says we owe 'em a lot else, too, but I think that's enough in all conscience. Elijah says too it costs a third more to live than it did ten years ago an' he knows that for a fact, an' you an' I know that, too, Mrs. Lathrop. Coal's gone up an' everythin' else. I tell you I got kind of blue, thinkin' about it after I went to bed last night an' it took me a long time to remember as Elijah was maybe more upset over not bein' able to go an' see 'Liza Em'ly on account of the rain, than anythin' else; but then too, Mr. 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'. He don't like that cut of Elijah's being David to the city papers bein' Goliath. He says a cut to do him any good had ought to have him in it somewhere an' I don't know but what he's right. "But, Mrs. Lathrop, we are mighty bad off an' that's a fact, but still I will say this much an' that is that as far as my observation 's extended folks as complains openly of anythin' is always findin' fault with the thing because there's some secret thing as they can't find fault openly with, like Elijah an' the rain, an' Mr. Shores an' his wife. The world's great for takin' its private miseries out publicly in some other direction, an' my own feelin' is as the Democrats is a great comfort to every one as the Republicans can't very conveniently give nothin' to these days. If the president was to suddenly make Sam Duruy a minister to somewhere there'd be a great change of opinion as to politics in this town, you'd see. It would n't give Sam any more brains, but every one 'd be pleased an' the Democrats would n't cut no figure no more." "But--" said Mrs. Lathrop. "That's just it," said Susan, "that's just the trouble. We're like most of the rest of America an' the whole of Cuba an' the Philippines, too little an' too far off to make the big folks really care whether we like the way they do or not. I don't have no idea of carin' whether potato bugs mind bein' picked or not, an' no matter what they said about me before or after their pickin' it 'd be all one to me. An' that's just about the way our government feels about us. An' I guess most other governments is much the same. Which is probably the reason why potato bugs is gettin' worse an' thicker all the time." CHAPTER XII THE TRIALS OF MRS. MACY As Susan set the basket down it began to squawk. "I don't care," she said, "let it squawk!"