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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."