Anne Warner

“ I don't know what I'd be if I was n't a Christian, but my own view o' this idea o' free-trade in religion as is takin' so many folks nowadays is as it all comes from most anybody with common sense jus' naturally knowin' more than any minister as always has his house an' his potatoes for nothin' ever can possibly get a chance to learn; an' when folks realize as they know more than the minister they ain't apt to like to waste the time as they might be learnin' more yet, sittin' an' listenin' to him tag along behind what they know already. ”

“ Elijah went on to tell me a lot about insurance an' railroads, but all about insurance an' railroads is 'way beyond my interest an' 'way beyond the understandin' of every one else here, an' nobody's goin' to remember a thing about any of it a year from now anyhow. That's the trouble with this country,—they don't remember nothin',—everybody forgets everythin' before the month is out. Most of the people never thinks o' San Francisco now, an' as for that fire they had in Baltimore, it's as dead as Moses. ”

“ I don't say as I consider Elijah any great catch, but if 'Liza Em'ly can find any joy jumpin' at him with her mouth open I ain't one to deprive her of the hop. Elijah's a very fair young man as young men go, an' I think any girl as is willin' to do her nine-tenths can have a time tryin' to be happy with him. If she ain't happy long it won't be Elijah's fault for he's just as sure his wife 'll be happy as any other man is. ”

“ I never had any thin' of that kind in my house afore an' of course I ain't goin' to give up without a good deal more lookin', but if I can't find that key it'll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt as Elijah Doxey ain't of a trustin' nature an' if that's true I don't know how I ever will be able to get along with him. A trustin' nature is one thing to have around an' a distrustin' nature is another thing, an' I can tell you that there's somethin' about feelin' as you ain't trusted as makes me take my hands right out of my bread dough an' go straight upstairs to begin lookin' for that key again. ”

“ No, Henry Ward Beecher. It's always struck me as a very strange thing as we had n't got one single idiot in this community an' I guess the real truth is as we've had one all the time an' did n't know him by sight. There's a idiot most everywhere till he gets the idea into his head to kill some one an' so gives others the idea as he's safer shut up, an' so it ain't surprisin' our havin' one too. I see Mrs. Brown on my way home an' I asked her if she did n't think as I was right. ”

“ I ain't never been lonesome afore in my life an' I ain't goin' to begin now. Bein' lonesome is very fine for them as keeps a girl to do their work, but I have to slave all day long if there's anybody but me around the house, an' I don't like to slave. I guess Elijah's expectin' to be lonesome though, for he asked me if I'd mind his comin' up an' talkin' over the Personal column with me sometimes. ”

“ Every last one of us knows what Dr. Brown gets at the drug store when he asks for what he usually gets an' there's a good many as thinks as Mrs. Macy goes to Meadville more on a'count o' Dr. Carter than to see her cousin, Mrs. Lupey. But I was n't goin' to set Elijah swimmin' in any such deep water. Elijah is a young man an' the age to go wrong easy, an' when that age see how easy it is to go wrong they're nothin' but foolish if they waste another second goin' right, so if Elijah wants to go to exposin' he'll have to get his stuff from some one else beside me. ”

“ An' she says that ain't the worst of it whatever you may think, for he was so interested in the book that he wanted to keep right on readin', an' as the light was too high an' he had n't no way to lower it, he just highered himself by puttin' a rockin'-chair (yes, Mrs. Lathrop, a rockin'-chair!) on the center table, an' there he sit rockin' an' readin' until he felt to go to bed. She says, would n't that drive a good wife right out beside her own mind? To think of a man like Mr. Fisher rockin' away all night on top of a table an' never even gettin' a scare. ”

“ It's a great satisfaction when a man leaves your house, Mrs. Lathrop, to know as he'll be bound to wish himself back there many an' many time."
"What—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, I'll find plenty to do," said Susan Clegg, "it ain't made a mite of difference in my life. I shall go on livin' just the same as ever. Nothin's changed for me just because for three months I had a man [Pg 278] in the house. I ain't even altered my general views o' men any, for land knows Elijah wa'n't so different from the rest of them that he could teach me much as is new. ”

