"Yes—on postal cards. One wrote as she could get her husband back if she'd only follow his direction, an' she says the last thing she wants is to get her husband back, even if he is only just simply dead; an' another told her if she'd go through his exercises she could get fat or thin just as she pleased, an' the exercises was done in black without no clothes on around the edge of the card, an' Mrs. Macy says when Johnny handed her the card at the post office she like to of died then an' there. Why, she says they was too bad to put in a book, even—they was too bad to even send Mrs. Lupey!"
"Wh—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Then on Monday last still another new kind begin an' they've been comin' more an' more each mail. They was the convention itself beginnin' on her. An' she says she don't know whether they was a improvement or worse to come. One wrote an' told her if she was temperance to report to them the first thing, an' then stand shoulder to shoulder from then on straight through the whole week. Well, Mrs. Macy says she could n't consider goin' anywhere an' standin' up through a whole week so she wrote 'em she was for the Family Entrance, where everybody can sit down, an' she feels bad because she's a great believer in temperance, but she says she can't help it, she's got to have a chair anywhere where she's to stay for a week. So temperance loses Mrs. Macy. Then woman's sufferige did n't wait to ask her what she was, but sent her a button an' told her to sew it right on right then an' there. She says she was feelin' so bad over the temperance that she was only too glad to be agreeable about the button so she done it, but it's hard to button over on a'count of bein' a star with the usual spikes an' the only place where she needed a button was on her placket hole, an' a spiked button in the back of your petticoat is far from bein' amusin' although she says she can't but think as it's a very good badge for sufferige whenever she steps on it in steppin' out of her clothes at night. Then next she got a letter askin' her if she'd join the grand battalion to rally around the flag, an' she says it was right then an' there as she begin to fill the kindlin' box.
"Well, she says she'd got the box half full when to-day she got the final slam in her face!
"There came this mornin' her directions for goin' an' she says when she see for the first time just the whole width of what she was let in to she most fell over backward then an' there.
"First was a badge with a very good safety pin as she can always use; she says she did n't mind the badge. Then there was paper tellin' her as she was M. 1206 an' not to let it slip her mind an' to mark everythin' she owned with it an' sew it in her hat an' umbrella. Then there was a map of the city with blue lines an' pink squares an' a sun without any sense shinin' square in the middle. Then there was a paper as she must fill out an' return by the next mail if she was meanin' to eat or sleep durin' the week. Then there was four labels all to be writ with her name an' her number an' one was for her trunk if it weighed over a hundred pounds, an' one was for her trunk if it weighed under a hundred pounds, an' one was for her trunk if it was a suit case, an' one was for her trunk if it was n't.
"Well, Mrs. Macy says you can maybe imagine how her head was swimmin' by this time an' the more she read how she was to be looked out for, the more scared she got over what might possibly happen to her. She says it was just shock after shock. There was a letter offerin' to pray with her any time she'd telephone first, an' a letter tellin' her not to overpay the hack, an' a letter sayin' as it's always darkest afore dawn, an' if she'd got any money saved up to bring it along with her an' invest it by the careful advice of him as had the letter printed at his own expense. Why, she says she didn't know which way to turn or what to do next she was that mixed up.
"An' then yesterday mornin' come the final bang as bu'sted Mrs. Macy! She got a letter from a man as said he'd meet her in the station an' tattoo her name right on her in the ladies' waitin'-room, so as her friends could easy find her an' know her body at the morgue. Well, she said that ended her. She says she never was one to take to bein' stuck an' so she just up an' wrote to Mrs. Lupey as she would n't go for love or money—"
"Why," cried Mrs. Lathrop, "then she isn't—"
"No," said Susan, "she isn't goin'. She ain't got the courage an' it's cruel to force her. I told her to give me the ticket an' I'd go in her place."