it hadn't, and I'd be a fool not to
+believe him. He begun talking about it right away, and I let him talk,
+just so's I could look at his shiny bald head and his red whiskers
+without having to think of anything else except the sound of his
+milk-and-honey voice. Finally he said he supposed I'd come to the city
+to select Jathrop's Christmas present of furnishings, and if I'd like
+him to help me select 'em, he'd be glad enough to go along and lend a
+hand. Well, nothing could of been nicer than that, now, could it? But I
+told him I wasn't one as traveled all the way to New York under false
+pretences, and that if he must have the truth, I'd never give one
+thought to Jathrop's present since he mentioned it. All my thought, I
+said, had been give to finding a handkerchief with a K onto it, which
+I'd washed and ironed with my own hands and brought to him, believing I
+must of picked it up at the Christmas dinner by mistake, and not wanting
+him to feel the need of it any longer. And you can believe me or not,
+Mrs. Lathrop, just as you feel about it, if he didn't right then and
+there on seeing that clue, confess that it did belong to him, and that
+he couldn't for the life of him remember where he'd left it."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop, who had been standing all the while, dropped into a chair
+at this point in dumb stupefaction. But Susan, who had been caught with
+a bowl of batter in one hand and a spoon in the other, paused only to do
+a little more stirring.
+
+"Yes, sir," she went on, still apparently as pleased as punch. "The clue
+belonged to Mr. Kettlewell and no one else, which led me to suspect
+right away that the burglar must have robbed your house first. I knowed
+very well that I never carried that clue home myself, though I'd said I
+might, just for the sake of drawing Mr. Kettlewell on. And so how could
+it have got into my mouth unless the burglar got it from Mr. Kettlewell
+himself? But there is stranger things in this world than you and me ever
+dreamed of, Mrs. Lathrop, and that was one of 'em. Mr. Kettlewell is a
+very frank and open gentleman, and seeing how disturbed I was over
+something, though I'd never so much as breathed burglar or burglary, he
+made another confession. And when it comes to dreaming, there is very
+few people, he said, as has the power to dream the way he does. He
+don't just lie still in bed and picture things out in his sleep, but he
+gets up and does the things he's dreaming about. He ain't got no
+limitations in it, either. Sleepwalkers is more or less common. But
+sleepwalkers just walk, and that ends 'em. Mr. Kettlewell says he very
+seldom walks. He usually drives a automobile when he's dreaming, just as
+he does when he's wide awake. Sometimes he comes to while he's driving,
+and he's found himself often as much as a couple a hundred miles from
+home, and without a cent in his clothes, the clothes usually being just
+pajamas with nothing but a handkerchief in the pocket. Now, if you had
+any imagination a _tall_, Mrs. Lathrop, you'd see what I'm coming to,
+but as you haven't you don't, I can tell by the way you look. So you'll
+get the full benefit of the surprise when I say that on Christmas night
+Mr. Kettlewell distinctly remembers he dreamed of committing a burglary.
+He says it wasn't my mince pie as did it, because he's often eaten
+mince pie before and never dreamed nothing worse than going to the
+electric chair; and it wasn't my stuffing neither, for turkey stuffing
+when it's indigestible always makes him dream he's a monkey climbing
+trees. He says once he woke up sudden and fell and broke his arm, but
+that that was a long while ago. Now he's had more experience, he never
+wakes up till he's safe back in bed again. And he says doughnuts causes
+his dreams to run back to when he was a boy, and one time he come to,
+after a after-dinner nap, when he had doughnuts for dessert, playing
+marbles in the back alley with a lot of street urchins. I can tell you,
+Mrs. Lathrop, he was most interesting. He's got all his dreams sort of
+classified in that way, and can almost tell to a dot what he'll dream
+about according to what he eats. And he says soggy biscuits always makes
+him dream he's robbing a house or killing somebody. It was mighty lucky
+for me, as you can see for yourself, that this time he only dreamed of
+binding and gagging. If he'd dreamed of murder, I'd not be here now to
+tell the tale. And it's clean to be seen that your biscuits would of
+been an accessory before the fact."
+
+"Then he--"
+
+"Yes, it was him as done it, and without no moral blame attaching to him
+a _tall_. If he'd killed me, the law couldn't of touched him either, for
+the law takes no account of what a person does while they're asleep. But
+as you made the biscuits in your full senses and with your eyes wide
+open, you'd of been the only one to blame."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop groaned. "You know, Sus--" she protested.
