Part 9 (1/2)

”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 pa.s.sing 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.

”Yes, I didn't look no more. I was suited, so I didn't see no use in further fussing. I shall tell Gran'ma Mullins to-night and go there to-morrow. And I may in confidence remark as no howling oasis in a desert ever howled for joy the way I'll feel like howling when I get my trunk on a wheelbarrow again. I've spoke for the wheelbarrow at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, so I'll be over at Lucy's and settled before you wake up, Mrs. Lathrop.”

The next day Susan went, and, surprising as it may seem, Gran'ma Mullins was singularly content over her going.

”I don't want to make no trouble between friends,” said Gran'ma Mullins, clambering up Mrs. Macy's steps to sit with Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Lathrop.

”But really, Susan is become most changed since her house is begun to be built over. I wouldn't hardly have known her. I wouldn't say stuck-up and I wouldn't say airy, but I will say as she's most changed. I wouldn't say rude, neither, but I didn't consider it exactly friendly to always either pull her breath in long and loud or else let it out short and sharp whenever I mentioned Hiram. Hiram is my only legal and natural child, and with him in the Klondike, and my heart aching and quaking and breaking for fear the ice'll thaw and let him through into some unexpected volcano all of a sudden, how can I but mention him? You know what Hiram is to me, Mrs. Macy. We haven't lived in these two houses for forty years without your knowing what Hiram is to me. You remember him as a baby, Mrs. Macy, but you don't, Mrs. Lathrop, so I'll tell you what Hiram was as a baby. Hiram was a most remarkable--”

When Mrs. Lathrop saw Susan Clegg again, Miss Clegg was looking far from happy.

”Are you--?” enquired Mrs. Lathrop.

”Well, I d'n know,” came the answer more than a little dubiously. Then: ”Seeing that I am always frank and open with you, Mrs. Lathrop, I may as well say plainly as I ain't. Very far from it. I never knew when I went to live with Lucy as Judge Fitch has got a dog as barks. He ain't no ordinary dog--he's a most uncommon dog. He only barks when it's moonlight, or when he hears something, and I must say he's got the sharpest ears I ever see. But it isn't his barking that's so bad, as it is that whenever he barks, Lucy gets right up to see whether it's Hiram come back. It seems the reason Lucy took me to board is she hates to go around the house alone nights with the dog and a candle. That's a pretty thing for me to never mistrust till I got there with my trunk. I must say I don't blame Lucy for not liking to go around alone, for the dog smells your heels all the time, and if he was in the Klondike with Hiram his nose couldn't be colder. But all the same I think she ought to of told me. For whatever it may be to others, a cold nose is certainly most new to my heels. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, we was out hunting with our dog three times last night, and Lucy says often enough he gets her up nine and ten times. Lucy's so nervous for fear Hiram'll come back that she can't possibly sleep if she thinks there's a chance of it. She says if Hiram's come back, she wants to know it right off. She says that's her nature. If she's got to have a tooth out, she wants it out at once. She says she never was one to shrink from nothing. And the dog's prompt, too. He's quite of the same mind as Lucy. He gives one bark, and then he don't dilly-dally none. He gets right up, and by the time he's got to Lucy, Lucy's got up too, and they both come racing up-stairs for me to join 'em. My door don't lock, so the dog's licking my face before I know where I am. And then, before I know much more where I am, we're all three capering down-stairs together again. Then we take the whole house carefully around and listen at every door and window, with the dog smelling while we listen. Then, when we know for sure as it ain't Hiram, the dog scrambles back into his basket, and Lucy tucks him up, and she and I go back to bed alone and untucked. That's a pretty kettle of fish.

And you can believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I never had no notion of having my heels smelled by a cold dog's nose three times, and maybe nine, a night when I went to live at Judge Fitch's, and if it keeps on, I shall just leave. Lucy's got no lease on me, and although I'm sorry for her, I ain't anywhere near sorry enough for her to be woke up to p.u.s.s.y-cornering all over the premises with a dog the livelong night through. As between having Gran'ma Mullins sitting on my feet wailing over Hiram, and Lucy's dog smelling of my heels while we hunt for Hiram, I think I'd rather have Gran'ma Mullins.

I was warm and comfortable and laid out flat at Gran'ma Mullins, but I'm goodness knows what at Lucy's. And I do hate having my face licked. I don't like it. I never was used to such things, and I can't begin now.”

”What will--?” asked Mrs. Lathrop.

”I shall look up another nice place to live,” said Miss Clegg, ”and I shall take a leaf out of the dog's book and be prompt about it, too.

I've spoke for the wheelbarrow to-morrow at ten o'clock, and I shall move then, whether or no.”

Susan, again on the lookout for a new abiding place, discovered a most attractive proposition in Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Allen and her husband lived alone, were neat and well-fed, and kept no dog.

”I'll never go where there's a dog again, I know that,” said Susan.

”Why, Mrs. Lathrop, if I was in a blizzard in Switzerland and fifty of those little beer-keg dogs they've got there came scurrying up to rescue me, I wouldn't get up and let 'em have the joy of seeing me obliged. I won't ever get up for no dog again in my life, I know that. And I know it for keeps. And there's a bolt on my side of my door at Mrs. Allen's.

I've looked to that, too; and no one is to wake me nights; I've looked to that. I told Mrs. Allen all the story of what I'd suffered, and she said she'd see as I had peace in her house. She told me that I'd suffered because I needed to suffer, but now I was to have peace, and I'd have it with her. I didn't bother to ask what she meant, for I guess if she's got any secret thorn, I'll find it out quick enough, anyhow.

And if it's anything that wakes me up nights, my present feeling is as I won't be well able to bear it. Well, the wheelbarrow is set for ten o'clock, and so I must go, and when I see you, I'll know what's wrong with Mrs. Allen, and the Lord help me if it's something as makes me have to move again. That's all I can say.”

Susan did not visit her old friend directly after her third change of residence. Two whole days pa.s.sed by, and Mrs. Lathrop was openly troubled.

”Don't you worry,” said Gran'ma Mullins soothingly. ”There's nothing the matter with her, because I see her in the square this very morning. But she looked at me odd and went down a side street. I'm sure I hope Susan's not losing her mind.”

”Oh, wouldn't that be awful!” exclaimed Mrs. Macy with real sympathy.

”We'd have to appoint a commission to catch her and sit on her, and then if she was put in the insane asylum, I guess Susan Clegg would be mad.”

”Oh, Susan wouldn't like that a bit,” said Gran'ma Mullins meditatively.

”They make little cups and saucers out of beads. I know, because Hiram had one once. And they read books with the letters all punched out at you.”

”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,”