Chapter II: Part 2

"No, on father's," said Susan, "and now, Mrs. Lathrop, you see what he is at last. He not only marries a Chinese when if he'd been patient he might have got a white one, but he brings her home, and don't even tell you he's brought her home, or even that he's got her, or even that he's married her, or anything. A man might line my house with furnaces and have his baby picture done big in every room, and I'd never forgive his acting in such a way. I never hear the beat. It throws all the other calamities as ever come upon anybody in this community clean out of the shade. What will be the use of your having a pew in church; you won't even be able to face the minister now with your son's marrying one of them as we have to give our good money to teach to wear clothes. What good will your having the parlor papered be with everybody ashamed to go to see a woman who has got a Chinese daughter. To my order of thinking, you was better off poor. Why, they eat the hen's nests, the Chinese do, and prefer 'em to the eggs. It's small wonder I dreamed Jathrop was a cat, with him descending on us like the wrath of heaven married to a China woman. Jathrop's no fool though, and if you'd seen that humble heathen going along back of him with his big valise, you'd have to see as the man as picks out a wife like that never could have been a fool. I felt for her, I really did, only she was watching me with the wrong eye all the time, and it made me dizzy to try and look at her kindly. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, when Jathrop comes back, you'll just go for him and give it to him good. Men must learn as they can't bring their Chinese wives into this community. There's a principle as we'd ought to live up to whether we enjoy it or not, and it's all against marrying Chinese. The Chinese are all right, I hope and trust, but nothing as feeds itself with a toothpick had ever ought to be held pressed to the bosom of families like you and me, Mrs. Lathrop. It isn't the way we're brought up to look at them, and it's a well-known fact as no matter what the leopard does to the Ethiopian, he sticks to his spot just the same as before--"

"But--" broke in Mrs. Lathrop.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop,--we've been friends too long for me not to feel kindly to you,--but Mrs. Macy is a witness to his bringing her, even if I wasn't well known to be one as never lies. Mrs. Macy is a witness, too, to how he's got her dressed, and a more burning disgrace than this keeping your chosen wife in loose overalls and a jacket as any monkey on a hand-organ would weep to see the fit of, I never see. It may be the custom in the Klondike and may be convenient for sliding, but this is no sliding community, and, to my order of thinking, Jathrop would have showed you more affection and us more respect if he'd bought his wife a bonnet and a shawl before he brought her here."

Susan paused for breath. Mrs. Lathrop continued speechless. Mrs. Macy tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking, "Lands, she's got a pigtail, too."

Susan picked up the cudgels afresh at that. "Wound twice around her head," she said bitterly; "oh, she _is_ a figure of fun and no mistake. I d'n know, I'm sure, what Jathrop was ever thinking of the day he picked her out, but this I do know, and that is, that he'd better pick her off of me pretty quick. You know, Mrs. Lathrop, as a friend is a friend and I've always been a good friend to you, but I never was one to stand any nonsense--not now and not never--and when a man writes, 'I'm rich' and 'How's Susan Clegg?' he gets me where no Chinese wife ain't going to please me in a hurry. I'm glad Jathrop is rich, on your account, Mrs. Lathrop, but his being rich don't alter my views of him a mite. I look upon him as a gray deceiver, that's what I look upon him as, and if he's brought a piece of carnelian or anything back to me, you can tell him to give it to his lawfully wedded wife, for I don't want to have nothing more to do with him."

"But, Susan--" broke in poor Mrs. Lathrop.

"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Lathrop; I'm in no mood to listen to no one just now. I ain't mad, but I'm hurt. It's no wonder I dreamed he was a cat, for of all the sly, back-door things a cat is the meanest. And there was always something very cat-like about Jathrop Lathrop--something soft and slow and creepy--nothing bold and out-spoken. I might have known as even if he did come home rich, he'd find a way to even it up. And now look how he has evened it up. Think of your grandchildren; there won't be one of 'em able to ever look anybody straight in more'n one eye at once. Marrying Chinese is terrible, anyway--in some States it's forbidden. It's to be hoped Jathrop'll keep out of those States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."

Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling, "Where are you, mother?"

He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen. Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to a sudden halt.

"We've been telling your--" began Mrs. Macy.

"--mother about your wife," finished up Susan.

Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my _wife_!" he repeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"

"Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have been kinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've done it now."

"Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed poor Mrs. Lathrop in heart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.

"But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do you mean?"

There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.

"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who said I had one?"

Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.

"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."

"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was all right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the situation.

"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.

"To buy her with beads."

"To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming exasperated.

"Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as you brought with you and gave me to board."

Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy--my boy," he said.

"Your boy!" said Susan.

"Yes, my boy."

Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity, and hopeless resignation.

"Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I _did_ suppose you had some sense even in the view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to give up. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe your wife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that you believe that that is your boy--well!"

Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macy wobbling in her wake.

