"I don't know as I'm prepared to say what I think. To hear Lucy you'd think she was surely the martyr, but to hear Gran'ma Mullins you would n't be sure after all. Gran'ma Mullins says after the honeymoon is over every one expects to settle down as a matter of course, an' she would n't say a word against it only it's Lucy is doin' all the settlin' an' poor Hiram as is doin' all the down. She says it's heartbreakin' to be a only mother an' watch the way as Hiram is being everlastin'ly downed. She says as we all remember that bright an' happy weddin' day[B] an' how she downed her own feelin's an' waved rice after 'em just like everybody else when they started off weddin'-trippin', each with their own bag in his own hand. But, oh, she says, the way they come back! She says they come back with Hiram carryin' both bags, an' her heart sunk when she see 'em for she says when she was married it was her as come home carryin' both bags an' she says it's one of the saddest straws as ever blows a bride out. She says she never expected much of her marriage 'cause she was engaged on a April Fool's Day in Leap Year, an' he give her an imitation opal for a ring, but she says Hiram give Lucy a real green emerald with a 18 an' a K inside it an' he looked to be happy even with his mother's tears mildewin' his pillow every night that whole summer. She says no one will ever know how hard she did try to get sense into Hiram that summer afore it was too late. She says she used to sit up in tears an' wait for him to come home from seein' Lucy, an' weep on his neck with her arms tight round him for two or three hours afterwards every night, but she says he never used to appreciate it. An' she says what he needed to marry for, anyway, Heaven only knows, with his whole life laid pleasantly out to suit him, an' a strong an' able-bodied mother ready an' smilin' to hand him whatever he wanted just as quick as he wanted it. An' she says she never asked him to do nothin' as she could possibly do herself an' the way Lucy orders him about!—well, she says it's beyond all belief. An' oh, but she says it goes through her like a chained-up bolt of lightnin' the voice Lucy speaks to him in, an' she said she would n't have no one know it for worlds but she says as near as she can figger she hit him over the head with a hairbrush night before last."
[B] See "Susan Clegg and her Neighbors' Affairs."
"With a—" cried Mrs. Lathrop, aghast.
"She says she ain't absolutely positive, but they was a-chasin' a June bug in their room together, an' she heard the smash an' the next mornin' when she went in to make Hiram's side of the bed after Lucy (she says Lucy is a most sing'lar bed-maker) she see the nick on the brush, an' she says when she see the nick an' remembered how hollow it rung, she knew as it could n't possibly have been nothin' in that room except Hiram's head. She says if Lucy's begun on Hiram with a hairbrush now, Heaven only knows what she'll be after him with in a year, for Gran'ma Mullins' own husband went from a cake of soap to a whole cheese in a fortnight an' she says it's a well-known fact as when a married man is once set a-goin' he lands things faster an' faster. She says she thinks about the andirons there, ready to Lucy's hand, until she's scared white, an' yet she's afraid to take 'em for fear it'd attract her to the water pitcher."
"Did Mr.—" began Mrs. Lathrop, hurriedly, after several attempts to slide a question-quoit in among Susan's game of words.
"Oh, he did n't throw 'em at her. I could n't understand what he did do with them an' so I asked, but it seems it was just as awful for he grated the whole cake o' that soap on her front teeth to teach her not to never refer to the deacon again, an' he dropped the cheese square on her head when he was up on a step-ladder an' she was in a little cupboard underneath leanin' over for a plate, an' then he tried to make out as it was an accident. She says it was n't no accident though. She says a woman as gets a cheese on the back of her head from a husband as is on a step-ladder over her, ain't to be fooled with no accident story; she says that cheese like to of hurt her for life an' was the greatest of the consolations she had when he died. She says she never will forget it as long as she's alive an' he's dead, no sir, so help her heaven she won't; she says when the cemetery committee come to her an' want her to subscribe for keepin' him trimmed with a lawn mower an' a little flag on Decoration Day, she always thinks of that cheese an' says no, thank you, they can just mow him regularly right along with the rest.
"But oh, she says it's awful bitter an' cold to see Hiram settin' out along that stony, bony, thorny road, as she's learned every pin in from first to last. She says if Lucy 'd only be a little patient with him, but no, to bed he must go feelin' as bright as a button, an' in the mornin', oh my, but she says it's heartrendin' to hear him wake up, for Lucy washes his face so sudden with cold water that he gives one howl before he remembers he's married, an' five minutes after she hangs every last one of the bedclothes square out of the window.
"I tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, it was a pretty sad tale first an' last, an' Gran'ma Mullins says Hiram is as meek as a sheep being led to its halter, but she says she can't feel as meekness pays women much. She says she was meek an' Hiram's meek, an' she did n't get no reward but soap an' that cheese, an' all Hiram's got so far is the hairbrush, an' the water pitcher loomin'.
"I told her my own feelin's was as marriage was n't enough took into consideration nowadays, an' that it was too easy at the start, an' too hard at the finish. You know yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, as there ain't a mite o' doubt but what if the honeymoon come just afore the funeral there'd be a deal more sincere mournin' than there is as it is now, an' to my order of thinkin', if the grandchildren come afore the children, folks would raise their families wiser. I told Gran'ma Mullins just that very thing but it did n't seem to give her much comfort. She give a little yell an' said oh, Heaven preserve her from havin' to sit by an' watch Lucy Dill raise Hiram's children, for she was sure as she'd never be able to give 'em enough pie on the sly to keep 'em happy an' any one with half an eye could see they'd be washed an' brushed half to death. She says Lucy won't wash a dish without rinsin' it afterwards or sweep a room without carryin' all the furniture out into the yard; oh my, she says her ways is most awful an' I expect that, to Gran'ma Mullins, they are.
"I cheered her all I could. I told her she'd better make the best o' things now, 'cause o' course as Lucy got older Hiram'd make her madder an' madder, an' they'll all soon be lookin' back to this happy first year as their one glimpse of paradise. I did n't tell her what Lucy told me o' course, 'cause she'd go an' tell Hiram, an' Hiram must love Lucy or he'd never stand being hit for a June bug or woke with a wash-cloth. But I did kind of wonder how long it would last. If I was Lucy it would n't last long, I know that. If I'd ever married a man I don't know how long he'd of stood it or how long I'd of stood him, but I know one thing, Mrs. Lathrop, an' I know that from my heels to my hairpins—an' I said it to Elijah last night, an' I'm goin' to say it to you now—an' that is that if I could n't of stood him I would n't of stood him, for this is the age when women as read the papers don't stand nothin' they don't want to—an' I would n't neither."