Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"I'm going to find another place to live right away," Susan went on.
"I've too much consideration for you to ask you to go there, Mrs.
Lathrop, and besides, I feel it would be exchanging the fire for the
stew-pan for me to come here. I'm going this town over this very
afternoon, and I think I'll find some place where I can sleep part of
the night, at any rate. I guess I got about three quarters of a hour's
sleep last night. Gran'ma Mullins woke me up weeping on the foot of my
bed before daylight. Just before daylight is her special time for
recollecting how Hiram used to drink milk out of a cup when he was a
baby, and how he used to eat candy if anybody gave him any, and other
remarkable doings that he did. My lands, I wish Job could have met
Gran'ma Mullins! His friends and his boils would have just been pleasant
things to amuse him, then. I'm going first to Mrs. Allen, and then I'm
going to every one. I shan't make no bones about my errand, for
everybody knows Gran'ma Mullins. I'll have the sympathy of the whole
community. I need sympathy, and I feel I can soak up a good lot of it if
I'm let to."
"How's the--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"They're still pulling 'em down," said Susan gloomily. "It's a awful
sight, and one that doesn't give me more strength for Gran'ma Mullins. I
shall never have another house that will suit me as mine did, Mrs.
Lathrop. I know that Jathrop means it kindly, and I'm far from being one
to hold any gift-horse by the tail, but the truth is the truth, and I
must say nothing teaches you to really prize your cupboards like seeing
men going through 'em with pick-axes. There was many little conveniences
in my house as I never really thought much of until now I see 'em gone
forever. But it's a poor cat that lives on spilt milk, so I'll say no
more of that, but go back and get ready to hunt up a place to live. For
live I must, Mrs. Lathrop, and live I will. And I won't live by eating
and drinking and breathing Hiram Mullins the twenty-four hours round,
neither."
Miss Clegg's round of visits ended, curiously enough, in her
establishing herself with Lucy Mullins.
"Which I don't doubt is a very great surprise to you, Mrs. Lathrop," she
confessed to her friend that evening. "But Lucy ran across me in the
street, and when she saw me, those two women who met in the Bible and
knew all each other's business directly was strangers passing on express
trains beside Lucy and me. I took one look at Lucy, and I see she knowed
it all. Judge Fitch is going to be away a lot this month, seeing where
he can hire his witnesses for a big lawsuit, and Lucy says she and me'll
be alone and able to be silent from dawn to dark and on through the
night. She don't want to have to listen to no manner of talk, she says,
and I can have the second floor all alone to myself, for her and her
father sleep in the wings down-stairs."
"So you--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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