III

SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY

Susan Clegg and Mrs. Macy walked down to Mrs. Lathrop's gate, and out of her gate and to Miss Clegg's gate; the whole in a silence deadly and impressive. Mrs. Macy paused there.

"I don't believe I'll come in," she said doubtfully.

"I don't blame you," said Susan, "I wouldn't if it was me. Jathrop's boy, indeed! What kind of a man is it as'll have a Chinese family and go forcing them onto the true and long-tried friends of his one and only mother!"

"I can't see why he didn't leave the boy in the Klondike," said Mrs. Macy slowly and reflectively. "I thought men always left their Chinese families just where they found 'em. It's strange Jathrop brought him home with him."

"You see now what my dream meant," said Susan darkly, "a cat, indeed. It's small wonder I knew the cat was Jathrop Lathrop. Of all the mean, sly, creeping creatures that ever come up against the back of your legs sudden a cat is the worst. A snake is open and aboveboard beside a cat. You can see a snake. You don't see 'em often around here, thank heaven."

"Well, we haven't seen Jathrop often around here for a long time," said Mrs. Macy, whose mind was as given to easy logical deduction as many of her mental caliber, "and we do see a lot of cats--you know that, Susan."

"'How's Susan Clegg?'" quoted Susan in a tone of reflective wrath. "I don't know whether you know it or not, Mrs. Macy, but Jathrop asked after me in his letter to his mother, and him with a Chinese wife. 'How's Susan Clegg?' What did he write that for if he was married, I'd like to know."

"Maybe he wanted to know how you were," suggested Mrs. Macy.

The look she received in recognition of this offered explanation led to her immediately proposing to go on home. "You've got the Chinaman to look after, anyhow," she added.

"You'd better come in while I go up and look at him again," said Susan shortly. "It's a very strange sensation to be alone in your house with what you fully and freely take to your dead father's bed and board, supposing it's a wife, and then find out as it's her son instead. Come on in."

Mrs. Macy was easily persuaded, and they thereupon went up the walk. "I guess I'll go see if he's still asleep," Susan said when they reached the piazza, and Mrs. Macy forthwith sat down to await what might come of it.

Susan was absent but a few minutes; she returned with a fresh layer of disapproval upon her face.

"Is he still sleeping?" Mrs. Macy asked.

"Yes, he's still sleeping," Miss Clegg replied, jerking a chair forward for herself. "You'd know he was Jathrop Lathrop's child just by the way he sleeps. You remember what a one Jathrop always was for sleeping. I don't know as I remember Jathrop's ever being awake till he was fairly grown. Whatever you set him at always just made him more sleepy. You know yourself, Mrs. Macy, as he wouldn't be no grasshopper with Mrs. Lathrop for his mother, but a cocoon is a comet beside what Jathrop Lathrop always was. I don't know whether he's rich or not, but I do know that heathen Chinee is his son, and I know it just by the way he sleeps."

"And so Jathrop's rich," said Mrs. Macy, rocking agreeably to and fro, and evidently striving toward more pleasant conversation.

"Yes," said Susan darkly, "rich and with a Chinese wife somewhere. Just as often as I think of Jathrop Lathrop writing, 'How's Susan Clegg,' with a Chinese wife I feel more and more tempered, and I can't conceal my feelings. I never was one to conceal anything; if I had a Chinese wife the whole world might know it."

Just here Gran'ma Mullins hove in sight, coming slowly and laboriously up the street.

"Why, there's Gran'ma Mullins!" Mrs. Macy exclaimed. "She's surely coming to see you, too."

Both ladies remained silent, watching the progress of Gran'ma Mullins.

Gran'ma Mullins arrived a good deal out of breath. Susan brought a chair out of the house for her.

"I come to--tell you," panted the new visitor as soon as she had attained unto the chair, "that Jathrop's--things is--coming."

"What things?" asked Susan.

"They all come on--the ten o'clock--from the junction; Hiram is helping unload."

"What's he brought?" Susan asked.

"Well, he's brought an automobile," said Gran'ma Mullins, "and a lot of other trunks and boxes."

"An automobile!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy, "well, he _is_ rich then!"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Susan, "some very poor folks is riding that way nowadays."

"And he brought three trunks and seventeen big wooden boxes," continued Gran'ma Mullins, "big boxes."

"Three trunks and sev-en-teen--Three trunks and sev-en--" Susan's voice faded into nothingness.

"Goodness knows what's in them," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Hiram was getting so hot unloading that I wanted him to stop and let me fan him, but he wouldn't hear to it. Hiram's so brave. If he said he'd unload something, he'd unload it if he dropped dead under it and was smashed to nothing."

There was a pause of unlimited bewilderment while Mrs. Macy and Susan raised Jathrop upon the pedestal erected by his three trunks, seventeen boxes and the automobile.

"And to think of his having a Chinese wife," Susan exclaimed, the keen edge of sorrow cutting crossways through all her words.

