"But that ain't all the trouble there is. Mr. Fisher feels very much hurt at Elijah's writin' any editorial without consultin' him first. He says he told him as he could have give him a motto out of Shakespeare about layin' on an' dammin' as would have put life in the campaign right off at the beginnin'; an' then there's Mrs. Macy as thinks he was awful mean to call her one as carries weight anywhere; I'm sure I wish Elijah had let Mrs. Macy alone for she's worse than hornets over that remark of his. She says maybe Elijah'll go over two hundred an' fifty hisself some day, an' if he does he'll know as it's no joke. She bu'st her rocker last night when she read what he said about her, an' she says bu'stin' a rocker ought to show better than any words how mad it made her. My, she says, but she was mad! I told Elijah when he was gettin' up the paper as he'd better never say nothin' about nobody in it, but Elijah can't help being a man an' very like all men in consequence, an' he said as a paper was n't nothin' without personal items, an' he thought folks would enjoy being dished up tart an' spicy. I told him my views was altogether different. 'Elijah Doxey,' I says, 'you dish Meadville up tart an' spicy an' we'll all feel to enjoy, but you leave folks here alone.' But he didn't mind me an' now he's got a lesson as will maybe teach him to leave the armchairs of folks as is payin' for his paper unbu'sted henceforth."
"Now—?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, we get along pretty well," said Susan; "a man's a man, an' of course any house always is pleasanter without one in it, but I guess if you have to have one around Elijah's about as little bother as you could ask. I'm teachin' him to be real orderly in a hurry just by puttin' his things where he couldn't possibly find 'em if he leaves 'em layin' around. You always can manage pleasantly if you're smart, an' I'm smart. If he don't empty his basin, I don't fill his pitcher; if he's late to meals, I eat up all as is hot;—oh! 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 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."