“ Macy was tellin' her the other day as they've got a idiot in Meadville—a real hereditary one; the doctors have all studied him an' it's a clear case right down from his great-grandfather."
"His great—" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Grandfather," said Susan. "Yes, Mrs. Lathrop, that is how it was, an' Mrs. Macy says it's really so, for she see the tombstones all but the mother's—hers ain't done yet. Seems the idiocy come from the great-grandfather's stoppin' on the train crossin' to pick up a frog 'cause he was runnin' for suthin' in connection with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." ”

“ I'm sure I don't know what we're comin' to as to men, Mrs. Lathrop, for I must say they seem more extra in the world every day. Most everythin' as they do the women is able to do better now, an' women is so willin' to be pleasant about it, too. Not as Elijah was n't pleasant—I [Pg 276] never see a more pleasant young man, but he had a way of comin' in with muddy boots an' a smile on his face as makes me nothin' but glad as he's left my house an' gone to Polly White's. ”

“ Lupey cried, an' she told her as she knowed as there was any number of quiet elderly men as any one could depend on right here in our own community as'd be nothin' but glad to go over to Meadville an' help anyway they could, but Mrs. Lupey asked Judy about it, an' Judy asked Busby, an' Busby said men as you could depend on anywhere was n't no use in divorce suits a tall. It's quite another kind, it seems. Mrs. Macy says she's really very sorry for them all, for it really seems awful to think how the Lupeys need a man an' the only man they've got Judy's busy gettin' rid of as hard as she can. ”

“ She says if Lucy's begun on Hiram with a hairbrush now, Heaven only knows what she'll be after him with in a year, for Gran'ma Mullins' own husband went from a cake of soap to a whole cheese in a fortnight an' she says it's a well-known fact as when a married man is once set a-goin' he lands things faster an' faster. ”

“ Folks in this world never call any one good-hearted unless they can't find nothin' else good to say of 'em, for it stands to reason as any sensible person'd rather have anythin' else about 'em good before their heart, for it's way inside an' largely guesswork what it is anyhow.
"They say as Mrs. Sweet says as even though Emma's her own child, still she can't see no reason for Henry Ward Beecher's March-haredness. ”

“ Lathrop, the far side or the near side, just accordin' to the way you face to get the light while you read, an' so far from its bein' only intended for men it's all right for any one at all to read as has got the time. Now that I'm done it an' know I have n't never got to do it again, I don't mind telling you in confidence that for a book as could n't possibly have been meant to be interestin' it was about as agreeable readin' as I ever struck in my life. ”

“ I feel to stay in the square an' I find myself hurryin' home 'cause he likes hot biscuits, an' I feel to turn his washstand around an' I leave it where it is for no better reason than as he likes it where it is. It's awful the way a man gets the upper hand of a woman! Lord knows I've no love for Elijah an' yet I'm caperin' upstairs an' downstairs when he ain't in a hurry an' tearin' my legs off scamperin' when he is, until I declare I feel mad at myself—I certainly do. ”

“ I talk very kind to Elijah, but there's no livin' in the house with any man as supposes livin' in the house with any other woman is goin' to be pleasanter than livin' in the house with the woman as he's then an' there livin' in the house with. The main thing in life is to keep men down to a low opinion of every woman's cookin' but yours an' keep yourself down to a low opinion of the man. ”

“ If I was Lucy it would n't last long, I know that. If I'd ever married a man I don't know how long he'd of stood it or how long I'd of stood him, but I know one thing, Mrs. Lathrop, an' I know that from my heels to my hairpins—an' I said it to Elijah last night, an' I'm goin' to say it to you now—an' that is that if I could n't [Pg 63] of stood him I would n't of stood him, for this is the age when women as read the papers don't stand nothin' they don't want to—an' I would n't neither. ”

“ Shores is very much cast down over the country, only I must admit as it's more 'n likely as he ain't really half as mournful over the Democrats as he is over his wife; an' then there's Judge Fitch as is always mad over politics an' we all know that that's just 'cause he's always been called 'judge' ever since he was born, an' nobody ain't never made him judge of nothin' bigger 'n us yet. I guess if he was sure as our paper could get him elected to congress he'd cheer up pretty quick, but he told me yesterday as Elijah did n't know how to conduct a campaign to his order of thinkin'. ”