It was just here that Mrs. Lupey now appeared, approaching at a good pace. Mrs. Lupey was a large, imposing woman and wore a silk dolman with fringe. It was immediately necessary for the party to adjourn to the sitting-room, as the piazza was strictly limited.

It was Mrs. Lupey who without loss of time did away with the Lathrop parentage of the young Chinese.

"Why, he's his servant, of course," she said in a lofty scorn. "I'm surprised you didn't know that by his age."

"I did think of his age," Susan said, "but I read once in some paper as the women in China get married when they're four years old, so you'd never be able to tell nothing by the age of no one there. Well, well, and so she isn't his wife, nor yet his son. Well, I'm glad--for Mrs. Lathrop's sake."

"But if Jathrop's really got a automobile and seventeen trunks, he _must_ be awful rich," said Mrs. Macy. "It'll be a great thing for this town if Jathrop's rich. He'd ought to be very grateful to the place where his happy childhood memories run around barefoot."

"Oh, he'll remember," said Gran'ma Mullins, "it's easy to remember when you've got the money to do it. But I hope to heaven he won't set Hiram off on that track again. Hiram does so want to go away and make a fortune; I'm worried for fear he will all the time. And Lucy wants him to, too. I can't understand a woman as wants a fortune worse than she wants Hiram. Lucy doesn't seem to want Hiram 'round at all any more. If he's asleep, she starts right in making the bed the same as if he wasn't in it, and if she's sewing, he don't dare go within the length of her thread.

"Life has come to a pretty pass when a wife'll run a needle into a husband just for the simple pleasure of feeling him go away when she sticks him." Gran'ma Mullins sighed.

"I wonder what they're doing now!" Mrs. Macy said.

All four turned at this and looked toward the Lathrop house together. It was quiet as usual.

"I d'n know as it changes my opinion of Jathrop much, that being his servant," said Miss Clegg suddenly. "It's kind of different, his handing his wife or his son over to me; but his heathen Chinee servant! I don't know as I'm very pleased."

"Pleased!" said Mrs. Lupey. "Why, in San Francisco they make 'em live underground like rats."

"Maybe that was why you dreamed he was a cat, Susan?" suggested Mrs. Macy, whose brain seemed to grasp at the subject under consideration with special illumination.

Susan rose. "I think you'd better go," she said abruptly, "I've got to get dinner. My mind's in no state to deal with all these sides of Jathrop and his Chinaman just now."

What the day brought up the street and in and around Mrs. Lathrop's house would take too long to catalogue. Suffice it to say that poor Mrs. Lathrop, who had been for long years the veriest zero in the life of the community, became suddenly its center and apex.

When Jathrop went to New York at the end of the week, he left his mother not only sitting, but rocking in the lap of luxury, with her head leaning back against more luxury and her feet braced firmly on yet more luxury. Even her friend over the way was rendered utterly content.

And the pleasantest part of it all was the way that it affected Susan Clegg. As Susan sat by Mrs. Lathrop and turned upon her that tender gaze which one old friend may turn on another old friend when the latter's son has suddenly bloomed forth golden, her full heart found utterance thus:

"Well, Mrs. Lathrop--well, Mrs. Lathrop, I guess no one will ever doubt anything again. Talk about dreams, _now_! I dreamed Jathrop was a cat, and the reason was that it's a well-known fact that cats _always_ come back. Why, Mrs. Macy told me once how she chloroformed a cat, and put it in a flour sack with a stone, and put the sack in a hogshead of water, and put the cover on the hogshead, and put a stone--another stone--on that, and went to church to hear the minister preach on 'Do unto others as you do unto others,' and when she came back, the cat was asleep on top of the hogshead, and Mrs. Macy got the worst shock she ever got. So you can easy see why I dreamed Jathrop was a cat; and he _did_ come back.

"I declare that'll always be the pleasantest recollection of my life, how I met him at the station and how we came chatting up the street together. How he has improved, Mrs. Lathrop--not but what he was always handsome! There was always something noble about Jathrop. Gran'ma Mullins said yesterday as he made her think of a man she saw in a play once as stood on his crossed legs in front of a fire and smoked. So careless.

"And then his bringing Mrs. Macy that polar-bear skin! Mrs. Macy says if there was one spot in the whole wide world where she never expected to set foot it was on top of a polar bear, and now she can stand on her head on one if the fancy takes her. I saw the minister when I was down in the square to-night, and he told me not to speak of it, but he thought a service of prayer for any stocks and mines as Jathrop has would be the only fitting form of gratitude which a reverent and affectionate congregation might offer to the great and glorious generosity of him who is going to give us a steeple after all these years of finishing flat at the top. Mr. Kimball came out to tell me to ask you if you'd like some one to come regularly for your order, and he says he'll keep caviare from now on, just on the chance of Jathrop's being here to eat it; he says why he didn't keep it before was he thought it was a kind of chamois skin.

