"Oh yes, I remember now. Well, I was too put out at first to notice what the bat did after I got him out o' my head, but when I went upstairs I found him circlin' everywhere in a way as took every bit of home feelin' out of the house an' I just saw that I'd have no peace till I could be alone with Elijah again. So I got up an' got a broom an' went a battin' for all I was worth. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can believe me or not just as you please, but for one solid hour I run freely an' gayly up an' down an' over an' under my own house after that bat. I never see nothin' like that bat before or behind. He just sort of sailed here an' there an' everywhere, an' wherever he sailed smoothly an' easily there was me runnin' after him with the broom, whackin' at him every chance I got. We was upstairs, we was downstairs, we was in the wood shed an' out of the wood shed, we was under the kitchen table, we was over father's picture on the mantel--we was everywhere, me an' that bat. Then all of a sudden he disappeared completely an' I sit down in the rockin'-chair to puff an' rest. Elijah slept till most eight an' I was so tired I let him sleep although I never was one to approve of any man's sleepin', but before he woke something worse than a bat come down on me, an' that was Mrs. Sweet's cousin, Jerusha Dodd. You know Jerusha Dodd, Mrs. Lathrop, an' so do I, an' so does everybody an' as far as my observation 's extended bats is wise men bringin' their gifts from afar to visit you compared to Jerusha Dodd when she arrives in the early mornin'. I would n't never have gone to the door only she stepped up on the drain-pipe first an' looked in an' saw me there in the rockin'-chair afore she knocked. I tell you I was good an' mad when I see her an' see as she see me an' I made no bones of it when I opened the door. I says to her frank an' open--I says, 'Good gracious, Jerusha, I hope you ain't lookin' to see me pleased at seein' as it's you.' But laws, you could n't smash Jerusha Dodd not if you was a elephant an' she was his sat-down-upon fly, so I had her sittin' in the kitchen an' sighin' in less'n no time. She was full of her woes an' the country's woes as usual. Congress was goin' to ruin us next year sure, an' she had a hole in her back fence anyway; she did n't approve of Mr. Rockefeller's prices on oil, an' there was a skunk in her cellar, an' she said she could n't seem to learn to enjoy livin' the simple life as she'd had to live it since her father died, a _tall_. She said that accordin' to her views life for single women nowadays was too simple an' she said she really only lacked bein' buried to be dead. She says as all a simple life is, is havin' no rights except them as your neighbors don't want. She says for her part she's been more took into the heart of creation than she's ever cared about. I do hate to have to listen to the way she goes on an' no one can say as I ever was one to encourage her in them views. I don't think it's