"I wonder if she'll ever--" wondered Gran'ma Mullins.

"I d'n know. If folks talk about a marriage long enough, it usually ends up that way. Doctor Carter and Mrs. Macy has been kind of jumping at each other and then running away for fifteen years or so. They say he'd like her money, but he hates to be bothered with her."

"She wouldn't like to be bothered with him, either," said Gran'ma Mullins.

"I know," said Susan. "That's what's making so few people like to get married nowadays. They don't want to be bothered with each other."

Mrs. Lathrop fixed her little, black, beady eyes hard on Susan.

Susan stared straight ahead.

IX

SUSAN CLEGG'S PRACTICAL FRIEND

"Mrs. Sperrit can't stand it no longer, and she's going visiting,"

announced Susan Clegg to the three friends who, seated together on Mrs.

Macy's piazza, had been awaiting her return from down-town. Both Mrs.

Macy and Gran'ma Mullins were now back in their own houses after the temporary absence due to the cyclone, and Mrs. Lathrop and she who might yet be her daughter-in-law were reestablished as their paying guests.

"Why, I never knew that Mr. Sperrit was that kind of a man," said Gran'ma Mullins, opening her eyes very wide indeed. "I wouldn't say he's han'some, and I wouldn't say he's entertaining; but I always thought they got on well together."

"He isn't that kind of a man a _tall_," rejoined Susan, who had been holding one hatpin in her mouth while she felt for the other, but now freed herself of both. "It's just that Mrs. Sperrit's sick of all this clutter of mending up after the cyclone. She says she's nervous for the first time in her life and has got to have a change. She says the carrying off of the barn and its never being heard from any more has got on her nerves somehow, even if it was only a barn. She says G.o.d forgive her and not to mention it to you, Mrs. Macy, but she wishes every hour of her life as the cyclone had took you and left their barn, because the barn had her sewing-machine in it, and she'd as leave be dead as be without that sewing-machine."

"Where--?" mildly interpolated Mrs. Lathrop.

"Mr. Sperrit says wherever she likes. He's been upset by the barn too, because it had his tool-chest in it, and he's such a handy man with his tools that he feels for her in a way as not many women get felt for."

"Where does--?" began Gran'ma Mullins.

"She didn't know at first, but now she thinks she'll go and stay with her cousin. She hasn't had much to do with her cousin for years, and she says she feels as maybe the barn was a judgment. She never got along well with her cousin. She says her cousin was pretty, with curls, and she herself was freckled, with straight hair, and so it was only natural as she always hated her. I don't feel to blame her none, for curls is very hard on them as is born straight-haired. But there was more reasons than one for Mrs. Sperrit not to get along with her cousin, and she says it never was so much the curls as it was her not being practical. Mrs.

Sperrit is practical, and she's always been practical, and her cousin wasn't. They didn't speak for years and years."

"Whatever set 'em at it again?" asked Mrs. Macy.

"Well, Mrs. Sperrit says it come by degrees. She says she first noticed as her cousin was trying to make up about five years ago, but she thought she'd best wait and be sure. Mrs. Sperrit's practical; she don't never look in anywhere until she's leaped around the edge enough to know what she's doing. She says her cousin named her first boy Gringer, which is Mrs. Sperrit's family name; but then, it is the cousin's family name, too, so she didn't pay any attention to that. Then she named her first girl Eliza, which, as we know, is Mrs. Sperrit's own name, but seeing as it was the name of the grandmother of both of them, she didn't pay any attention to _that_, either. Then she named the second boy Sperrit, which was a little pointed, of course; and Mrs. Sperrit says if her cousin had been practical, she would certainly have thought that the Sperrits ought to have given the child something. But she wasn't and didn't, and they didn't. Then she named the second girl Azile--which is Eliza spelt backwards--and Mrs. Sperrit says it was the spelling of Eliza backwards as first showed her how awful friendly her cousin was trying to get to be. Then, when she named the third boy Jacob, after Mr. Sperrit, and the fourth boy Bocaj--which is Jacob spelled backwards--Mrs. Sperrit says that it was no use pretending not to see.

Besides, naming the baby Bocaj just did go to her heart, particularly as the baby wasn't very strong, anyway. So since then the Sperrits has sent 'em a turkey every Thanksgiving and a quarter apiece to the children every Christmas."

"What's she named the other children?" asked Mrs. Macy with real interest.

"Why, there ain't no more yet. Bocaj is only six months old."

"Oh, then they ain't sent no turkey yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Macy.