"It's beautiful to see the faces down-town, Mrs. Lathrop; you never saw nothing like it. Everybody's just so happy. Hiram is grinning from ear to ear over being took to the Klondike, and everybody is swore to not let Gran'ma Mullins know he's going. He's going to climb out of the window at night and get away that way, and Gran'ma Mullins won't mind what she feels when he really does come back a millionaire, too. She'll be just like you, Mrs. Lathrop; no one minds anything once it's over. Little misunderstandings are easy forgot.

"And to think there's been a blue automobile puffing at these very kitchen steps! To think you and me was over to Meadville and back between dinner and supper one day! I guess Mrs. Lupey never got such a start. She'd been all the morning getting home on the train and was only just putting her bonnet away in its box when we rolled up. I never enjoyed nothing like that roll up in all my life! I never see automobiles from the automobile's side before, but now I can. When a automobile goes over a duck it makes all the difference in the world whether it's your automobile or your duck.

"And then Jathrop's generosity! Not but what he was always generous. Deacon White says he will say that for Jathrop, he was always generous. And look what he brought home. Every child in town is just about out of their senses. Felicia Hemans is crazy about the earrings, and 'Liza Em'ly won't never take off the bracelet. Mr. Shores can't keep the tears back when he looks at his watch charm. I think it was so kind of Jathrop. But Jathrop was always kind; you know yourself that a kinder creature never lived than Jathrop. I always said that for him.

"And then his having a new fence built around the cemetery. It was thoughtful, and Judge Fitch says nobody can't say more. But Judge Fitch says Jathrop was always thoughtful; he says he's been interested in him always just for that very reason. Judge Fitch says Jathrop's nature was always that deep kind that's easy overlooked. He says he'll have to confess to his shame that some of the time he overlooked him himself. He says it's very difficult to understand a deep nature, because if a deep nature don't make money, there's hardly any way of ever knowing that it really was deep; people just think you're a fool then--like we always thought Jathrop was. You know, nobody ever thought he ever could amount to nothing. You know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop. But making money lets you see just what a person's got in 'em and see it plain.

"I'm sure for all I've loved Jathrop as if he was going to be my own, for years and years and years, still I never credited him with being the man he is. I supposed he was a tramp somewhere--yes, I really did, Mrs. Lathrop, you may believe me or not, but that's just what I thought when I thought anything at all about him--which wasn't often.

"Everybody in the whole place is busy remembering pleasant things about him now. The minister's wife remembers his coming to a Christmas tree once a long time ago when they both was little; she says she hasn't thought of it in thirty years, but she remembers it as plain as day now,--he had on a coat and a little tie.

"And Gran'ma Mullins says she never will forget the day before he was born, for she went to town and dropped her little bead bag, and you know how much she thinks of her little bead bag now when the beads is all worn off, so you can think what store she set by it when the beads were still on, and so she was all back and forth along the road hunting for it the whole blessed afternoon, and when she found it and went home, she _was_ tired, and she slept late next morning because her husband was out very late the night before, and when he slept late she always slept late, 'cause she said sleeping late was almost the only treat he ever give her, and, anyhow, when they did wake up and get up and get out, there was Jathrop, and she says she shall never forget her joy over having found the bead bag again.

"Mrs. Macy says she remembers the day he hid, and you thought he was in the cistern, and you was kneeling down looking in when he jumped out from behind the stove and give you such a start you went in head first.

"I remember that day myself, too--father was insisting he was paralyzed then, and mother and me wouldn't take his word for it, and we fully expected he'd race over and help haul you out, but all he said was, 'She'll have to manage the best she can--I'm paralyzed,' and we really began to believe him from then on.

"The minister says he shall always remember how well he looked when he put on long trousers; the minister's preparing a little paper on Jathrop to read at the Sunday-school annual, and he says he shall begin with the day he put on long trousers and then mark his rise step by step. The minister's so pleased over Jathrop's patting Brunhilde Susan on the head; he says there are pats and pats, but that pat that Jathrop give Brunhilde Susan was what he calls, in pure and Biblical simplicity, _a_ pat."

Susan paused. Mrs. Lathrop just felt her diamond solitaires, glanced at the new kitchen range, and was silent.

"And then, Mrs. Lathrop, that dear blessed little Chinese angel--I tell you I shall never forget that boy. I liked his face when I first laid eyes on him, and when I thought he was Jathrop's lawful wife, I loved him as I'd loved even a Chinaman if he was your daughter; but when I saw him cleaning up my sink, polishing my pans, washing out my cupboards and all that, just the same as yours, _then_ was when I see that a heathen Chinee has just the same right to go to heaven that anybody else has, and from then on I just trusted him completely and let him do every bit of the work till he left.

"I see now why everybody's so happy being a missionary if you can just get away and live with the Chinee. I'd have kept that boy if Jathrop hadn't wanted him--I'd have been very glad to; and it's awful to think we're keeping quiet, lovable natures like his from settling here. A girl might do much worse than marry that Chinese--_very_ much worse. A very great deal worse. Though I suppose many would hesitate."

