Susan Clegg and a Man in the House Part 13

"Mr. Sper--"

"No, Henry Ward Beecher. It's always struck me as a very strange thing as we had n't got one single idiot in this community an' I guess the real truth is as we've had one all the time an' did n't know him by sight. There's a idiot most everywhere till he gets the idea into his head to kill some one an' so gives others the idea as he's safer shut up, an' so it ain't surprisin' our havin' one too. I see Mrs. Brown on my way home an' I asked her if she did n't think as I was right. She said she would n't be surprised if it was true, an' it was very odd as she'd never thought o' it before, recollectin' her experience with him years ago when she had him that time as the minister went to the Sperrits' on his vacation. She went on to say then as to her order o'

thinkin' Mr. an' Mrs. Sperrit come pretty close to bein' idiots themselves, for she says she don't know she's sure what ails 'em but they've been married years now an' is still goin' round as beamin' as two full moons. She says it ain't anythin' to talk of in public but actually to see 'em drivin' back from market sometimes most makes her wish as she was n't a widow, an' she says anythin' as'd make her sorry she's a widow had n't ought to be goin' round loose in a Christian town.

She was very much in earnest an' Mrs. Fisher overtook us just then an'

she said it all over again to her an' she said more, too--she said as the way she looks at him in church is all right an' really nothin' but a joy to look on afore marriage, but she don't consider it hardly decent afterwards for it's deludin' an' can't possibly be meant in earnest. She says she was married, an' her son is married, an' her father was married, too, an' you can't tell her that the way Mr. an' Mrs. Sperrit go on isn't suthin' pretty close to idiocy even if it ain't the whole thing."

"You--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Mrs. Fisher said," continued Susan, "as she thought maybe she got used to lookin' pleasant at him in all them years as she kept house for him afore he made up his mind to get married to her, an' so the habit kind of is on her an' what's dyed in the wool keeps on stickin' to Mr.

Sperrit. She said as they do say as he married her 'cause he wanted her bedroom to hang up corn to dry in. She went on to say as for her part she always enjoyed seein' the Sperrits so happy for it done any one good to only look at 'em an' that she'd only be too happy to be a idiot herself if it'd do any human bein' good to look at her an' Mr. Fisher afterwards. She went on to say as she'd heard as the other night Mr.

Sperrit drove two miles back in the rain 'cause he'd forgot a cake o'

sapolio as she'd asked him to bring. I spoke up at that an' I said I did n't see nothin' very surprisin' in that, for I know if I asked any man as I was married to to bring home a cake o' sapolio I should most surely look to see the cake when he come home."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"I know; but you always spoiled him," said Susan. "Well, what was I sayin'? Oh, yes, Mrs. Brown said as Mrs. Macy was tellin' her the other day as they've got a idiot in Meadville--a real hereditary one; the doctors have all studied him an' it's a clear case right down from his great-grandfather."

"His great--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Grandfather," said Susan. "Yes, Mrs. Lathrop, that is how it was, an'

Mrs. Macy says it's really so, for she see the tombstones all but the mother's--hers ain't done yet. Seems the idiocy come from the great-grandfather's stoppin' on the train crossin' to pick up a frog 'cause he was runnin' for suthin' in connection with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."

"The frog!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, the great-grandfather. Seems he never stopped to consider as what'd kill a frog would be sure to hit him, an' Mrs. Macy says the doctors said as that was one very strong piece o' evidence against the family brains right at the start, but she says he really was smarter than they thought, for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals paid for the funeral an' for the grandmother's, too."

"The grand--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"--Mother's," said Susan. "Yes, seems the railway track was their back fence an' she'd always begged an' prayed him at the top o' her voice not to go to town that way, but he would n't listen 'cause he was stone-deaf an' then besides like all that kind he always pretended not to hear what he did n't want to. But anyhow she was in the garden an' she see the train an' she tried to get to him, an' whether she broke a blood vessel yellin' or contracted heart disease hoppin' up an' down, anyway she fell over right then an' there an' it would have been copied in all the newspapers all over the country even if the mother--"

"The moth--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Er," said Susan. "Yes, seems she heard the yell an' run to the window so quick she knocked the stick out as held it up an' it come down on her head. So, you see the idiocy come right straight down in the family of the idiot for three generations afore him."

