"There's Mrs. Macy as would be glad to keep house for him if he 'd marry her first, of course, but to my order of thinkin' Mr. Dill don't want to marry Mrs. Macy near as much as Mrs. Macy wants to marry Mr. Dill. Mrs. Macy says he's pesterin' her to death, an' Mr. Dill says if it's pesterin' to speak when you're spoken to, he must buy a new dictionary an' learn the new meanin' of the words by heart. Between ourselves, I guess Mr. Dill is learnin' the lesson of wedded bliss from lookin' at Lucy an' rememberin' her mother. Lucy ain't very happy an' you know as well as I do what Mrs. Dill was. Her husband won't marry again in a hurry, an' he's smart if he don't, for if Lucy ain't home in less 'n a year I'll make you a tea cake." "I--" said Mrs. Lathrop. "Well, you ain't Lucy Dill," said her friend. "If you was you'd be different. Lucy says this being waked up by havin' a hot flatiron slid in among your feet most any time for no better reason than 'cause his mother thought she heard Hiram sneeze, is a game as can be played once too often. I see her temper was on the rise so I struck in, an' give her a little advice of my own, an' as a result she says she's goin' to take a strong upper hand to 'em both an' there won't be no velvet glove on it neither. She says she can see as it's do or die for her now, an' she don't mean to be done nor to die neither. She drank some tea as I made strong on purpose, an' shook her head hard an' went home, an' God help Hiram if he hummed last night; an' as for Gran'ma Mullins, Lucy said if she come stealin' in to feel if Hiram was breathin' reg'lar, she was going to get slapped for a mosquito in a way as she'd long remember." "Dear me--" commented Mrs. Lathrop. "Well, I did n't blame her," said Miss Clegg. "Of course I did n't know as I was going to hear the other side afore night fell, but hearin' her side stirred me up so that I give her my advice, an' my advice was to put the bootjack under her pillow. There ain't no sense in women sufferin' any more, to my idea of thinkin'. It's a good deal easier to go to bed with a bootjack, an' I look to see Lucy really happy or Hiram smashed flat soon in consequence." "But you--" said Mrs. Lathrop, wide-eyed. "I know, an' that did change my ideas. Of course when I was talkin' to Lucy I was n't expectin' to see Gran'ma Mullins so soon, but I won't say but what I was glad to see Gran'ma Mullins, too. It's a most curious feelin', I d'n know as I ever feel a curiouser than to hear both sides of anythin' from the both sides themselves right one after the other in the same day. O' course I learned long ago to never take any sides myself unless one of 'em was mine; but I will say as I don't believe no one could feel for others more 'n I do when I hear folks shakin' their heads over what as a general thing a person with brains like mine knows is their own fault, an' knowed was goin' to be their own fault afore they ever even began to think of doin' it.