"No, not yet, but when they begin, they'll keep it up steady. And now Mrs. Sperrit says she'll go and visit and see for herself how things are. She's not very hopeful of enjoying herself, for she says visiting a person as isn't practical is most difficult. She knows, because when she taught school, she used to board with a family as was that way. She says she kept the things she bought then, and she shall take 'em all to her cousin's. She says when you stay with any one as isn't practical, you must take your own spirit-lamp, and teapot, and kettle, and tea, and matches, and a small blanket, and pen and ink, and a box of crackers, and a sharp knife, and some blank telegrams, and a good deal of court-plaster, and a teacup, and sugar if you take it, and a ball of good heavy string, and your own Bible, and a pillow. And never forget to wear your trunk-key round your neck, even if you only go down-stairs to look at the clock. She's got all those things left over from her school-teaching days. She says everything always comes in handy again some time if you're practical, and she thanks G.o.d she's practical."

"I don't think that I should care to visit that way," said Gran'ma Mullins thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say I wouldn't, and I wouldn't say I couldn't, but I don't think--"

"She's going Tuesday," continued Susan Clegg. "Mr. Sperrit says she can, and she's going Tuesday. She's written her cousin, and her cousin's written her. Her cousin says they'll be too glad for words, and for her to stay till Christmas--or till Thanksgiving, anyway. Mrs. Sperrit says she won't do that, but she'll stay until the end of next week if she can stand her cousin's husband. She says she never had any use for her cousin's husband, because he isn't practical either, and when he was young, his tie was never on straight. Mrs. Sperrit says a man that wears his tie crooked when he's young is the kind to keep shy of later. She says he'll never have a pocket knife and borrow hers, and never have a pencil and borrow hers. And then, too, she's almost sure as by this time he's spoilt her cousin's temper; and visiting a cousin whose temper's spoilt wouldn't be fun, even if she was practical. Which this one ain't."

"If her cousin's got a sharp tongue I--" began Gran'ma Mullins in quiet, sad reminiscence.

"She was buying some wood alcohol and a cheap spoon at Mr. Kimball's,"

Susan went on. "She took me in her buggy and drove me up to look at our houses, which is trying feebly to climb again to where they was before the cyclone. But they're a sorry sight. I don't know when we're ever going to get into them, I'm sure. I only wish Jathrop was to see how slow those carpenters can be." Then Miss Clegg's countenance a.s.sumed a coy expression, her eyes lowered bashfully, and her fingers nervously sought to touch between the b.u.t.tons of her waist some treasured object hidden within. "I--I had a letter from him to-day."

And at that all three listeners started in more or less violent amazement.

"What!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Nothing that I can tell any one," said Susan serenely. "So it's no use asking me another word about it."

Mrs. Sperrit left on Tuesday precisely and practically as she had planned; but she returned very much sooner than she had expected.

"And no wonder," declared Susan, just back from the Sewing Society, to Mrs. Lathrop, who never went. "I should say it was no wonder. Well, Mrs.

Sperrit has had an experience, and I guess no lost barn will ever lead her into looking up no more cousins after this."

"She's so worn-looking," said Gran'ma Mullins, who had returned with Susan. "I wouldn't say white, and I wouldn't say worried, but I call it peaked."

"Why, she's been through enough to make a book," said Mrs. Macy, who had come in with the others, "--a book like _The Jungle_, as makes you right down sick in spots."

"Oh, _The Jungle_ isn't so bad," said Susan. "If it was, Roosevelt would have straightened it out soon enough when he was in it himself. But what's awful about Mrs. Sperrit is what she has suffered, for that woman certainly has suffered. She's a lesson once for all as to visiting. No one as hears her is ever going lightly visiting after this. She lost her trunk-key as soon as she landed in the house, and she says she was too took up to miss it for three days, which shows what kind of a time she had. Why, her cousin went right to bed as soon as she got there, because she said as she knowed that Mrs. Sperrit was practical and could do everything better than she could. So that was a nice beginning to begin with. Well, she says such a house you never see. The chickens come into the dining-room, and they was raising mud turtles in the bathtub, and caterpillars in the cake-box. The children was awful right from the start. She slept in the room with two of them, and they woke her up mornings playing shave with the ends of her braids. She found out as they dipped 'em first in the water pitcher and then in the tooth powder to make it like lather."

"My heavens alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Lathrop.

