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.