Mrs. Lathrop rose, went to the cupboard, took out a bottle of homemade gooseberry wine, poured out a little, and took a sip. She did not offer any to Susan.

"It'll do you good," said Susan encouragingly. "I don't like the taste myself, but it'll do you good. Besides, Mrs. Lathrop, you must begin to get used to it. When you go around with Jathrop in his private car, you'll have to drink wine, and if I was you, I'd stop tying a stocking around your neck nights, for you'll have to wear a very different cut of gowns soon. If Jathrop buys that yacht he's gone to look at, you'll have to wear a sailor blouse."

"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop faintly, "oh, Susan, I--" Miss Clegg put her hastily back into her chair.

"Never mind if it does make your head go 'round a little, Mrs. Lathrop; you must learn how. It may be hard, but it'll make Jathrop happy, and now he's come back rich, that's what everybody wants to do.

"Mrs. Brown says next time he comes she's going to make him a jet-black pound-cake, and Mrs. Allen says she's going to work him a pincushion. She says it'll be a plain, simple token of affection, but those whom Fortune smiles on soon learn to know the true worth of a simple gift of purest love. She says no one has ever known how she loved Jathrop, 'cause she kept it to herself for fear you'd think she was after him for Polly."

Mrs. Lathrop rocked dreamily.

Susan rose to go.

"Don't--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"I must," said Susan. "Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, think of his giving me those fifty shares of stock just on account of my long-suffering friendship for you. I declare he's a great character--that's all I can say.

"I always had a feeling he'd end in some unusual way; when they started to lynch him, I thought that was the way, but now I see that this was the way, and I thank heaven that I wasn't right the other time and am right this time. For human nature is human nature, Mrs. Lathrop, and people are always kinder to a woman whose son comes home from the Klondike a millionaire than they are if they had the bother of lynching him, no matter how much he may have deserved it."

Mrs. Lathrop continued to finger her solitaire earrings in happy silence. Miss Clegg, who never exhibited any tenderness toward anything, went over and arranged the fold-over of her friend's gold-embroidered, silk-quilted kimono.

"I'll be glad when your new hair gets here, Mrs. Lathrop," she said tenderly, "it'll make a different woman of you. It's astonishing what a little extra hair can do; I always feel that when I put on my wave.

"You and me will have to be getting used to all kinds of new things now. And that beautiful dream of mine letting us know he was coming. Mrs. Brown says Amelia says the Egyptians worshipped cats and used to pickle them when they died.

"It's astonishing how, if you know enough, you can see how any dream is full of meaning. There's Jathrop so fond of pickles, and you and me worshipping him. And he writing in every letter he has time to get somebody to write for him, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"

Mrs. Lathrop lapsed into beatific slumber. Susan Clegg went quietly home.

IV

SUSAN CLEGG AND THE OLIVE BRANCH

It was not in reason to suppose that the return of Jathrop Lathrop should continue to occupy wholly the attention of the community. Each week--even each day--brought its fresh interests. Not the least exciting of the provocative elements was borne back from the metropolis to which 'Liza Em'ly, that hitherto negatively regarded olive branch of the ministerial family, had but recently emigrated. 'Liza Em'ly, it was whispered one day, had written a book.

The Sewing Society, at its next meeting, discussed it, as a matter of course; and Susan Clegg, equally as a matter of course, promptly reported the proceedings to her friend and neighbor, Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well," she began, sitting down with the heavy thump of one who is completely and utterly overcome, "I give up. It's beyond me. I was to the Sewing Society, and it's beyond them all, too. The idea of 'Liza Em'ly's writing a book! No one can see how she ever come to think as she could write a book. No one can see where she got any ideas to put in a book. I don't know what any one thought she _would_ do when she set out for the city to earn her own living, but there wasn't a soul in town as expected her to do it, let alone writing a book, too. I can't see whatever gives any one the idea of earning their living by writing books. Books always seem so sort of unnecessary to me, anyway--I ain't read one myself in years. No one in this community ever does read, and that's what makes everybody so surprised over 'Liza Em'ly, after living among us so long and so steady, starting up all of a sudden and doing anything like this. And what makes it all the more surprising is she never said a word about it either--never wrote home to the family or told a living soul. And so you can maybe imagine the shock to the minister when he got word as his own flesh and blood daughter had not only written a book but got it all printed without consulting him. His wife says he was completely done up and could hardly speak for quite a little while, and later when the newspaper clippings begin to come, he had to go to bed and have a salt-water cloth over his eyes. I tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, the minister is a very sensitive nature; it's no light thing to a sensitive nature to get a shock like a daughter's writing a book."

