"Oh, I saw there was nothin' else as Mrs. Macy could talk about just now so I come home an' then I come over here. I declare though, Mrs. Lathrop, I can't help bein' a little blue to-night. Of course I ain't any real relation to you, but we've been neighbors so long that I can't help feelin' a little bit uneasy over thinkin' of Mrs. Kitts an' wonderin' how long you may be goin' to live in the end."
CHAPTER XI
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
"Well, Mrs. Lathrop," said Susan Clegg one pleasant May evening, as she and her devoted listener leaned their elbows on the top rail of the fence, "I can't but thank Heaven as these boards is the only thing as you ever take opposite sides from me on. I don't say as your never disagreein' ain't sometimes wearin', but there are days as I feel I'd enjoy a little discussion an' then Elijah an' I discuss on those days till it seems like I can't live to get to you an' do it all alone by myself. Elijah's a very young man but he's a man after all an' there's somethin' about a man as makes him not able to see any side of anythin' except his own side. Now it don't make any difference what we talk about I always take the other side, an' I will in confidence remark as the South fightin' Grant had a easy job compared to me tryin' to get Elijah to see any side but his own. Elijah's a very pig-headed young man an' I declare I don't know I'm sure what ailed him last night—seemed as if he was up a tree about somethin' as made him just wild over the Democratic party. I must say—an' I said it to his face, too—as to my order of thinkin' takin' sides about the Democrats nowadays is like takin' sides with Pharaoh after the Red Sea had swallowed him an' all his chariots up forever, but Elijah never gives up to no man, an' he said, not so, the Democrats was still ready to be the salvation of the country if only Bryan would give 'em a chance. He says they 've been handicapped so far an' it's very tryin' for any party to have to choose between a donkey an' a tiger for its picture of itself, for no sensible person likes to have to ride on either, an' no politics could ever make a success of a donkey for a mascot, whether you judge him from his ears or his heels. I had it in my mind to say somethin' then about turnin' around an' takin' a fresh start with a fresh animal as a sensible person would find it nothin' but a joy to ride, but Elijah, like all newspapers, rips a thing up the back an' then shows you how you can't do better than to sew up the tear an' go on wearin' it again, so after he'd skinned the donkey an' the tiger both alive, so to speak, he went on to say as never's a long game an' him laughs best who keeps sober longest an' altogether his own feelin' was as America 'll soon perceive her only hope lays in electin' a new Democratic party. I just broke in then an' told him it looked to me as if the natural run of mankind would n't let Grover Cleveland skip eight years an' then try it again more 'n six times more, an' that if the Republicans keep it up as they have awhile longer no money won't be able to get 'em out 'cause they'll have all the money there is in the country right in with them, but by that time Elijah'd got his breath, an' he just shook his head an' asked me if I remembered what a lot of fuss the first billion dollar congress made an' if I'd observed how calm they was took now? I told him I had an' then we went at it hammer an' tongs, Elijah for the Democrats an' me against 'em, although I must say I wished he'd give me the other side, for in spite of their actin' so silly I must say I always have a feelin' as the most of the Democrats is tryin' to be honest which is somethin' as even their best friend couldn't say of the most of the Republicans as a general thing."
"Did—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes, I did, an' I don't know but we'd be talkin' yet only Mr. Dill come in on us to ask me if I would n't consider takin' Gran'ma Mullins to board for a month or two, just to see how Hiram an' Lucy would get along if they had the house all alone to themselves."
"What—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, I told him I'd think about it," said Miss Clegg. "I don't know I'm sure why I should bed an' board Gran'ma Mullins to help Lucy an' Hiram to try to get along any better. They 're a good deal more interestin' to talk about the way they're gettin' along now. I never see Mrs. Macy but what she has somethin' amusin' to tell me about Hiram an' Lucy an' Gran'ma Mullins, an' I like to hear it. She says the other night they was all three runnin' round the house one after another for a hour an' she said she most died laughin' to watch 'em. Seems Lucy got mad an' started to run after Hiram to pull his hair, an' Gran'ma Mullins was so scared for fear she would pull his hair that she run after Lucy to ask her not to do it. Hiram run so much faster than Lucy that finally he caught up with Gran'ma Mullins an' then they all went to bed. Mrs. Macy says that's the way they act all the time, an' she certainly would n't see any more than I should why I should break up the family. I'm sure I never cooked up that marriage an' I told Mr. Dill so. I asked him why he did n't take Gran'ma Mullins to board with him, if he was so wild to get her away from Lucy, but he said he did n't think it'd be proper, an' I said I did n't say nothin' about bed—I just spoke about board, an' if there was anythin' as was n't proper about boardin' Gran'ma Mullins he'd ought not to of mentioned the subject to me."
"What—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.