Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs Part 3

"I guess I'll take--"

"I would 'f I was you. Mr. Kimball says Deacon White 's as good help 's any woman can hope to get hold o' in a place this size, an' I guess he 's. .h.i.t that nail square on top. I don't see but what, when all's said an' done, you can really take a deal o' comfort havin' him so handy. He likes to keep things clean, 'n' you 'll never let him get a chance to go to Satan emptyhanded. 'N' we can always send him to bed when we want to talk, 'cause bein' 's he 'll be your husband, we won't never have to fuss with considerin' his feelin's any."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop, thoughtfully.

"O' course there would n't be nothin' very romantic in marryin' the deacon; 'n' yet, when you come right square down to it, I don't see no good 'n' sufficient reasons for long hair bein' romantic an' big ears not. Anyway, I sh'd consider 't a man 's can clean a sink, 'n' _will_ clean a sink, was a sight safer to marry 'n one 's whose big hit was standin' up the ends o' his mustache. 'N' besides, you can have the man with the sink, 'n' the man with the mustache would n't even turn round to look at you the first time."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Romance is a nice thing in its place. I 've had my own romances--four on 'em,--'n' not many women can say that 'n' still be unmarried, I guess. I 've lived 'n' I 've loved, as the books say; 'n' I 've survived, as I say myself; 'n' you can believe me or not, jus' as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I ain't got no feelin' toward you this night but pity. I would n't be you if I could--not now 'n' not never. I 'd really liefer be the deacon, 'n' Heaven knows 't he 's got little enough to look forward to hereafter."

"I--" expostulated Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, if you keep me here much longer, I sha'n't get down-town this afternoon; 'n' when you think how near Mrs. Jilkins 's comin' to bein' related to you, it certainly will look very strange to the community."

As she spoke, Miss Clegg rapidly prepared herself for the street, and with the last words she went toward the door.

"If the deacon gets here afore I come back," she said, pausing with her hand on the k.n.o.b, "you 'd better say 's what he told me yesterday in confidence 'n' what I told him in consequence is still a secret; it 'll be pleasanter for you both so."

"I--" said Mrs, Lathrop.

"Good-by," said Susan.

Mrs. Lathrop slept some that afternoon and rocked more. She experienced no very marked flutterings in the region of her heart; indeed, she was astonished herself at the calmness of her sensations.

The deacon had not come when Susan returned. Susan looked somewhat puzzled.

"Anybody been here since me?" she inquired, not facing her friend, but examining the stovepipe with interest.

"No; no--"

"Mrs. Jilkins is all safe," she said next.

"I'm so--"

"That automobile run 'way past Cherry Pond, 'n' their hired man see her ridin' by 'n' made after her on a mule. The gasolene give out before the mule did, so he hauled her home, 'n' the man in the cap come 'n' took the automobile back to town."

"So it's all--"

"They all landed over at the drug-store 'n' got in 'n' started out fresh. Mr. Jilkins settled for the five hundred, 'n' they went off feelin' real friendly. They run out across the square, an' then--" Susan hesitated. "You got a shock yesterday," she said, still not looking at her friend, but speaking sympathetically, "'n' it seems too bad to give you another to-day; but you 'll have to know--"

"Heaven pro--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"They run over the deacon comin' out o' the station. They did n't see him, an' he did n't see them. He ain't dead."

Mrs. Lathrop was silent.

"Mrs. Allen took him home. Of course that means Polly 'll get him in the end."

Mrs. Lathrop was silent for a long time. Finally she said very deliberately:

"Maybe it's just as--"

"It's better," said her friend, with decision; "for the man settled with the deacon for fifteen hundred."

OLD MAN ELY'S PROPOSAL

Mrs. Lathrop had been dumbfounded to see a horse and wagon being driven into her neighbor's yard a little before noon one warm spring day. Her eyesight was not good enough to identify the horse's driver, but she hung breathlessly in her kitchen window and peered gaspingly out upon his boldness and daring during the whole four minutes that it took him to hitch to a clothes-pole; and then, when the fell deed was accomplished, she watched him go in by the kitchen door, and waited, with a confidence born of a very good understanding of her neighbor's views as to driving in and hitching, to see him cast ignominiously forth by Miss Clegg.

But even that omniscience of a friend's habits which may be acquired during a next-door residence for years sometimes fails, and Mrs.

Lathrop, after an hour of more or less active bobbing in the window that commanded the best view of the rear of the house on the other side of the fence, was forced to see that the caller, whoever he might be, was not cast forth, and a further hour's attention showed that he did not quit the premises either just before or just after dinner. When Mrs.

