Whereupon, with the _Guide to the Bahamas_ under her arm and a heavy fold between her brows, Susan Clegg stalked over to her temporary domicile.

"I don't think Susan's very well," said Gran'ma Mullins.

"Maybe she's worried over Jathrop," suggested Mrs. Macy.

Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. She just rocked.

VIII

SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CYCLONE

"I d'n know, I'm sure, what star this town could ever have been laid out under," said Susan Clegg, one exceptionally hot night as the four friends sat out on Mrs. Macy's steps, "but my own opinion is as it must have been a comet, for we're always skiting along into some sort of hot water. When it ain't all of us, it's some of us, and when it ain't some of us, it's one of us, and now the walls of my house is up I'd be willing to bet a nickel as a calamity'll happen along just because something's always happening here and my walls is the youngest and tenderest thing in the community now."

"Your roof ain't--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Of course not; how could it be, when my walls is only just up? I don't wish to be casting no stones at him as is the least among us, but I will say, Mrs. Lathrop, as Jathrop's orders seem to be taking you up under the loving protection of their wings, while I'm running around like I was a viper without no warm bosom to hatch me. _Your_ walls have been up and a-doing for a week, but my walls have been sitting around waiting until I was nigh to put out. To see your laths going in and your plaster going on, while I stay lumber and nails, is a lesson in yielding to the will of heaven as I never calculated on. There's few things more aggravating than to see some other house speeding along while your own house sits silently, patiently waiting. Of course I can't say nothing, as even the boy as carries water knows my house is going to be a present to me in the end. It's all right, and likely enough the Lord has seen fit to send this summer to me as a chastis.e.m.e.nt; but I will say that if I'd known how this summer was going, the Lord would most certainly have had to plan some other way to punish me. I don't say as it wasn't natural that your walls should go up first, Jathrop being your son, and, now that he's rich, no more to me than a benefactor--"

"Oh, Susan!" expostulated Mrs. Macy.

"That's what he is, Mrs. Macy; he's my benefactor, and I can't escape if I want to. You may tend a man's mother ten years, day and night, house cleanings and cistern cleanings, moths and the well froze up, and if the man comes back rich, he's your benefactor."

"Susan!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, "you--"

"Don't deny it, Mrs. Lathrop; it's the truth. It's one of those truths that the wiser they are, the sadder you get. It's one of those truths as is the whole truth and a little left over; and I'm learning that I'm to be what's left over, more every day. After a life of being independent and living on my own money, I'm now going down on my knees learning the lesson of being humbly grateful for what I don't want. I may sound bitter, but if I do it isn't surprising, for I feel bitter; and Gran'ma Mullins knows I'm always frank and open, so she'll excuse my saying that there's nothing in living with _her_ as tends to calm me much. A woman as sleeps in a bed as Hiram must have played leap-frog over all his life from the feel of the springs, and pours out of a pitcher as has got a chip out of its nose, ain't in no mood to mince nothing. I never was one to mince, and I never will be--not now and not never. Mincing is for them as ain't got it in them to speak their minds freely; and my mind is a thing that's made to be free and not a slave."

"Well, really, Susan," expostulated Mrs. Macy, "what ever--"

"Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Macy. I'm full of goodness knows what, but whatever it is, I'm too full of it for comfort. There's nothing in the life I'm leading this summer to make me expect comfort, and very little to make me feel full, but there's things as would make a man dying of starvation bust if he experienced them. And I'm full of such things. I never had no idea of being out of my house all summer, and now, when my walls is up at last, and it looks like maybe I'd get back a home feeling some day soon, I must up and get quite another kind of feeling--a feeling that something is going to happen. It's a very strange feeling, and at first I thought it was just some more of Gran'ma Mullins'

cooking; but it kept getting stronger, and when I was in the square, I spoke to Mr. Kimball about it; and he says this is cyclone weather, and maybe a cyclone is going to happen. He says a man was in town yesterday wanting to insure everybody against fire and cyclones. Most everybody did it. Mr. Kimball says after the young man got through, you pretty much had to do it. Them as had policies with the company could get the word 'cyclone' writ in for a dollar. I guess the young man did a very good day's work. Mr. Kimball says if it's true as there's any cyclones coming nosing about here, he wants his dried-apple machine insured anyhow. It's a fine machine, and every kind of fruit as is left over each night comes out jam next day, while all the vegetables make breakfast food. He says it's a wonder."

