there's lots of ways of gettin'
along, an' I try 'em all turn an' turn about. If one don't work another
is sure to, an' if he ever does have a wife it won't be my fault--I know
that.

"Mr. Kimball asked me this mornin' what I thought of him anyhow. Mr.
Kimball says as Elijah says as he personally thinks this year is sent to
fit him for suthin' demandin' backbone, an' so he'd ought to be resigned
to anythin'. That didn't sound just polite to me to my order of thinkin'
an' Gran'ma Mullins come back just then an' broke in an' said if Elijah
was resigned she wasn't, an' she hoped he'd never come her way any more
when he was out pickin' up items."

"Is any one--" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"I don't know," said Miss Clegg, "I don't believe so. Even the minister
is mad; I met him comin' home an' I couldn't see what he had to complain
of, for I didn't remember there bein' a single word about him in the
whole paper. Come to find out he was all used up 'cause there _wasn't_
nothin' about him in it. He told me in confidence as he never got such
a shock in all his life. He says he read the paper over nine times afore
he was able to sense it, an' he says his last sermon was on hidin' your
light under a bushel basket an' he had a copy all ready if Elijah had
only come for it. He says he shall preach next Sunday on cryin' out unto
you to get up, an' he shall take a copy to Elijah himself. I cheered him
up all I could. I told him as a sermon preached on Sunday was n't likely
to be no great novelty to no one on the Saturday after, but I'd see that
he got it back all safe if Elijah throwed it into his scrap-basket. That
seems to be the big part of bein' a editor--the throwin' things in his
scrap-basket. Elijah's scrap-basket is far from bein' the joy of my life
for he tears everythin' just the same way an' it makes it a long, hard
job to piece 'em together again. Some days I don't get time an' then I
_do_ get so aggravated."

"Have you ever--" asked Mrs. Lathrop with real interest.

"Not yet, but he ain't got really started yet. It's when the paper gets
to Meadville an' Meadville begins to write him back what they think
about what he thinks of them, that that scrap-basket will be
interestin'! I guess I'll go home now an' make biscuits for supper. He
was comin' back on the five-o'clock train. Poor Elijah, he'll have a
hard day to-morrow but it'll do him good. Men never have to clean house,
so the Lord has to discipline their souls any way