"I—" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, you ain't me," said Miss Clegg, "you ain't me an' you ain't Elijah neither. I talk very kind to Elijah, but there's no livin' in the house with any man as supposes livin' in the house with any other woman is goin' to be pleasanter than livin' in the house with the woman as he's then an' there livin' in the house with. The main thing in life is to keep men down to a low opinion of every woman's cookin' but yours an' keep yourself down to a low opinion of the man. You don't want to marry him then an' he don't want to live with any one else. An' to my order of thinkin' that's about the only way that a woman can take any comfort with a man in the house."
CHAPTER V
SUSAN CLEGG'S FULL DAY
"Well," said Miss Clegg, with strong emphasis, as she mounted Mrs. Lathrop's steps, "I don't know, I'm sure, what I've come over here for this night, for I never felt more like goin' right straight off to bed in all my life before." Then she sat down on the top step and sighed heavily.
"It's been a full day," she went on presently; "an' I can't deny as I was nothin' but glad to remember as Elijah was n't comin' home to supper, for as a consequence I sha'n't have it to get. A woman as has had a day like mine to-day don't want no supper anyhow, an' it stands to reason as if I don't feel lively in the first place, I ain't goin' to be made any more so by comin' to see you, for I will remark, Mrs. Lathrop, that seein' you always makes me wonder more'n ever why I come to see you so often when I might just as well stay home an' go to bed. If I was in my bed this blessed minute I'd be very comfortable, which I'm very far from bein' here with this mosquito aimin' just over my slap each time; an' then, too, I'd be alone, an' no matter how hard I may try to make myself look upon bein' with you as the same thing as bein' alone, it is n't the same thing an' you can't in conscience deny that, no matter how hard you may sit without movin'."
Mrs. Lathrop made no reply to this frank comment on her liveliness, and after a short pause, Miss Clegg sighed heavily a second time, and continued:
"It's been a full day, a awful full day. In the first place the rooster was woke by accident last night an' he up an' woke me. He must of woke me about three o'clock as near as I can figure it out now, but I supposed when I was woke as of course it was five so I got right up an' went in an' woke Elijah. Elijah told me last week as he did n't believe he'd ever seen the sun rise an' I was just enough out of sorts to think as to-day would be a good time for him to begin to turn over a new leaf as far as the sunrise was concerned. I must say he was n't very spry about the leaf, for all he did was to turn himself over at first, but I opened his window an' banged the blinds three or four times an' in the end he got woke up without really knowin' just what had woke him. We had breakfast with a candle, an' then Elijah was so tired lookin' out for the sunrise that he looked in at his watch an' see as it was only quarter to four then. He was real put out at that at first 'cause he wrote till half past two last night, an' in the end he went back to bed an' it certainly was a relief to see the last of him, for I may in confidence remark as I never see him look quite so stupid afore. After he was gone back to bed I washed up the breakfast dishes an' then I went out in the wood shed in the dark an' there I got another surprise, for I thought I'd look over the rags I was savin' for the next rag rug an' when I poured 'em out in my lap, what do you think, Mrs. Lathrop, what do you think poured out along with 'em?—Why, a nest of young mice an' two old ones!
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can maybe imagine my feelin's at four in the mornin' with Elijah gone back to bed an' my own lap full of mice, but whatever I yelled did n't disturb him any an' I just made two jumps for the lamp in the kitchen, leavin' the mice wherever they hit to rearrange their family to suit themselves. Well, the second jump must needs land me right square on top of the cistern lid, an' it up an' went in, takin' my left leg along with it as far as it would go. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, talk of girls as can open an' shut, like scissors, in a circus—I was scissored to that degree that for a little I could n't think which would be wisest, to try an' get myself together again in the kitchen or to just give up altogether in the cistern. In the end I hauled the leg as had gone in out again, an' then I see where all the trouble come from, for the cistern lid was caught to my garter an' what I'd thought was a real injury was only it swingin' around an' around my leg. I put the lid back on the cistern an' felt to sit with my legs crossed for quite a while, thinkin' pleasant thoughts of the rooster as woke me, an' by that time it was half past four, an' I could hear all the other chickens stirrin' so I got up an' began to stir again myself. I opened the front door an' looked out an' that did n't bring me no good luck either, for as I looked out a bat flew in an' just as the bat flew in he managed to hook himself right in my hair. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I tell you I was mad then. I don't know as I ever was madder than I was then. I was so mad that I can't tell you how mad I was. The bat held on by diggin' in like he thought I wanted to get him off, an' I pulled at him so hard that I can't in conscience be surprised much over his takin' that view of it. Well, in the end I had to take all my hairpins out first an' then sort of skin him out of my hair lengthways, which, whatever you may think about it, Mrs. Lathrop, is far from bein' funny along afore dawn on a day as you 've begun at three thinkin' as it was five."