Part 12 (1/2)

”Do they doubt--?” cried Mrs. Lathrop, quite excited--for her.

”Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men don't take nothing for granted. They've decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy, and there's Mrs. Macy gone away to, heaven knows where.”

”Well, Susan,” said Gran'ma Mullins, ”we must look on the bright side.

Mrs. Macy'll have something to talk about as'll always interest everybody if she does come back, and if she don't come back, we'll always have her to remember.”

”Yes, and if we don't get our houses unstuck pretty soon, we'll remember her a long while,” said Susan darkly.

Three days pa.s.sed by and no word was heard from Mrs. Macy. As soon as the telegraph a.s.sumed its usual route, messages were sent all about in the direction whither she had flown, but not a trace of her was discovered by any one. The town was very much wrought up, for although its members were given to having strange experiences, no experience so strange as this had ever happened there before. The exasperation of being barred out of house and home until Mrs. Macy should be found, naturally heightened the interest. Everybody had had just time to add the magic word ”cyclone” to their policies before the cyclone came ”damaging along”--as Susan Clegg expressed it. Susan was much perturbed.

”Well, Mrs. Lathrop,”--she said on the afternoon of the third day, as she came into the hotel room where the mother of the millionaire was now equal to her usual vigorous exercise in her old-gold-plush stationary rocker. ”Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you may well be grateful as Jathrop has got money enough for us to be living here, for the living of the community is getting to be no living a _tall_.”

Gran'ma Mullins, still in bed, turned herself about and manifested a vivid interest, ”Well, Susan,” she said, ”it's three days now; how long is this going to keep up?”

”It can't keep up very much longer, or we'll have a new French Revolution, that's what we'll have,” said Susan. ”Why, the community is getting where it won't stand even being said good morning to pleasantly.

The children is running all over, pulling each other's hair, and Deacon White says he's going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pa.s.s when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol, for he's just as afraid of one end as the other. But it's a straw as shows which way the cyclone blew his house.”

”But isn't something--?”

”Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the door of the insurance men's room this morning, and they fell in a heap when they started out; and some one as n.o.body can locate poured a pitcher of ice water through the ventilator as is over their bed. Seeing that public feeling is on the rise, they sent right after breakfast for the appraisers, and they're going to begin appraising and un-sealing to-morrow morning. They've entirely give up the idea of waiting for Mrs. Macy. The town just won't stand for any more hanging around waiting for nothing. I never see us so before. Every one is so upset and divided in their feelings that some think we'd ought to horsewhip the insurance men, and some think we'd ought to hold a burial service for Mrs. Macy.”

”I wouldn't see any good in holding a service for Mrs. Macy,” said Gran'ma Mullins. ”She wouldn't have been buried here if she was dead; she was always planning to go to Meadville when she was dead.”

”Yes,” said Susan, ”I know. Because Mrs. Lupey's got that nice lot with that nice mausoleum as she bought from the Pennybackers when they got rich and moved even their great-grandfather to the city.”

”I remember the Pennybackers,” said Gran'ma Mullins. ”Old man Pennybacker used to drive a cart for rags. It was a great day for the Pennybackers when Joe went into the p.a.w.nbroker business.”

”Yes,” said Susan, ”it's wonderful how rich men manage to get on when they're young. Seems as if there's just no way to crowd a millionaire out of business or kill him off. I'm always reading what they went through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a thing as when it's going to be is going to be, and you've just got to let 'em do it once they get started.”

”It was a nice mausoleum,” said Gran'ma Mullins. ”Mrs. Macy has told me about it a hundred times. It's so big, Mrs. Lupey says, she can live up to her hospitable nature at last, for there's room for all and to spare.

Mrs. Macy was the first person she asked. Mrs. Macy thought that was very kind of just a cousin. There's only Mrs. Kitts there, now, and Mrs.

Lupey's aunt, Mrs. Cogetts.”

”Mrs. Macy didn't know she had a aunt,” said Susan. ”Mrs. Cogetts came way from Jacoma just on account of the mausoleum. That's a long ways to come just to save paying for a lot where you are, seems to me; but some natures'll go to any lengths to save money.”

”I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now,” said Gran'ma Mullins, with a sigh.

”n.o.body knows. A good many is decided that it's surely a clear case of Elijah, only n.o.body pretends to believe in the Bible so much as to think that she can go up and stay there. Mrs. Macy'd have to come down, and the higher she went the more heaven help her when she does come down.

Mrs. Macy was very solid, as we all know who've heard her sit down or seen her get up, and I can't see no happy ending ahead, even though we all wish her well. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure; but even insurance men can't have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view is as it's no use worrying. Spilt milk's a poor thing to cook with. If you're in the fire, you ain't in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is this community, as is all locked out of their houses. The Browns is living in the cellar to the cowshed, with two lengths of sidewalk laid over them. Mrs. Brown says she feels like a Pilgrim Father, and she sees why they got killed off so fast by the Indians,--it was so much easier to be scalped than to do your hair. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change regular, for whoever turns over spills out, and the other one is sitting looking at the moon and waiting all ready to get in.”

”I declare, Susan,” said Gran'ma Mullins warmly, ”I think it's most shocking. I won't say outrageous, but I will say shocking.”

”But what are you going to do about it?” said Susan. ”That's the rub in this country. There's plenty as is shocking, but here we sit at the mercy of any cyclone or Congress as comes along. Here we was, peaceful, happy, and loving, and a cyclone swishes through. Down comes half a dozen men from the city and seals up everything in town. I tell you you ought to have heard me when they was sealing up your house and Mrs.

Macy's. I give it to 'em, and I didn't mince matters none. I spoke my whole mind, and it was a great satisfaction, but they went right on and sealed up the houses.”

”Oh, Susan,” began Mrs. Lathrop, ”how are--?”