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