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.