Lathrop had quite settled the last point to her complete satisfaction and un-understanding, she decided to give up watching and to go to sleep as usual. She slept until four in the afternoon, and when she awoke and hurried to the window the horse and wagon were gone. Susan seemed gone too, for her house looked very shut up and sounded more than silent. So Mrs. Lathrop went back forthwith to her chair and slept again, and the next time she awakened it was her friend's voice that awakened her, as the latter stood over her and demanded briskly,

"Well, did you see him?"

"I--oh--oh--I--" began Mrs. Lathrop, vaguely.

"I thought you could n't but see him," said Susan, "hitchin' his horse to one o' my clothes-poles as large as life. If it 'd been any day in his life but this one I 'd surely of told him frank 'n' open my views on hitchin' to my clothes-poles, but bein' as it was to-day I only told him my views on drivin' over my gra.s.s."

"But--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"The horse did n't bite the pole," continued Susan; "he said as he wa'n't no cribber. I told him it wa'n't cribs as was the question, but clothes-poles, an' I might of spoken some stronger, but just then he stepped on the edge of the cistern cover 'n' I got such a turn as drove everythin' else clean out o' my mind. You know how easy it is to turn that cover, Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' I must say that if he and it had fell in together there'd have been a fine tale to tell, for the cover always sinks straight to the bottom, 'n' is no joke to find 'n' fish up,--you and I both know that. Ever since the brace give way I 've always got it on my mind to keep the clothes-bars sittin' over it, but now the brace in the clothes-bars is give way too 'n' as a consequence they won't sit over nothin' no more. If money was looser I 'd certainly never spare it gettin' them two braces mended, but money bein' tight and me alone in the house 'n' the most of my callers them as it 's all one to me whether I see 'em in the parlor or in the cistern, I ain't botherin'. I was never one to worry an' scurry unnecessarily, Mrs. Lathrop, an' you know that as well as I do, 'n' to-day I had my mind all done up in my curtains anyway, 'n' I was more'n' a little put out over bein'

interrupted, even by a man as come in through the woodshed door, that I never bolt 'cause it 's a understood thing as woodshed doors is not to be come in at. The turn he give me when I hear him clutterin' aroun' in the woodshed!--I thought he was rats, an' then a cat, an' then a rat an'

a cat come together, an' then all of a sudden I see him an' remembered the cistern cover."

"But who--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

Susan looked surprised.

"Why, I thought you said you seen him," she said; "you certainly give me that impression, Mrs. Lathrop. I 'd have took any vow anywhere as I asked you if you seen him 'n' you said you did. It's funny if you did n't for he drove hisself in 'n' hitched hisself too, 'n' me up in the garret when he done it, foldin' off my curtains to iron. My, to think how I did hate the idea o' ironin' them curtains! Mother always ironed the curtains. She said I was young n' she did n't mind anyhow. I ain't washed 'em since. I 've been in the habit o' sayin' I was afraid it'd bring mother over me too much to take 'em down without her. That 's a thing as this community can easy understand, f'r they leave all their hard work layin' around for any reason a tall, and although I can't in reason deny as in most ways they 're as different from me as anything can be from me, still when it comes to ironin' curtains the stove is as hot on the just as on the unjust 'n' you can't mention nothin' hotter."

"Did you--" said Mrs. Lathrop, sympathetically.

"Well, I sh'd say I did. What I set out to do I always do whether it's curtains or Mr. Kimball. Mr. Kimball has got a great idea as to his sharpness, but I guess if our sharp ends was under a microscope, he 'd be the needle an' me the bee-sting most every day. It was too bad you was n't to that lecture, Mrs. Lathrop,--I did learn a great deal. Not just about the sting, but some very handy things. It seems if you go among 'em quietly, they 'll let you take the honey out any time 'n' you can buy the queens by mail in a box 'n' they 'll lay a whole hive alone by themselves in no time. Mrs. Macy said she thought some of sendin' for one or two queens 'n' settin' 'em up in business in bushel baskets, but when she went home 'n' looked the baskets over 'n' thought what work it'd be to clean the honey out of 'em each fall she give up the idea.

She's going to set out a orange tree in a flower pot instead. It says in the 'Ladies' Home Diary' as they grow very nicely so."

"But who--" interrupted Mrs. Lathrop, wrinkling up her face somewhat over the long strain on her eager attentiveness.

"But I thought you said you seen him," said her friend, with a second recurrence of her surprised expression; "did n't you see him when you see him drivin' in? He was holdin' the reins at the big end o' the whip, I should suppose. I can't well see how you saw everythin' else without seein' him. He was some better dressed 'n' usual but it just shows what bein' left a widower does for a man. It seems to somehow put new spirit in 'em 'n' sets 'em to wearin' ties again. Why, do you know when he come to go he actually asked me to ride a piece with him 'n' show him which finger-post to turn in to, an' I will say as, where I would n't of dreamed o' ridin' with him a week ago, I went to-day an' really enjoyed it. Yes, I did."