Anne Warner

“ The insurance men is running all over like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more windows every minute, and getting’ more signatures as it was a tornado before they’ll unstick them. Nothing can’t be really settled till Mrs. Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation. ”

“ 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 the tip of its nose, aint 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 aint 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. ”

“ Macy is now,” said Gran’ma Mullins with a sigh.
“Nobody knows. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure—but even insurance men can’t have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view is as it’s no use worrying. Spilt milk’s a poor thing to cook with. If you’re in the fire you aint in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is this community as is all locked out of their houses. ”

“ 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’m full of too much; 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. ”

“ Lathrop looked wide-eyed and alarmed.
“But now—” Gran’ma Mullins asked.
“I’ve been all over the place,” Susan continued. “I didn’t understand fully what was up when I scurried off to try and get those men to put the roof back on Mrs. Macy’s house, but I know it all now. It’s no use trying to get anybody to do nothing now—the whole town’s upside down and inside out. I never see nothing like it. And the insurance men has got it laid down flat as nobody can’t touch nothing till it’s settled whether it’s a cyclone or a tornado. ”

“ Fate seems dead set against the idea. And nobody can get ahead of Fate. They may talk all they please about overcoming, and when I was young I was always charging along with my horns down and my tail waving, same as every other young thing, but I’m older now and I see as resignation is the only thing as really pays in the end. I get as mad as ever but I stay meek. I wanted to lam those insurance men with a stick of wood as was lying most handy, but all I did was to walk home. ”

“ Seems a good many was insured for cyclones right in with their fires anyway without ever having known it, but there aint a soul in the place insured against a tornado because you can’t get any insurance against tornadoes—no one will insure them. The insurance men say if it’s a tornado we wont have nothing to do except to do the best we can, but if it’s a cyclone we mus’n’t touch anything till they can get some one to judge what’s worth saving and how much it’s worth and deduct that from our insurance. That’s how it is.”
“How long—” demanded Mrs. Lathrop. ”

“ The Assyrian pouncing down on the wolf in his fold is a young mother wrapping up her first baby to look out the window, compared to those insurance men. They descended on us bright and shining to-day, and if we was murderers with our families buried under the kitchen floor we couldn’t be looked on with more suspicion. ”

“ Lathrop, quite excited—for her.
“Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men wont have to pay, nothing granted. They’ve decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy and there’s Mrs. Macy gone away to heaven knows where.”
“Well, Susan,” said Gran’ma Mullins, “we must look on the bright side. Mrs. Macy’ll have something to talk about as’ll always interest everybody, if she does come back, and if she don’t come back we’ll always have her to remember.” ”

“ It’ll be the town rising up against the insurance men and the insurance men will soon find that when it comes to dilly-dallying with folks newly cycloned upside-down, it’s life and death if you don’t deal fair. ”

“ Kimball would carry convictions to any man—he don’t except none—but I see no reason why the young man wasn’t telling the truth—young men do tell the truth sometimes—most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries ’em miles and pulls up trees by the roots—I don’t wonder they wont insure ’em. ”

“ Why, the community is getting where it wont stand even being said good-morning to pleasantly. The children is running all over pulling each other’s hair and Deacon White says he’s going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pass when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol for he’s just as afraid of one end as the other. ”

“ Everything’s so upset and off the track it’s no use even trying to think. My walls is fell into my cistern and Mrs. Macy’s roof is sitting on the ground beside her house, yet. The insurance men has sealed up Gran’ma Mullins’ house and they wouldn’t leave the hen-house open till I signed a affidavit on behalf of the hens and released ’em from all claims. Mr. Dill said they tried to seal up his cow; they’ve got Mr. Kimball’s dried apple-machine tied with a rope. It’s awful. ”

“ A good many is feeling very bitter towards him about it, but he says he really couldn’t think in the excitement and the table-cloth. It’s a awful state of things. The cyclone has tore everything to pieces and the insurance men has put their seal on the chips. People is being drove to all lengths. The minister and his family is camping in the hen-house. Our walls is fell in, so goodness knows what will happen to you and me next, Mrs. Lathrop. ”

“ I was far from pleased when I first laid eyes on ’em, for there’s a foxiness in any city man as comes to settle things in the country as is far from being either soothing or sirupy to him as lives in the country, but you can maybe imagine my feelings when they very plainly informed me as I couldn’t put the roof back on Mrs. ”