e in the rockin'-chair afore she
knocked. I tell you I was good an' mad when I see her an' see as she see
me an' I made no bones of it when I opened the door. I says to her frank
an' open--I says, 'Good gracious, Jerusha, I hope you ain't lookin' to
see me pleased at seein' as it's you.' But laws, you could n't smash
Jerusha Dodd not if you was a elephant an' she was his sat-down-upon
fly, so I had her sittin' in the kitchen an' sighin' in less'n no time.
She was full of her woes an' the country's woes as usual. Congress was
goin' to ruin us next year sure, an' she had a hole in her back fence
anyway; she did n't approve of Mr. Rockefeller's prices on oil, an'
there was a skunk in her cellar, an' she said she could n't seem to
learn to enjoy livin' the simple life as she'd had to live it since her
father died, a _tall_. She said that accordin' to her views life for
single women nowadays was too simple an' she said she really only lacked
bein' buried to be dead. She says as all a simple life is, is havin' no
rights except them as your neighbors don't want. She says for her part
she's been more took into the heart of creation than she's ever cared
about. I do hate to have to listen to the way she goes on an' no one can
say as I ever was one to encourage her in them views. I don't think it's
right to encourage no one in their own views 'cause their views is never
mine an' mine is always the right ones. This mornin' I stood it as long
as I could from Jerusha an' then I just let out at her an' I says to
her, I says, 'Jerusha Dodd, you really are a fool an' Heaven help them
as ever makes more of a fool of you, by tellin' you as you ain't.' You
know Jerusha Dodd, Mrs. Lathrop; she began to cry hard an' rock harder
right off, said she knowed she was a fool, but it was nature's fault an'
not hers for she was born so an' could n't seem to get the better of it.
I told her my view of the matter would be for her to stay home an' patch
up that hole in her fence an' pull up some o' that choice garden full of
weeds as she's growin', an' brush the dust off the crown of her bonnet,
an' do a few other of them wholesome little trifles as is a good deal
nearer the most of us than Mr. Rockefeller] an' what congress in its
infinite wisdom is goin' to see fit to deal out in the daily papers next
year.

"But she only kept on cryin' an' rockin' an' finally I got so tired
listenin' to her creak an' sob that I went out an' had a real bright
idea.