Part 2 (2/2)

”But did he tell you about his wife?” she broke in desperately. ”That's what I want to know.”

Mrs. Lathrop, who was mixing b.u.t.ter and sugar together in a yellow bowl, stopped suddenly and stared.

”His wife!” she said blankly.

”Yes, his wife,” repeated Susan.

”The wife he brought back with him,” explained Mrs. Macy.

”The wife he--” Mrs. Lathrop pushed the yellow bowl a little back on the table and rested her hands on the edge. They trembled visibly; ”the wife he--” she repeated.

”Surely you know that he brought his wife back with him?” said Mrs.

Macy. ”Surely he's told you?”

Mrs. Lathrop--turned her usual dumb self again--looked at Mrs. Macy with almost unseeing eyes.

”I--” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed faintly, ”no, he--”

”Now, you see,” exclaimed Susan, half to the friend and half to the stricken mother, ”it don't make any difference what a man turns into outside, he stays just the same inside. What have I always said to you, Mrs. Lathrop? You can't make no kind of a purse out of ears like Jathrop's. Jathrop Lathrop could turn into fifty millionaires, and he'd still be Jathrop Lathrop. He can hang all the angels he pleases and water all the horses from here to Meadville, and still he never could be any other man but just himself. And being himself, he never by no manner of means could be frank and open. He was always one that held things back. You thought it was because he didn't have no brains, but you was his mother and naturally looked on the best side of him. But he never deceived me, Mrs. Lathrop; I saw through Jathrop right from the start.

There was a foxiness about Jathrop as n.o.body never fully saw into but me. That was my reason for never marrying him--one of my many reasons, for his foxiness hasn't been the only thing about Jathrop that I've seen through. I never was one to soften the blows to a tempered lamb, so I will say that so many reasons for not loving a man as I've seen in Jathrop I never see in any other man yet. But none of my reasons for not marrying him has ever equalled this new reason as has cropped up now in his bringing home a wife. When a man comes home with a wife, then you do see through him for good and all, and when Jathrop come scrambling out from between those two cars this morning with a heathen Chinee at his heels--”

Mrs. Lathrop screamed loudly. ”A--”

”Heathen Chinee,” repeated Susan.

”You know what a Chinee is, don't you?” interposed Mrs. Macy; ”they're from China, you know.”

Mrs. Lathrop retreated to her rocker with a totter.

”Yes, she's a heathen Chinee,” said Susan, with unfailing firmness, ”the kindest heart in the world couldn't mistake her for anything even as high up as a n.i.g.g.e.r. Her eyes cross just under her nose, and she's got her hair wound round her head with a piece of black tape to hold it on.

She wears divided skirts as is most plainly divided, and not a gore has she got to her name or her figure. She _is_ a Chinese and no mistake, and you may believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but Jathrop without a so much as by-your-leave dumped her onto me for breakfast, and she's asleep on father's floor now.”

”On your--” gasped Mrs. Lathrop.

”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.

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