"I ain't sure," said Mrs. Lathrop, thoughtfully.

"I ain't either," said Susan; "Mrs. Macy says, she was n't either. No one in Meadville never was."

"An' yet--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Oh, as to that," said Susan, "that's altogether another kind o' idiot.

Henry Ward Beecher won't die of his love even if Emma won't have him, an' they'll both always be the better an' happier for not havin' one another, if they only knew it. It's mighty easy to love folks an' think how happy you'd always be with 'em as long as you don't marry 'em. It's marryin' 'em an' livin' in the house with 'em as shows you how hard it is to be really married. I thank Heaven I'm only livin' in the house with Elijah an' not married to him, so I can see my way ahead to gettin'

rid of him in a little while now. You don't know how I ache to draw the curtains of his room an' pin up the bed an' pour the water out of his pitcher an' set a mouse trap in there an' just know it is n't goin' to be mussed up again."

Susan sighed deeply.

"How long--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"I said three months," said Miss Clegg, "an' that takes it over the Fourth of July. My heavens alive, seems some days as if I could n't but just live, an' the meanest thing about a man is, he's so dead sure as he makes you happy, bein' around the house."

CHAPTER XVII

AN OLD-FASHIONED FOURTH

"Well, Elijah seems to have hit the nail on its foot instead of its head this time," said Miss Clegg to Mrs. Lathrop on the noon of the Sunday before the Fourth of July; "that editorial of his in this week's paper ain't suitin' any one a _tall_. I was down in the square yesterday an'

everybody as was there was talkin' about it, an' to-day after church everybody was still talkin' about it, an' gettin' more mad all the time."

"What--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"The one about the celebration as he printed in this week's paper,"

replied her friend; "they was for discussin' nothin' else after church to-day, an' one an' all is dead set against the way as Elijah says.

Them as has bought their fireworks ain't pleased, of course, an' Mr.

Kimball says as he considers that Elijah had ought to of consulted him afore he printed such a article in the hind part of a uncle's store that had just laid in a new supply of two pounds of punk alone. Mr. Kimball says as he'd planned a window display o' cannon crackers pointin' all ways out of a fort built o' his new dried apples an' now here's Elijah comin' out in Sat.u.r.day's paper for an old-fashioned Fourth o' July without no firecrackers a _tall_. Mr. Kimball says he thinks Elijah ought to remember whose nephew he is an' show some family feelin'; he says punk is a thing as can never be worked off in no bargain lot of odds an' ends, an' he says his own Fourth o' July is spoiled now anyway just by the shock of the worry 'cause he can't be sure how folks is goin' to be affected until the effect is over, an' the Fourth o' July'll be over mighty quick this year. 'T ain't like they had most a week to calm down from Elijah's new idea--they ain't got but just Monday to decide an' buy their fireworks, too.

"Judge Fitch says he can't quite make out what Elijah meant by callin'

for patriotic speeches; he says he's willin' to make a speech any day, but he says no one ever wants to stop poppin' long enough to listen to a speech on the Fourth o' July. He says too as it's very hard to get a still crowd that day 'cause people are afraid to get absorbed listenin'

for fear suthin' may go off under 'em while they ain't keepin' watch.

Mr. Dill said that was true, 'cause he had a personal experience that way in his own dog; he says that dog would of made a fine hunter only some one throwed a torpedo at him one Fourth o' July, when he was lookin' under a sidewalk, an' after that that dog almost had a fit if a sparrow chirped quick behind him. Mr. Dill said he tried to cure him by stuffin' cotton in his ears an' keepin' a cloth tied neatly around his head, but then he read in the paper about some deaf German as when he played the piano always listened with his teeth, an' he said that just made him empty the cotton right out of the dog an' give up.

