Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"You're thinking of the Home for the Blind," corrected Mrs. Macy. "I was
there once, too. I don't think Susan would mind going there so much,
because of course she can see, which would give her a great advantage
over the others, and Susan does like to have an advantage over anybody
else. But I don't believe she'd like going to the Insane Asylum much.
The Insane Asylum's so limited. My husband's sister went to the Insane
Asylum once, but it didn't help her none, so she came home. It wouldn't
ever suit Susan."
"Well, maybe not," said Gran'ma Mullins amicably. "And I don't think she
could go there, anyway, for she isn't crazy, and she's got her own
money. So why should she be a charge on the county?"
The very next day Susan came wearily in to see her old friend.
"Well, I d'n know what I've ever done to have this kind of a summer,"
she began, seating herself sadly. "Why didn't I stay in my own house and
just simply take you to board while they laid violent hands on your
house? I was against being built over all along, Mrs. Lathrop, you know
that. And now the fox has his cheese and the cow has her corn, just as
the Scripture says, but Susan Clegg's absolutely forced to live with
Mrs. Allen. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, you don't know what living with Mrs. Allen
is, and you can't imagine, either. I never dreamed of such a thing
before I went there. I was a little afraid she'd want to read me her
poetry, but her poetry would have been paradise to what is. Seems as if
Mrs. Allen has got a new kind of religion, and heaven help the present
run of mankind if any more new religions is sprung on us, and heaven
help me if I've got to live long with Mrs. Allen's new one. Mrs. Allen's
new religion is most peculiar. I never see nothing like it. It's
Persian, and it's very singular just to look at. But it's most awful to
live with. Lucy and her dog is simple beside it, and as to Gran'ma
Mullins, she's nothing but a baby dabbing a ball in comparison.
According to Mrs. Allen's new religion, you mustn't find fault with
nothing or nobody--never. Everything's all right, no matter how wrong it
is; and if you lose your purse, you was meant to lose it, so why
complain? You was give your purse for just a little while, and in place
of wildly running here and there trying to find it, you must just thank
heaven for kindly letting you have it so long, and think no more about
it. If you're meant to see any more of that purse, it'll kindly look you
up itself. But it's no manner of use your looking for it, because if
heaven takes back a purse deliberately, never intending to return it, it
never does return it, and that's all there is to be said on the subject.
Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you think perhaps you can see what it would be to
live with any one that feels to see life in that way; but you don't
really know what you think a good deal of the time, and never less than
now. Mrs. Allen's things is mostly back in heaven's hands again, and her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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