"But what can I do, Mrs. 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 all right. Them city papers has turned his head completely just as they do everybody else's when they first get a new idea. Elijah wants us to be eatin' bluing for blueberries an' cats for calves jus' so he can be the first to tell us about it, but there ain't a cat in town as ain't too well known for anybody to eat without knowin' it, an' as for bluing, if anybody can feed it to me for blueberries it's me as is the fool an' them as is n't, an' that's my views. "I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I ain't got no great sympathy with this new idea o' keepin' us all stirred up over how awful things is. I won't say as I approved when that man in Chicago made sausage out o' his wife 'cause he was tired o' her, but I will say as if Lucy see her chance at Hiram that way I ain't sure as she could restrain herself. Hiram's perfectly healthy an' could be depended upon not to disagree with no one in sausage to anythin' like the extent Lucy disagrees with him, an' Gran'ma Mullins is so tired of hearin' 'em quarrel that I ain't prepared to say as she'd rebel at anythin' as sent Lucy back to her father. "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.