"What makes him think we're going to have a cyclone?" inquired Mrs. Macy anxiously.

"He says the weather is cyclony. And he says if I feel queer that's a sign, for I'm a sensitive nature."

"I never--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, nor me, neither. But Mr. Kimball seemed to feel there wasn't no doubt. He says I'm just the kind of sensitive nature as could feel a cyclone. Why, he says cyclones take the roofs off the houses!"

"Ow!" cried Gran'ma Mullins in surprise.

"If one's coming, I'm glad to know, for I never see one near to," said Mrs. Macy pensively.

"You won't see it a _tall_," said Susan, "for Mr. Kimball says the only safe place in a cyclone is the cellar; and to pull a kitchen table over you to keep the house from squashing you flat when it caves in."

"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"That's what he said. But he says not to worry, for the young man told him as they're getting so common no one notices them any more. He says they're always going hop, skip, and jump over Kansas and everywhere, and no one pays no attention to 'em. He knows all about it. But he wanted it clear as he was only insuring for _cyclones_; he says his firm wouldn't have nothing to do with tornadoes. You can get as much on a cyclone as on a fire, but you can't get a penny on a tornado--"

"What's the diff--" asked Gran'ma Mullins.

"That's the trouble; n.o.body can just tell. A cyclone is wind and lightning mixed by combustion and drove forward by expulsion, the young man told Mr. Kimball. He said they'd got cyclones all worked out, and they can average 'em up same as everything else, but he says a tornado is something as no man can get hold of, and no man will ever be able to study. Tornadoes drive nails through fences--"

"Where do they get the nails?" asked Gran'ma Mullins.

"I d'n know. Pick 'em out of the fences first, I guess. And they strip the feathers off chickens and scoop up haystacks and carry them up in the air for good and all."

"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Macy.

"Mr. Kimball said the young man told him that a tornado dug up a complete marsh once in Minnesota and spread it out upside down on top of a wood a little ways off; and when there's a tornado anywhere near, the sewing-machines all tick like they was telegraphing."

"No!" cried Mrs. Macy.

"Yes, the young man said so."

"But do you believe him?"

"I don't know why not. I wouldn't believe Mr. Kimball because he's always fixing up his stories to sound better than they really are, which makes me have very little faith in him; but Judge Fitch says he'd make a splendid witness for any one just on that very account. Judge Fitch says with a little well-advised help Mr. Kimball would carry convictions to any man,--he don't except none,--but I see no reason why the young man wasn't telling the truth. Young men do tell the truth sometimes; most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries 'em miles and pulls up trees by the roots. I don't wonder they won't insure 'em."

"The pigs?" asked Mrs. Macy.

"No, the tornadoes."

"What's the signs of a tornado?" asked Gran'ma Mullins uneasily.

"Well, the signs is alike for both. The signs is weather like to-day and a kind of breathlessness like to-night. Mr. Kimball says a funnel-shaped cloud is a great sign; and when you see it, in three minutes it's on you, and off goes your roof if it's a cyclone, and off you go yourself if it's a tornado."

"My heavens alive!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, clutching the arms of her old-gold-plush stationary rocker.

"Do people ever come down again?" Gran'ma Mullins inquired; she was very pale.

"Elijah didn't, Mr. Kimball says."

"Elijah Doxey?" cried Mrs. Macy. "Why, is he off on a cyclone? No one ever told me."

"No, Elijah in the Bible, you know. The Elijah as was caught up in a chariot of fire. Mr. Kimball says there ain't a mite of doubt in his mind but that it was a tornado. I guess Mr. Kimball told the truth that time, for it's all in the Bible."

"That's true," said Gran'ma Mullins. "I remember Elijah myself. He kept a tame raven, seems to me, or some such thing."

"Oh, Susan!" Mrs. Lathrop cried out suddenly. "There's a fun--" Her voice failed her; she raised her hand and pointed.

Susan turned quickly, and her face became suddenly gray-white. "It can't be a cy--" she faltered.

With that all four women jumped different ways at once.

"Where shall we go?" shrieked Mrs. Macy. "Oh, saints and sinners preserve us! Oh, Susan, where shall we go?"