"Then Jacob, who's only two and a half, ate mashed potatoes with his fingers, which is a thing, Mrs. Sperrit says, as must be seen to be believed, and they all just swum in jam from dawn to dark. She says she never see such children, anyway. Whenever anybody sat down, they'd play she was the Alps, and go back and forth over her wherever they could get a purchase. And she says--would you believe it?--her cousin is got to be so calm that it drives you out of your senses only to see the way she takes things. Mrs. Sperrit says all she can say is as when a woman as isn't practical does go to bed, she's resigned to that degree that you wish you could blow her up with dynamite if only to see her move quick just once."

"Why didn't she come home?" asked Mrs. Macy. "My view would be as I'd come home. I said so to her to-day."

"She did come home, didn't she?" said Miss Clegg. "You heard her, and you know she's home. It's Mrs. Lathrop as all this is new to, isn't it?

Well, Mrs. Lathrop, it would go to your heart to hear what happened to all those little conveniences as she took. There wasn't no sharp knife in the house but hers, so she never see hers after she unpacked it.

There wasn't no string or court-plaster either, so they disappeared too. Then they run out of tea the minute they see she brought some, and not being practical, her cousin's teapot naturally didn't have no nose, so she lost her teapot, too. The whole family took her hairbrush and used it for a clothes brush, and she thinks for a shoe brush when she was down-town. Her cousin wore her stockings and her collars, and her cousin's husband slept on the pillow with the blanket folded around him.

Not being practical, he liked his feet free."

"Well, I nev--!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Lathrop.

"Mrs. Sperrit said by the third day she had to begin to do something, so she asked if she could clean her own room, and her cousin said she was going to let her make herself happy in her own way and just to go ahead and clean the whole house if she liked. So she went to work and cleaned the whole house, and she says such a house she never dreamed could exist. She found families of mice, and families of swallows, and families of moths. She found things as had been lost for years, and they was wild with delight to see 'em again. She found things as, she says, she wouldn't like to say she found, because when all's said and done a cousin is still a cousin, but she says--Good lands, what she found! Well, she says when she got the house cleaned, her cousin was still in bed, so she took heart of grace and asked if she might teach the children to mind. Her cousin said she didn't care, so Mrs. Sperrit went to work on those six children. Well, she says that was a job, and it was that as led to her coming away like she did. She says the children was the very worst children anybody ever saw. She says she taught school, and she thought she knew children, but anything like those children n.o.body--even those as is chock full of things not fit to eat--could ever by any possibility of dreamed of. Why, she says they was used to heating the poker and jabbing one another with it when mad; and while you was leaning down to tie your shoe, they'd s.n.a.t.c.h your chair away from behind you, and such games. But Mrs. Sperrit is practical, and she believes in her Bible, and she thought as how the Lord had delivered them into her hands and set to work. She said she begun by washing them all--for they was always slippery from jam. And then she cut their nails very short and started in. Well, she says it was some work, for they was so funny she could hardly keep from laughing. She says they're mighty bright children--she must say that for 'em, although it don't soften her feelings a mite towards 'em. Well, she says you couldn't do nothing a _tall_ with 'em. But she didn't lose courage. When she talked serious, they took it as a great joke, and she had to stop for meals so often that it used her all up; for she says such steady eating she never see. She says the meals was most terrible, too, as they always had herring, and of course the bones made so much picking that the children kept telling her she ate with her fingers, herself. She says that was the most awful part, the way they talked back. But she didn't despair. She kept washing them out of the jam and taking a fresh cut at their nails, until finally come the last hour of wrath. And then, she says, they did make her mad--good and mad."

"But what did--?" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, seems the worst child was 'Zile. Of course, Mrs. Sperrit, having taught school, thought they'd p.r.o.nounce it like Azalea, and make a real pretty name out of Eliza spelt backwards, but seems they dropped the A and just called her 'Zile to rhyme with file; and Mrs. Sperrit says she rhymed with file all right."

"Go on, Susan," urged Mrs. Macy.

"Well, the cousin and the husband was invited to go on a all-day excursion, so the cousin got up and dressed and went. She said she might as well, seeing as Mrs. Sperrit was there with the children. When they was gone, Mrs. Sperrit made up her mind as now was her chance to bring those children to time, once and for all. So she rolled up her sleeves and give 'em all a good bath--for she says the way they'd get freshly jammed was most astonishing--and then she went up-stairs to get her scissors to cut their nails. She was opening her trunk to get out the scissors when she heard a click. Well, when she run to the door, what do you suppose? She found they'd locked her in.