"Is--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, I should say that it was," said Miss Clegg. "I should say that it was. And not only is it being advertised, but people are buying it just like mad, the papers say. The minister is still more upset over that; seems the responsibilities of even being connected with books nowadays is no light thing. There was that man as was shot for what he wrote in a book the other day, you know, and the minister's wife says as the minister is most nervous over what may be in the book; she says he says very few books as everybody is reading ought to be read, and he knows what he's talking about, for he's a great reader himself. Why, his wife says he's got books hid all over the house, and she says--speaking confidentially--as he says most of 'em he's really very sorry he's read--after he's finished 'em. She says--he says he'll know no peace night or day now until he's read 'Liza Em'ly's book. I guess it's no wonder that he's nervous. 'Liza Em'ly's been a handful for years, and since she fell in love with Elijah, there's been just no managing her a _tall_. If Elijah'd loved her, of course it would have been different, but Elijah wasn't a energetic nature, and 'Liza Em'ly was, and when a energetic nature loves a man like Elijah, there's just no knowing where they will end up. I never see why Elijah didn't love 'Liza Em'ly, but her grandmother's nose has always been against her, and he told me himself as it was all he could think of when he sat quietly down to think about her. But all that's neither here nor there, for it's a far cry from a girl's nose to her brains nowadays, thank heavens, and 'Liza Em'ly's got something to balance her now. Polly White has sent for one of the books. She says she'll lend it around, no matter what's in it. Polly says there's one good thing in getting married, and that is it makes you a married woman, and being a married woman lets you read all kinds of books. I guess Polly's been a great reader since she was married. She's meant to get some good out of that situation, and she's done it. The deacon isn't so badly off, either. I wouldn't say that he's glad he's married all the time, but I guess some of the time he don't mind, and it's about all married people ask if only some of the time they can feel to not be sorry. A little let-up is a great relief."

"You--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, I know," said Miss Clegg, "but I pick up a good deal from others, and there's a feeling as married women have when they talk to a woman as they suppose can't possibly know anything just 'cause she never got into any of their troubles, as makes them show forth the truth very plainly. I won't say as married women strike me more and more as fools, for it wouldn't be kindly, but I will say as the way they revel in being married and saying how hard it is, kind of strikes me as amusing. _I_ wouldn't go into a store and buy a dress and then, when every one knew as I picked it out myself, keep running around telling how it didn't fit and was tearing out in all the seams--but that's about what most of this marriage talk comes to. I do wonder what 'Liza Em'ly has said about marriage in _Deacon Tooker Talks_. That's a very funny name for a book, I think myself, but that's what she's named it. And as it seems to be about most everything, I suppose it must be about marriage, too. Of course 'Liza Em'ly's so wild to marry Elijah that everybody knows that that was what took her up to town. She didn't want to earn her living any more than any girl does. Nobody ever really aches to earn their living. But some has to, and some wants to be around with men, and there ain't no better way to be around with men nowadays than to go to work with 'em. You have 'em all day long then, and pretty soon you have 'em all the time. 'Liza Em'ly wants to have Elijah all the time."

"What--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Oh, she says she thinks they're so congenial; she told me herself as Elijah 'understood.' It seems to be a great thing to understand nowadays. It's another of those things we used to take for granted but which is now got new and uncommon and most remarkable. She told me when she and Elijah watched the sun setting together, they both understood, and she seemed to feel that that was a safe basis on which to set out for town and start in to earn her own living. The minister didn't want her to go. He was very much against it. It cost such a lot, too. The minister's wife said it would have been ever so much cheaper to fix a girl to get married. You can get married with six pairs of new stockings, the minister's wife says, and it takes a whole dozen with the heels run to earn your living. The minister's wife was very confidential with me about it all, and 'Liza Em'ly confided considerably in me, too. They both knew I'd never tell. Every one always confides in me because they know I never tell. Why, the things folks in this community have told me! Well!--But I _never_ tell. The real reason I never tell is because they always tell every one themselves before I can get around, but then a confiding nature is always telling its affairs, and so you can't really blame 'em. I never tell my own affairs, because I've learned as affairs is like love letters, and if they're interesting enough, it is very risky. But really, Mrs. Lathrop, I must be going now, and as soon as I get hold of that book, I'll be over with my opinion. _Deacon Tooker Talks!_ My, but that is a funny name for a book! I can't see myself what kind of a book it can possibly be with that title--but anyway, we shall soon know now."

"Yes, we--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, indeed," said Susan, and the seance broke up for that day.

It was resumed the day after, and the day after that, but no further progress having been made in the development of 'Liza Em'ly's affairs, that interesting topic remained in abeyance until after the next meeting of the Sewing Society, when the subject was put forward with emphasis.

