"No, I haven't. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Lathrop, more sorry than I am to disappoint Mr. Kimball in not being able to return it, but the truth is I lost it on the way home."

"Lost--"

"Every last sc.r.a.p of it. And I can't say as it was altogether accidental either. As Shakespeare says: 'Self-protection is the best part of valor.' If that paper was ever to get before the Sewing Society, my character would be stripped off me to the last rag. Mr. Kimball can say what was in it, but without the paper itself, he'll have a hard time proving anything, and my word when it comes to a dispute is as good as his and a thousand times better."

Mrs. Lathrop leaned forward and for a moment stopped rocking.

"You--" she said quietly but tensely.

"Tore it into small bits," returned Susan, rising, "and scattered them to the winds of heaven. There's a paper trail all the way from the square to Mrs. Macy's gate."

Mrs. Lathrop resumed her rocking and relapsed into silence.

Susan Clegg, laying her finger to her lips as a parting warning, went quietly out.

XI

SUSAN CLEGG AND THE PLAYWRIGHT

"Well," said Miss Clegg to her dear friend in the early fall of that same year, while they still waited under alien roofs the completion of their own made-over houses, "the men who write the Sunday papers and say that when you look at the world with a impartial eye in this century you can't but have hopes of women some day developing into something, surely would know they spoke the truth if they could see Elijah Doxey now."

"But Eli--" expostulated Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, of course not. But 'Liza Em'ly is, and it's her I'm talking about.

She was up to see me this afternoon, and she says she'll spare no money nowhere. The trained nurse is to stay with him right along forever if he likes, and the two can have her automobile and ride or walk or do anything, without thinking once what it costs. There was a doctor up from the city again yesterday, and that makes four visits at a hundred a visit. But 'Liza Em'ly says even if Elijah hadn't anything of his own, she'd pay all the bills sooner'n think anything that could be done was being left out. It's a pretty sad case, Mrs. Lathrop, and this last doctor says he never see a sadder. He said nothing more could be done right now, for there really is nothing in this community to remind Elijah that he ever wrote a play, if they only could get those clippings from the newspapers away from him. But that's just what they can't do.

He keeps looking them over, and then such a look of agony comes into his eyes,--and Elijah was never one to bear pain as you must know, remembering him with the colic,--and he clasps his hands and shakes his head, and--well, Mrs. Lathrop, Elijah just wasn't strong enough to write a play, and some one as was stronger ought to of restrained him right in the first of it."

"He--" said Mrs. Lathrop pityingly.

"Yes, that's it," confirmed Susan, "and oh, it's awful to take a bright young promising life like his and wreck it completely like that! To see Elijah walking about with a trained nurse and those clippings at his age is surely one of the most touching sights as this town'll ever see.

'Liza Em'ly says she offered a thousand dollars to any newspaper as would print one good notice, 'cause the doctors say just one good notice might turn the whole tide of his brain. But the newspapers say if they printed one good notice of such a play, the Pure Food Commission would have 'em up for libel within a week, and they just don't dare risk it.

This last doctor says he can't blame Elijah for going mad, 'cause he knows a little about the stage through being in love with a actress once, and he says he wasn't treated fair. He says play-writing is not like any other kind of writing, and Elijah wasn't prepared for the great difference. Seems all words on the stage mean something they don't mean in the dictionary, and that makes it very hard for a mere ordinary person to know what they're saying if they say anything a _tall_. And then, too, Elijah never grasped that the main thing is to keep the gallery laughing, even if the two-dollar people have tears running down their cheeks. And you can't write for the stage nowadays without you keep folks laughing the whole time. Elijah never thought about the laughing, because his play was a tragedy like _Hamlet_, only with Hamlet left out. For the lady is dead in the play, and her ghost is all that's left of her. But 'Liza Em'ly told me to-day as his trouble came right in the start, for the people who look plays over no sooner looked Elijah's over before they took hold of it and fixed it. And they kept on fixing it till it was _Hamlet_ with n.o.body but Hamlet left in. And then, so as to manage the laughs, they dressed everybody like chickens if they turned back-to. So that while the audience was weeping, if any one on the stage turned 'round, they went off into shrieks of laughter. 'Liza Em'ly says they never told Elijah about the chicken feathers, and the opening night was the first he knew about that little game, for he was laid up for ever so long before then. He got all used up in the first part of the rehearsals; for it seems you can only have a theater to rehea.r.s.e in at times when even the people who sweep it don't feel to be sweeping. And so they always rehea.r.s.e from one to six in the morning.