“ Young Dr. Brown is goin' to feel just awful 'cause he'd bought twenty-five papers to mail to all his college class. There was goin' to be a item about him, an' Mrs. Brown says it was goin' to be a good one for she fed Elijah mince pie while he made his notes for it an' had Amelia play on her guitar, too."
"What do you—?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, I can't say as I really know what to think of him just yet. I never see such a young man afore. He has some very curious ways, Mrs. Lathrop, ways as make me feel that I can't tell you positively [Pg 23] what I do think. ”

“ Lathrop.
"I don't see how I can," said Miss Clegg, dubiously. "I shall do my best, but, oh my, a young man as is a editor an' has red hair an' a flute is awful uncertain to count on. I almost wish I had n't took him."
"Why—" asked Mrs. Lathrop. [Pg 31]
"I can't now," said Miss Clegg, "the arrangements of this world is dreadful hard on women. It's very easy to take a man into your house but once a woman has done it an' the man's settled, nobody but a undertaker can get him out in any way as is respectable accordin' to my order of thinkin'." ”

“ All the girls is after him but that ain't surprisin' for girls are made to be after somethin' at that age an' there's almost nothin' for them to run down in this community. We're very short of men to marry, Mrs. Lathrop, an' what men we have got ain't tall enough yet to do it, but still, it ain't no reason why Elijah should be in love [Pg 44] just because 'Liza Em'ly and all the other girls is in love with him. To my order o' thinkin' two sets of people have got to love to make a marriage, an' 'Liza Em'ly ain't but one. ”

“ I think it's always a great strain on the country, but even if no one never likes it nor enjoys it, I suppose we must keep on havin' it with us year after year, for Elijah says as, as a nation, we're so proud o' bein' ahead o' everythin' an' everybody, that we'll die afore we'll go on one step further. ”

“ Macy says it's the quietest lookin' small thing you ever see, but she says Great Scott, Holy Moses, an' ginger tea, the way it works! You only need to put your hand on it an' just stir it an' it unhooks inside like one of them new patent mouse traps as catch you ten times to every once they catch a mouse, an' then it begins to ring like a fire alarm an' bang like the Fourth of July, an' it don't never stop itself again until some one as is perfectly healthy comes tearin' barefoot from somewhere to turn it over an' hook it up an' get Mrs. Kitts whatever she wants. ”

“ Lathrop, we've had a nice talk about our foreign possessions an' all I can say in the end is as that whole book made me feel just like we'd all ought to get to feel as quick as we can. Lots of things in this world might be better only the people that could change 'em don't often feel inclined that way, an' the people [Pg 141] who'd like to have a change ain't the ones as have got any say. If I was a Philippine I'd want a Chinaman to do my work an' I'd feel pretty mad that folks as had so many niggers an' Italians that they did n't need Chinamen should say I could n't have 'em neither. ”

“ Macy says what she wants to know is what's Elijah tryin' to get at anyhow. She says she always thought a barbecue was a kind of cake an' she did n't know white folks ever could lift their legs that high, even if they felt to want to. She says the idea of its bein' suthin' to eat in the woods is surely most new to her an' she ain't sure she wants to eat in the woods anyhow. She says there's always flies an' mosquitoes in the woods an' she's passed the age o' likin' to drop down anywhere, an' jump up any time, years ago. ”

“ Lathrop, I did n't know of nothin'? We ain't got no place to do anythin' except in the square an' nobody never does nothin' without everybody knows that day or the next mornin' at the latest. I don't believe as anybody could have a secret with anybody in this town 'cause you'd know very well as if you did n't get 'round pretty quick an' tell it first the other one would be gettin' ahead o' you an' tellin' it before you. Of course I could see Elijah's drift [Pg 218] all right. Them city papers has turned his head completely just as they do everybody else's when they first get a new idea. ”

“ Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can maybe understand as Mrs. Macy was just about plum paralyzed at that! Her story is as she just stood afore him with her mouth open like a Jack-o'-lantern's, wonderin' what under the sun she was goin' to be asked to remember next, an' when he said that was all, an' for her just to simply tear up the paper, she forgot all about Luther Stott's wife on the back an' tore up the paper. ”