"You never hear the beat," said the lady who nearly always went to the Sewing Society to the lady who hadn't been there for years; "this book of 'Liza Em'ly's seems to be something just beyond belief. Polly read it all aloud to us to-day, and I must say it's a _most_ astonishing book. I will tell you in confidence, Mrs. Lathrop, as I ain't surprised that the minister hid his copy and that the newspapers is all printing things about it. Seems it's a man in bed talking to his wife who is asleep most of the time, only he don't pay the slightest attention to her not paying the slightest attention. Polly had the name right, it is _Deacon Tooker Talks_ (which is a _most_ singular name to my order of thinking). The cover has got a picture of the deacon's head on a pillow talking, and you can think how the minister would feel over his daughter's book's cover having a pillow on it! I walked home with Mrs. Fisher, and she will have it that 'Liza Em'ly's put her father into the book, soul and body. There's a man called Mr. Lexicon as is a lawyer in the book, and Mrs. Fisher says it's the minister. I wouldn't swear as it wasn't the minister myself, but I hate to believe it, for a girl as'll put her father in a book would be equal to most anything, I should suppose. But Mrs. Fisher's sure it's the minister; she says she knew him right off by his ear-muffs. Only 'Liza Em'ly has disguised the ear-muffs by calling them overshoes. Mr. Lexicon has always got on his overshoes. Mrs. Fisher waited until we got away from all the rest, and then she showed me a review from a New York paper that just took my breath away. It says no such book has appeared before a welcoming public in two hundred and fifty years, and she's going to write the paper and ask what the book two hundred and fifty years ago was about. Mrs. Fisher says she's thinking very seriously of writing a book herself. She says she's always wanted to write a book, and now she thinks she'll go up to town and see 'Liza Em'ly and ask her about their writing a book together. She says she'll furnish all the story, and 'Liza Em'ly can write the book. Then they'll divide the money even. And there'll be money to divide, too, for 'Liza Em'ly's book is surely selling. Mrs. Macy come up after Mrs. Fisher went home, and she had a piece out of another newspaper that Mrs. Lupey sent her, saying the book was in its ninth edition already. She had it with her at the Sewing Society, but she didn't bring it out, out of consideration for the feelings of the minister's wife. Mrs. Macy says she thinks she'll write a book, too. She's got the same idea as Mrs. Fisher about writing it with 'Liza Em'ly, only she says she'll let 'Liza Em'ly use some of her own ideas mixed in with Mrs. Macy's ideas, and she can have two thirds of the money. She says it can't be hard to write a book, or 'Liza Em'ly couldn't never have done it, but she says 'Liza Em'ly has got the Fishers in her book, and she's surprised Mrs. Fisher didn't recognize 'em at the Sewing Society. 'Liza Em'ly calls 'em the Hunters. Fishers, hunters--you see! An' John Bunyan she calls Martin Luther, an' in place of being a genius, she covered that all up by making him a painter. Laws, Mrs. Macy says writing a book's easy. She says that book of 'Liza Em'ly's is really too flat for words, and what makes people buy it, she can't see. Well, I shan't buy a copy, I know _that_. I ain't knowed 'Liza Em'ly all my life to go doing things like that now."

With which very common view as to the works produced by our intimate friends, Miss Clegg rose to take her departure.

"Did--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop, when they next met.

"No--I asked, but not a soul knew. We haven't got _any_ man in town as it could _possibly_ be. They was all discussing it, too. Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher is really going to town to see 'Liza Em'ly and take up their ideas to talk over. Mrs. Macy is putting her ideas down on a piece of paper, so as to be sure she has 'em with her. Mrs. Fisher's keeping hers in her head, for she says if she lost them, anybody might write her book. They think they'll go Tuesday. I hope they will, 'cause if they do, they'll come straight from the train and tell me, and then I'll come straight over and tell you."

With which amicable arrangement Miss Clegg again took her departure.

It was quite two weeks before affairs shaped themselves for Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher to go to the city on their literary errand, but they managed it at last, and you may be very sure that Mrs. Lathrop peeked eagerly and earnestly out of her window many times the afternoon after their journey. They came up to call upon Miss Clegg and narrate their adventures quite according to their usual friendly ideals, and directly they took their leave that good lady hied herself rapidly to Mrs. Lathrop to tell the tale.

Mrs. Lathrop met her at the door and both sank into chairs immediately.

"Well, what--" said the older lady then, and her younger friend rejoined promptly:

"Perfectly dumfounding; nothing like it was ever knowed before or ever will be again."

"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"They're both completely paralyzed. Mrs. Fisher can't say a word, and Mrs. Macy can't keep still."

"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop again.

Miss Clegg drew a sharp breath. "They went to see 'Liza Em'ly, an' they saw her. My goodness heavens, I should think they did see her. Mrs. Macy says if any one ever supposed as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was any wonder, they'd ought to go to the city an' see 'Liza Em'ly, and the Hanging Gardens would keep their mouths shut forever after."

"Wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop for the third time.