And Elijah naturally wasn't used to that. But they'd had trouble even before then; for right from the start there was a pretty how-d'ye-do over the plot. Seems Elijah wanted his own plot and his own people in his own play, and they had a awful time getting it through his head as it's honor enough to have your own play, and it's only unreasonable to stick out for your own plot and your own people too. 'Liza Em'ly says they had a awful time with him over it all, and there was a time when he felt so bad over giving up his plot and his people that any one ought to have seen right there as he'd never be strong enough to stand all the rest of what was surely coming. 'Liza Em'ly didn't tell me the whole of the rest what come, but Mr. Kimball told me that what was one great strain on Elijah, right through to the hour he begun to scream, was that the leading lady fell in love with him and used to have him up at all hours to fix up her part, and then kiss him. And Elijah didn't want to fix up her part, and he hated to be kissed. But they told him the part must be fixed up to suit her, and that the kisses didn't matter, because they was only little things after all.

"He was wading along through the mire as best he could, when all of a sudden it come out as she had one husband as she'd completely overlooked and never divorced. He turned up most unexpectedly and come at Elijah about the kisses. Then they told Elijah he couldn't do a better thing by his play than to let the man shoot him two or three times in places as would let him be carried pale and white to a box for the opening night; and then, between the last two acts, marry the lady and let it be in all the morning papers. You can maybe think, Mrs. Lathrop, how such a idea would come to the man as is to be shot. But, oh, my, they didn't make nothing of Elijah's feelings in the matter. Nothing a _tall_. They just set right to work and called a meeting of the play manager and the stage manager and the leading lady's manager and Elijah's manager, and the man who really does the managing. They all got together, and they drew up a diagram as to where Elijah was to be hit, and a contract for him and the leading lady to sign as they wouldn't marry anybody else in the meantime. And if it hadn't been for 'Liza Em'ly, the deal, as they called it, would have gone straight through. For Elijah was so dead beat by this time that about all he was fit for was to sit on a electric battery with a ice bag on his head, and look up words in a stage dictionary and then cross 'em out of his play."

"Oh, I--" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"That's just what 'Liza Em'ly said she said," rejoined Susan Clegg. "I tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'Liza Em'ly is no fool since her book's gone into the thirty-seventh edition, and that's a fact. She told me to-day as when she realized the man she loved--for 'Liza Em'ly really loves Elijah; any one can see that just by looking at the trained nurse she's got him--was being murdered alive, she went straight up and took a hand in the matter herself. I guess she had a pretty hard time, for the leading lady wouldn't hear to changing any of what they call the routing, and said if Elijah wasn't shot and married according to the signed agreement, she wouldn't play. And when a leading lady won't play, then is when you find out what Shakespeare really did write for, according to 'Liza Em'ly. For a little they was all running this way and that way, just beside themselves, with the leading lady in the Adirondacks and two detectives watching her husband. And the man as was painting the scenery took a overdose of chloral and went off with all his ideas in his head, and that unexpected trouble brought 'em all together again. The husband came down off his high horse and said he'd take five per cent, of the net--Don't ask me what that means, for Mr.

Dill don't know either--and the littlest chorus girl and go to Europe.

And he said, too, as he'd sign a paper first releasing Elijah from all claim on account of his wife. So they all signed, and he sailed. He was clear out to sea before they discovered as he had another wife as he'd never divorced, so the leading lady could of married Elijah, after all.