+
+"Of course if I was alive, I'd never hold it against you, because I know
+very well you can't make biscuits no better, and ain't never had sense
+enough to learn. But if I was murdered, my ghost couldn't testify, and I
+don't see as how you could be saved from the law taking its course."
+
+At this juncture there was a sound overhead, and both ladies started,
+Mrs. Lathrop in surprise and her friend in sudden realization of
+neglected duties.
+
+"What is--?" inquired Mrs. Lathrop.
+
+"It's him," answered Susan. "Mr. Kettlewell. And the coffee's boiled now
+till it's bitter, and there ain't a single cake on the griddle." She was
+turning back to the stove as Mrs. Lathrop's exclamation caught her and
+switched her around.
+
+"Why, Susan Clegg!"
+
+"Don't Susan Clegg me, Mrs. Lathrop," she commanded. "There ain't no
+Susan Clegg any more. When Susan Clegg disappeared a week ago last
+night, she disappeared for good, never to return. And if you suspect
+anything else, it's best I should introduce myself here and now,--Susan
+Kettlewell, from this time forth, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and dropped back again.
+
+"You don't--"
+
+"I do. I do mean to say I'm married at last. We was wedded with a ring
+in New York last Wednesday, and it's my husband's footsteps you hear up
+there in the new bathroom."
+
+She dropped three spreading spoonfuls of batter on the greased griddle
+and gave Mrs. Lathrop a full minute to absorb the announcement. Then, as
+she drew the coffee pot to one side, she continued:
+
+"And it was purely a love match, make no mistake about that. He's got
+money enough to buy and sell Jathrop, but he's as simple-minded and
+simple-tasted as a babe in arms. And there's nothing I can think of that
+he's not ready and willing to give me. Besides, he's frank and open
+about everything. He says his teeth is false, and he has a bullet in his
+right leg, got one time when he dreamed somebody was shooting him; but
+that otherwise he's as perfect as a man of his age can be. He says he'll
+buy a wig if I want him to, and that if I don't like the color of his
+whiskers, he'll have 'em dyed whatever color I'd like best, and the
+wig'l be made to match. But I wouldn't have him changed the least mite.
+And if there's one thing in the world I'm thankful for it is that I got
+him and not Jathrop. And I'm not thinking from the financial standpoint,
+neither."
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+          Distinctive Fiction by Anne Warner
+
+
+     The reading world owes Anne Warner a vote of thanks for her
+     contributions to the best of American humor.--_New York Times._
+
+     Anne Warner has taken her place as one of the drollest of American
+     humorists.--_Century Magazine._
+
+
+The Gay and Festive Claverhouse
+
+     A story of the desperate attempt of a supposedly dying man to lose
+     the love of a girl.
+
+
+Sunshine Jane
+
+     The joyful story of a Sunshine Nurse whose mission was not to care
+     for sick bodies but to heal sick souls.
+
+
+When Woman Proposes.
+
+     A clever and entertaining story of a woman who fell in love with an
+     army officer.
+
+
+How Leslie Loved
+
+     Not only a buoyant love story but a penetrating satire on modern
+     manners.
+
+
+Just Between Themselves
+
+     A vivacious satire on married life which is full of mirth of the
+     quieter, chuckling variety.
+
+
+The Taming of Amorette
+
+     A clever comedy telling how a man cured his attractive wife of
+     flirting.
+
+
+Susan Clegg, Her Friend, and Her Neighbors
+
+     A study of life which is most delectable for its simplicity and for
+     the quaint character creation.
+
+
+Susan Clegg and a Man in the House
+
+     The remarkable happenings at the Clegg homestead after the boarder
+     came.
+
+
+The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary.
+
+     The pranks of a scapegrace nephew who was showing his old aunt a
+     "good time."
+
+
+In a Mysterious Way
+
+     Compounded of amusing studies of human nature in a rural community.
+
+
+A Woman's Will
+
+     Describes the wooing of a young American widow on the continent by
+     a musical genius.
+
+
+Little, Brown & Co., _Publishers_, Boston
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs, by Anne Warner
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSAN CLEGG AND HER LOVE AFFAIRS ***
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