Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"Nobody knew," Susan announced as she mounted the steps, "but every one
knows now, for I told them. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw anything
like it. There isn't a person in town as ever expected to see Jathrop
again, and only about three as always thought he'd come back rich. Every
one's going to the station to-morrow morning, even Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy
says if it's one of the mornings she can't walk, she'll hire Hiram and
his wheelbarrow just as she does for church those Sundays. Everybody's
so interested. I told them about the private car, and everybody hopes
that he's got one, and that he'll come in it. Mr. Dill says he must be
rich if he's been to the Klondike and come back a _tall_. He says
there's no halfway work about the Klondike. Either you come back a
millionaire or else you eat first your dog and then your boots and
that's the last of you. Gran'ma Mullins says she never heard of eating
boots in the Klondike; she thought you rode on a sled there and that
there weren't any women. She says Hiram's spoken of going there once or
twice, and Lucy thought maybe the coasting would do him good, but
Gran'ma Mullins says not while she's alive, no, sir. Why, it's 'way
across America and up a ways, and so many people want to go up that they
have to sleep three in a berth, and she says will you only think of
Hiram, with the way she's brought him up, three in a berth. If the bed
ain't tucked in with Gran'ma Mullins' own particular kind of tuck, Hiram
kicks at night and don't get any proper nourishment out of his sleep.
No, Gran'ma Mullins says she couldn't think of Hiram in the Klondike
sleeping under a snow-pile and having to hunt up a whale whenever he was
in need of more kerosene oil. And she says what good would millions do
her with the bones of the only baby she ever had feeding whatever kind
of creature they have up there. No, she says, no, and a million times
more, no; she's been reading about it in a New York paper that came
wrapped around her new stove lid, and she knows all there is to know on
that subject now. She says a New York paper is so interesting. She says
the way they print them makes it very entertaining. She was reading
about a sea serpent, and when she turned, she turned wrong, and she read
twelve columns about the suffragettes, looking eagerly to see when the
sea serpent was going on again. She says she give up trying to see why
they print them so or ever trying to finish any one subject at a time;
she just goes regularly through the paper now and lets the subjects
fight it out to suit themselves. She says it makes the last part very
interesting. You read about a baby, and after a while you find out
whether it's the Queen of Spain's or just a race-horse. She says she
supposes next Sunday there'll be a picture of Jathrop in the paper;
maybe there'll be a view of this house with you and me. I think that
that would be very interesting."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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