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 he can, I suppose, an' to my order o' thinkin' this runnin' a newspaper is goin' to send Elijah a long ways upwards on his heavenly journey."

"Does—" asked Mrs. Lathrop, rising heavily to bid her friend good-bye.

"Most likely," said Susan; "at any rate if he does n't have any appetite. I like 'em myself."

CHAPTER IV

SETTLING DOWN AFTER THE HONEYMOON

Miss Clegg and Mrs. Lathrop were sitting on the latter's steps about five o'clock one Sunday afternoon when Elijah Doxey came out of the former's house and walked away down town.

"I wond—" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"I don't believe it," said Miss Clegg; "I know the way you look at it, Mrs. Lathrop, but I don't believe it. All the girls is after him but that ain't surprisin' for girls are made to be after somethin' at that age an' there's almost nothin' for them to run down in this community. We're very short of men to marry, Mrs. Lathrop, an' what men we have got ain't tall enough yet to do it, but still, it ain't no reason why Elijah should be in love just because 'Liza Em'ly and all the other girls is in love with him. To my order o' thinkin' two sets of people have got to love to make a marriage, an' 'Liza Em'ly ain't but one. An' I don't know as I want Elijah to be in love, anyhow—not while he lives in my house. It might lead to his eatin' less but it would surely lead to his playin' the flute more, an' that flute is all I can stand now. He won't marry if I can help it, I know that, an' I keep his eagerness down by talkin' to him about Hiram Mullins all I can, an' surely Hiram is enough to keep any man from soarin' into marriage if he can just manage to hop along single an' in peace."

"Have you—" asked Mrs. Lathrop, interestedly.

"Well, I should say I had—an' it's fresh on my mind, too. It was yesterday an' I see 'em both. Lucy come in the mornin' an' Gran'ma Mullins in the afternoon. I'd like to of had Hiram come in the evenin' an' tell his end, but Hiram don't dare say a word to no man nowadays. As far as my observation's extended a man as lives steady with two women gets very meek as to even men. Hiram's learned as his long suit is to keep still an' saw wood when he ain't choppin' it."

"What did—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, Lucy come up right after market an' she said the reason she come was because she'd just got to talk or bu'st, an' she was n't anxious to bu'st yet awhile."

"What—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Oh, just the usual tale as any one could o' foreseen if they went an' married Hiram Mullins. Any one might of easy knowed as Lucy Dill could n't no more enjoy Hiram Mullins than a cat could enjoy swimmin' lessons, but she would have him, an' she had to have him, an' now she's got him—so help her eternity to come."

"Did she—" questioned Mrs. Lathrop.

"No," said Miss Clegg, "she ain't been married quite long enough for that yet; she's only been married long enough to come out strong an' bitter as to blamin' Gran'ma Mullins. I will say this for Lucy, Mrs. Lathrop, an' that is that a fairer thing than blamin' Gran'ma Mullins for Hiram could n't be expected of whoever married Hiram, for it stands to reason as no one as had brains could marry Hiram an' not want to begin blamin' his mother five minutes after. Gran'ma Mullins never did seem able to look at Hiram with a impartial eye, an' Lucy says as it beats all kind of eyes the way she looks at him since he's got married. Why, Lucy says it's most made her lose faith in her Bible—the way she feels about Gran'ma Mullins. She says she's got a feelin' towards Gran'ma Mullins as she never knowed could be in a woman. She says she's come to where she just cannot see what Ruth ever stuck to Naomi for when the husband was dead an' Naomi disposed to leave, too. She says if anythin' was to happen to Hiram she'd never be fool enough to hang onto Gran'ma Mullins. She sat down an' told me all about their goin' to town last week. She says she nigh to went mad. They started to go to the city just for a day's shoppin' an' she says it was up by the alarm clock at four an' breakfast at six for fear of missin' the nine-o'clock train an' then if Gran'ma Mullins did n't lose her little black bead bag with her weddin' ring an' the size of Hiram's foot an' eighty-five cents in it, so they could n't get him no bargain socks after all! All they could do was to buy the safety razor, an' when they got home with that there was n't no blade in it, an' they had to go way back to town next day. Come to find out the blade was in the box all the time, done up in the directions, only Hiram never read the directions, 'cause he said as it's a well-known fact as you can't cut yourself with a safety razor whatever you do.

"Well, Lucy says it's for that sort of doin's as she left her happy home an' her razor-stroppin' father, an' she says the billin' an' cooin' of Gran'ma Mullins over Hiram is enough to make a wedded wife sick. She says she would n't say it to no one but me, an' I promised her never to breathe it along any further, but she says she's beginnin' to question as to how long she's goin' to be able to stand it all. She says will you believe that nights Gran'ma Mullins is comin' in softly at all hours to tuck up Hiram's feet, an' Lucy's forever thinkin' she's either a rat or a robber or else hittin' at her for Hiram himself. She says as it's Heaven's own truth as Gran'ma Mullins is warmin' his flannels every Saturday to this day, an' that the tears stand in her very eyes when Lucy won't help him off with his boots."

"I never—" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, nor no one else. It's all Gran'ma Mullins' foolishness. She begun to be foolish when Hiram begun to know things. I can remember when he used to run everywhere behind her with a little whip, 'cause he liked to play horse, an' although she used to pretend that she let him 'cause it kept the moths out of her clothes, still every one knowed as it was just her spoilin' of him. Now he's growed up spoiled an' poor Lucy Dill's got the consequences to suffer.

"An' Lucy surely is sufferin'! She says she ain't exactly discouraged, but it's swimmin' up Niagara Falls to try an' break either of 'em of their bad habits. She says she has to look on at kisses until the very thought of one makes her seasick, an' she says to see Gran'ma Mullins listenin' to Hiram singin' is enough to make any one blush down to the very ground.

"I cheered her all I could. I told her as you can't make no sort of a purse out of ears like Hiram's, an' that what can't be cured has always got to be lived with unless you're a man. She cried some, poor thing, an' said her mother always used to say as Hiram was cut out to make some girl wish he was dead, but she said she always