"Mrs. Macy says what she wants to know is what's Elijah tryin' to get at anyhow. She says she always thought a barbecue was a kind of cake an'

she did n't know white folks ever could lift their legs that high, even if they felt to want to. She says the idea of its bein' suthin' to eat in the woods is surely most new to her an' she ain't sure she wants to eat in the woods anyhow. She says there's always flies an' mosquitoes in the woods an' she's pa.s.sed the age o' likin' to drop down anywhere, an'

jump up any time, years ago. As for cookin' in the woods she says that part of Elijah's editorial is too much for every one. She says she never hear of roastin' a ox whole in a pit in her life; she says how is the ox to be got into the pit an' what's to cook him while he's in there an'

when he's cooked how's he to be got out again to eat? She says she thinks Elijah has got a ox an' a clam mixed in his mind, an' a pit an' a pile. She says she knows they cook clams in piles on the seash.o.r.e, 'cause she's heard so from people as has been there, an' besides she seen a picture of one once.

"Gran'ma Mullins came up an' she's most awful troubled over the ox, too.

She says Hiram is got such a name for bein' strong now that she just knows as they'll expect him to put that ox into the pit when they're ready to cook him, an' then lift him out again when he's done. She says it's gettin' too terrible about Hiram, every time as somebody fat dies anywhere or there's a piano to move or a barn to get up on jack-screws they send right for Hiram to be one o' the pallbearers an' give him the heaviest corner. Why, she says the other day when that refrigerator came for Polly White they unloaded it right onto Hiram from the train, an'

not a soul dreamed as there was shot packed in both sides of it to save rates, until poor Hiram set it down to put it on the other shoulder.

She says too, as she can't well see how a ox can be roasted whole anyway; she says it'll be a awful job gettin' his hair singed off in the first place, an' she just knows they'll expect Hiram to hold him an'

twirl him while he's singein'. Then, too, she says as the whole of a ox don't want to be roasted anyhow. The tongue has to be boiled an' the liver has to be sliced an' the calves' brains has to be breaded an'

dipped in egg, an' after he's roasted an' Hiram has got him out o' the pit, who's to skin him then, she'd like to know, for you can't tell her as anybody can eat rawhide, even if it is cooked.

"Deacon White come up, an' he said he an' Polly would bring their own lunch an' their own pillow an' blanket an' hammock an' look on, 'cause Polly wanted to see the fun an' they were n't intendin' to have any fireworks anyhow. He said he was curious about the ox himself; he said he wondered where they'd get the ox, an' the pit, too, for that matter.

"He said he wanted it distinctly understood as he an' Polly'd bring their own lunch an' neither borrow nor lend. He said that rule would apply to the pillow an' the blanket an' the hammock, the same as to the lunch. There was some talk after he was gone on how terrible close he an' Polly are both gettin'. Seems kind of funny, to be so savin' when you ain't got n.o.body to save for, but the Whites an' Allens was always funny an' what's bred in the flesh always sticks the bones out somewhere, as we all know.

"The minister come up an' he said as it says in the Bible as when the ox is in the pit every one must join in an' help him out, so he shall do his part an' bring all his family with him. But he said he must remark as to his order of thinkin' a ox struck him as a most singular way to commemorate the day our forefathers fought an' bled over. He says he should have thought a service o' song an' a much to be desired donation towards cleanin' out his cistern would have been a more fittin' way to spend the glorious Fourth in, than fixin' a ox in a pit an' tryin' to bake him there. He says he don't think it can be done anyhow, he says a ox ain't no chestnut to stick in the ashes till he bounces out cooked o'

his own accord.

"Mrs. Fisher says she sha'n't have nothin' to do with any of it; they're all goin' to the city, an' Mr. Fisher is goin' to a lecture on that Russian that his country wants to amalgamate for suthin' he's done; an'

she an' John Bunyan is goin' to the Hippodrome. They want to see the girl turn upside down in the automobile an' Mrs. Fisher says she can hear about the ox when she comes back.

"Mrs. Brown says they sha'n't go, 'cause young Dr. Brown's afraid o'

microbes in the woods. He's goin' to disinfect everythin' with that new smell he's invented the day before the Fourth, an' then they're goin' to have huckleberry biscuit an' watermelon an' just spend a quiet day waitin' for any accidents as may maybe come along. Mrs. Brown says young Dr. Brown is always hopin' for another railroad smash-up like that one that came while he was away studyin'. She says it always seems too bad it couldn't have come a year later, when he was just back with that handsome brand new set of doctor's knives an' forks as he got for a prize." Susan paused.

"Shall you--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.