Well, that was a pretty mess, with a husband as had no claim on n.o.body gone off to Europe with five percent of the net. The stage manager and Elijah's manager took the _Mauretania_ and started right after him, for when it comes to five per cent. on any kind of stage thing, Mr. Kimball says, any monkeying counts up so quick that even hiring a yacht is nothing if you want to catch that five per cent. in time. So they was off, one in the captain's room and the other in the bridal suite, while 'Liza Em'ly was down in Savannah getting local color to patch up the scenery, leaving Elijah totally unprotected on his battery with his ideas.

"But Elijah wasn't to be left in peace even now. Seems they was having a investigation into the poor quality of the electricity in the city, and a newspaper opened a referendum and made 'em double the power. The company was so mad, they didn't give no warning to a soul, but just slid up the needle from 100 to 200 right then and there; and one of the results was they blew Elijah nearly through the ceiling. Nothing in the world but the ice bag saved him from having his skull caved in, and the specialist thinks he's got a concussion in his sinus right now. Poor Elijah!"

"But--?" Mrs. Lathrop queried.

"They took him to the hospital, and from then on to the opening night he had nothing to do with his own play. The leading lady married the stage manager till she got the stage to suit her, and then she married the man who really does the managing until she got everything else to suit her. Next, without letting any of the others know, she married Elijah's manager secretly, so that when poor Elijah in the hospital thought he was looking at his manager, he was really nursing a viper in his bosom. When 'Liza Em'ly came back with her local color, they told her they didn't want it because they was going to have the camping-out scene in the parlor, and play the people all liked a joke. When she went to a lawyer to protest, the lawyer looked through all Elijah's contracts and said Elijah had never stipulated as the camping-out scene should be in the woods. So 'Liza Em'ly paid him fifty dollars and come away a good deal wiser than she went.

"Then come the opening night, and Mr. Kimball says he shall never forget that opening night as long as he lives. You know he bought himself one of those hats as when you sit on 'em just gets a better shape, and then he went up to see his own nephew's own play. Seems he sat on his hat in Elijah's own box, but he says Elijah was looking very bad even before the curtain went up. Seems Elijah didn't expect much, but he did have just a little hope that here and there in spots he'd see some of his own play. But the hope was very faint. After the curtain went up, it kept getting fainter. Of course Elijah meant it for a tragedy and called it _Millicent_; and seeing the t.i.tle changed to _Milly Tilly_ was a hard blow to him right in the beginning. Seems the woman poisoned herself because she was unhappy, and after she's dead, she remembers there was some poison left in the bottle, and so she wants to warn the family. It was a very nice plot, Polly White thinks, and Elijah was wild over it 'cause there's never been a plot used like it. But of course his idea was as it should be took seriously. Do you wonder then, Mrs. Lathrop, that the first time in the play when one of the play actors turned round he nearly died? Mr. Kimball says he nearly died himself. He says he never saw anything so funny as those chicken backs in all his life.

He says people was just laying any way and every way in their seats, wailing to stop, so they could stop too. He says he was laughing fit to kill himself when all of a sudden he looked up to see Elijah, and he says nothing ever give him such a chill as Elijah's then-and-there expression. Seems Elijah was just staring at the leading lady as was flapping her wings and playing crow, while the gallery was pounding and yelling like mad. And then Elijah suddenly shot out of the box and round behind the scenes and vanished completely."

Mrs. Lathrop gasped and lifted her hands, but no word issued from between her lips.

"Well, of course we know now what happened, but n.o.body did then. n.o.body was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr.

Kimball didn't know where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way.

Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while, you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it.

It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr.

Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the afternoon of that day, whatever do you suppose? There was Elijah, just where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him, ending up even with the chicken feathers."

"Great heav--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.

"So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it.

Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot out. Then she'd make a speech about his having been in the scenery car all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that a _tall_. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one.

Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can talk all you please about will power--and it may be true of people in general--but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as takes all the marrow out of your bones and the blood out of your body.

And he says he wasn't no more responsible when he signed that contract to go mad in a box every evening and at least one matinee every week than a gra.s.shopper. He says his one and only thought by that time was to get away from 'em and make a break to where he'd never hear about his play again. But after he'd signed, they never let him out of sight. They locked him up in a dressing-room with the leading lady's pet mouse until after the performance, and then they took him and introduced him to two very big managers as was engaged to do nothing except manage him nights in the box.

