"With a--" cried Mrs. Lathrop, aghast. "She says she ain't absolutely positive, but they was a-chasin' a June bug in their room together, an' she heard the smash an' the next mornin' when she went in to make Hiram's side of the bed after Lucy (she says Lucy is a most sing'lar bed-maker) she see the nick on the brush, an' she says when she see the nick an' remembered how hollow it rung, she knew as it could n't possibly have been nothin' in that room except Hiram's head. 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. She says she thinks about the andirons there, ready to Lucy's hand, until she's scared white, an' yet she's afraid to take 'em for fear it'd attract her to the water pitcher." "Did Mr.--" began Mrs. Lathrop, hurriedly, after several attempts to slide a question-quoit in among Susan's game of words. "Oh, he did n't throw 'em at her. I could n't understand what he did do with them an' so I asked, but it seems it was just as awful for he grated the whole cake o' that soap on her front teeth to teach her not to never refer to the deacon again, an' he dropped the cheese square on her head when he was up on a step-ladder an' she was in a little cupboard underneath leanin' over for a plate, an' then he tried to make out as it was an accident. She says it was n't no accident though. She says a woman as gets a cheese on the back of her head from a husband as is on a step-ladder over her, ain't to be fooled with no accident story; she says that cheese like to of hurt her for life an' was the greatest of the consolations she had when he died. She says she never will forget it as long as she's alive an' he's dead, no sir, so help her heaven she won't; she says when the cemetery committee come to her an' want her to subscribe for keepin' him trimmed with a lawn mower an' a little flag on Decoration Day, she always thinks of that cheese an' says no, thank you, they can just mow him regularly right along with the rest. "But oh, she says it's awful bitter an' cold to see Hiram settin' out along that stony, bony, thorny road, as she's learned every pin in from first to last. She says if Lucy 'd only be a little patient with him, but no, to bed he must go feelin' as bright as a button, an' in the mornin', oh my, but she says it's heartrendin' to hear him wake up, for Lucy washes his face so sudden with cold water that he gives one howl before he remembers he's married, an' five minutes after she hangs every last one of the bedclothes square out of the window.