But Miss Clegg was now quite ready to discharge her full duty. "Seems 'Liza Em'ly's book went into the twentieth edition yesterday," she said, opening her eyes and mouth with great expressiveness. "They knew that before they got there, for you can believe Mrs. Macy or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but there were actually signboards saying so stuck up all along in the fields as the train went by. The train-boy had the books for sale on the train, too, and kept dropping 'em on top of 'em all the way, but they didn't mind that, for Mrs. Fisher read her book as fast as she could until he picked it up again, and she read to good purpose, for this afternoon she asked for a glass of water, and while I was out with her in the kitchen getting it, she told me there isn't a mite of doubt but Mrs. Macy is in the book, and Doctor Carter of Meadville is in right along with her. Mrs. Fisher says 'Liza Em'ly has called her Miss Grace and him Doctor Wagner of Lemonadetown, but she says she knew 'em instantly by the description of how they was in love; she says you'd recognize how they was in love right off. I must say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I think 'Liza Em'ly ought to be very careful what she writes about real people if you can tell 'em as quick as that; but anyway, they got to town and took a street car, and then, lo and behold, if their first little surprise wasn't the finding as 'Liza Em'ly has stopped living where she lives and gone to live in a hotel, so they had to go to the hotel, too, and when they got there, what do you think?--If 'Liza Em'ly wasn't giving a reception to celebrate the twentieth edition!"

"Wh--?" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, indeed," continued Miss Clegg, "certainly--yes, I should say so, too. If they didn't get a fine shock over 'Liza Em'ly and her hotel and her reception and the whole thing, Mrs. Macy says she'll never know what a shock is when she sees it. Seems they was shoved into one end of a elevator without so much as by your leave and out the other end before they'd caught their breath, and then they found themselves in a room with flowers all tied up in banners, and Elijah, with his hair parted in the middle, passing cups of tea which a lady, with her muff on her head, was pouring out, while 'Liza Em'ly sat on a table swinging her feet in shoes she never bought in _this_ town, Mrs. Macy'll take her Bible oath, and a dress that trained on the floor even from the table."

"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Oh, that isn't anything," said Susan, "just you wait. Well, and so Mrs. Macy says you can maybe imagine their feelings when they found their two perfectly respectable and well brought up selves in the middle of such a kind of a party! One man and one girl was under the piano playing cat's cradle, while another man was doing a sum on the wallpaper with a hatpin. Mrs. Macy says she wouldn't have been surprised at nothing after that, you'd think, but she says when it comes to 'Liza Em'ly nowadays, you don't know even what you're thinkin', for you'd suppose 'Liza Em'ly would at least have looked ashamed of her feet and her train. Instead of that, she just clapped her hands and said, 'Hello, home-folks,' which nearly sent Mrs. Fisher over backwards. Elijah saw them then, and _he_ had the good manners to drop a teacup, but even he didn't look anywhere near as used up as in Mrs. Macy's opinion a man away from business with his hair parted in the middle in the middle of the afternoon had ought to look. He gave them chairs though, and they set down between a young lady as was smoking a cigarette and another as was very carefully powdering herself in a little mirror set in her pocketbook. Just then there was a noise like a awful crash and a hailstorm, and after they'd both jumped and Mrs. Macy come near dislocating her hip, they see that a man was beginning on the piano. Well, Mrs. Macy says _such_ piano-playing her one hope is as she may be going to be spared hereafter; she says he'd skitter up the piano with both hands, and then he'd bang his way back to where he belonged, and every time he hit the very bottom, he'd give his head a flop and jerk down another lot of hair over his eyes. Mrs. Macy says she never see a man with so much loose hair where he could manage it, for he kept getting down more and more till he looked like a cocoanut and nothing else, so help Mrs. Macy, and then, when he was completely hid, he hit the piano four cracks and folded his arms and was done."

"Mercy on--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"I should say so," continued Miss Clegg, "and Mrs. Macy says everybody clapped like mad, and then 'Liza Em'ly come to earth and went and threw her arms around his neck, which to Mrs. Macy's order of thinking, didn't look much like she was going to marry Elijah. And then, before they could shake hands or say good-by or do a thing, a boy came in with a lot of telegrams on a tray, and while 'Liza Em'ly was fixing half a spectacle in one eye to read 'em, a young lady dressed in snakeskins, and very little else, jumped into the room right over the backs of their two chairs in a most totally unlooked-for way, and then began to spin about and wriggle here and there and in and out generally, and Mrs. Fisher got up and said they really must go, and Elijah showed 'em to the door with the lady in snakeskins making figure eights around them all three and 'Liza Em'ly throwing a rose at them and kissing her hand till somehow they got into the hall. They walked down flights of stairs then till they thought there never would be a bottom anywhere, and then they looked at each other, and after a while they got where they could speak, and then they came home."

"Well, wha--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Me, too," said Susan, "I think it's _awful_! And the worst of it is for her to be the minister's daughter. Think of it! They bought a paper as had her picture on it and a account of the reception as they'd just been at. It said Herr Schnitzel Beerstein played, so they know his name now, and Madame Kalouka S-k-z-o-h danced, so when it comes to her name, they ain't much better off than they were before. Wherever they looked they see posters of _Deacon Tooker Talks_, and people in the cars was all discussing the book. Two ministers is going to take it for a text to-morrow, and the candy stores has all got little candy boxes like beds with a chocolate drop for Deacon Tooker and a gum-drop for his wife."

"Well, wha--" began Mrs. Lathrop.