"Well, you know the rest, Mrs. Lathrop. He really did go mad, then, and we've got him here now helpless, getting rich almost as fast as 'Liza Em'ly, and crazy as a loon. I declare, it's one of the saddest cases I ever see. I don't know whatever can be done. They say as fast as he gets sane, the play'll surely drive him crazy again, so I don't see what 'Liza Em'ly will do. She set with me the whole afternoon and talked very nicely about it all. To see her here, you'd never think she could act the way Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher tell about. I can see she's got a little airy, and she says she misses her maid and her secretary more than she ever tells the minister's family; but on the whole I like her very much, and her devotion to Elijah is most beautiful. She says he's the one love of her life, and she shall marry him if ever he gets sense enough to know what he's doing. If he doesn't, she says she shall take a yacht and sail with him and write books until he dies. She says they can land once in a while to get their provisions and their royalties. But she says the only possible salvation for Elijah, as things are now, will be to stay where he never sees a car to remind him of scenery, or a house to remind him of a stage, for years and years to come. I asked her what she _really_ thought of his play, and she said she thought the leading lady was just right and very clever, only Elijah was too sensitive a nature to understand little artistic touches like the chicken feathers. She says folks are too tired nowadays to be bothered to laugh. They want to be made to laugh without even thinking. She says Elijah is a earnest nature as likes to work his laughs out very carefully and conscientious; but the leading lady understands getting the same effect, only a million times quicker, with chicken feathers and divorces. 'Liza Em'ly says the leading lady is very fair according to her own idea of fairness. She didn't have no money to put in the play, so she agreed to put in four divorces and one scandal as her part of the stock. Now the play's only been on a month, and she's paid up everything except one divorce and the scandal; and she's done so well they're trying to work up some scheme to let her pay both those off at the same time. The play is going fine. They print columns about Elijah and his madness, and the whole company is learning to crow together at the end of the second act. Every night they take out a little of what Elijah wrote, and the main manager says that there'll soon be nothing of Elijah left in except the ghost, and the ghost of the bottle, and the agreement to pay Elijah his royalties. And according to the main manager's views, that's being pretty fair and square with Elijah."

"Do you--?" queried Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, I don't know," answered Miss Clegg, "I really d'n know what to say. I'm kind of dumb did over both 'Liza Em'ly and Elijah, for you know as well as I do, Mrs. Lathrop, that n.o.body ever looked for those kind of things from them."

"Shall--?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, if it ever comes where I can," responded Miss Clegg, "I shall like to see it very much."

"Did--?" pressed Mrs. Lathrop.

"Oh, yes, I asked her," Susan admitted, "I asked her fair and square. I says: ''Liza Em'ly, there's no use denying as you've used real people in this community in your book, and now I want to know who is Deacon Tooker?' She said Deacon Tooker was just the book itself. She seemed more amused than there was any particular sense in; but I thought if anything could give her a good laugh, it wasn't me would begrudge her.

There's this to be said for our young folks when they do get rich, Mrs.

Lathrop, and that is that they're nice about it, and it makes every one feel kindly towards 'em. Every one feels kindly towards Jathrop, and every one feels kindly towards 'Liza Em'ly, and as for poor, dear Elijah--Well!"

The tone was expressive enough. Mrs. Lathrop shook her head sadly. Then both were silent.

XII

SUSAN CLEGG'S DISAPPEARANCE

The "building-over" of Susan Clegg and her friend, Mrs. Lathrop, was completed during the second week in December, and in less than twenty-four hours they were once more established in their own dwellings, surrounded by their own goods and chattels. For only the briefest s.p.a.ce, however, did Miss Clegg remain where she was put. Then she hurried through the pa.s.sageway afforded by the connecting pergola and burst excitedly into her neighbor's brand new kitchen in the very center of which sat Mrs. Lathrop in her old-gold-plush stationary rocker, calmly surveying her domiciliary spick-and-spanness. On her lap lay a just-opened letter; but for once the scrupulously observing Miss Clegg failed to observe. She was too full of fresh trials.