"I'm goin' home to Elijah now," said Susan, "an' I shall talk the matter up with him. Elijah's awful funny, Mrs. Lathrop. However much he roams around while I'm in church he always hops back in bed an' manages to be sound asleep when it's time for me to come home. An' I will say this for him, an' that is as with all his pryin' an' meddlin' he's clever enough to get things back so I can never see no traces of what he's been at. If I was n't no sharper than most others, I'd think as he never had stirred out of bed while I was gone—but I am sharper than others an' it'll take a sharper young man than Elijah to make me suppose as all is gold that glitters or that a man left all alone in a house don't take that time to find out what he's alone in the midst of."
CHAPTER XIV
ADVISABILITY OF NEWSPAPER EXPOSURES
"Well, I don't know I'm sure what I am goin' to do with Elijah," said Susan Clegg to her friend one evening. "He's just as restless in his ideas as he is in bed, an' he's not content in bed without untuckin' everythin' at the foot. I hate a bed as is kicked out at the foot an' I hate a man as makes a woman have to put the whole bed together again new every mornin'. I'm sure I don't see no good to come of kickin' nights an' I've talked to Elijah about layin' still till I should think he could n't but see how right I am an' how wrong he is, but still he goes right on kickin', an' now he's got it into his head as he's got to turn the town topsy-turvy by findin' out suthin' wrong as we'd rather not know, an' makin' us very uncomfortable by knowin' it, an' knowin' as now we know it we've got to do suthin' about it, an' that seems to make him kick more than ever."
"Dear—" ejaculated Mrs. Lathrop.
"He set on the porch for an hour with me last night," Susan went on, "tryin' to think o' suthin' as he could expose in the paper. He says a paper ain't nothin' nowadays without it's exposin' suthin, an' a town ain't fit to have a paper if it ain't got nothin' to expose in it. He says no closet without some skeleton, an' he should think we'd have ours, an' in the end he talked so much that I could n't but feel for a little as maybe he was right an' as we was behind the times, for when you come to think it over, Mrs. Lathrop, nothin' ever does happen here as had n't ought to happen—not since Mr. Shores' wife run off with his clerk, an' that wa'n't no great happenin', for they could n't stand sittin' on the piazza much longer—every one could see that—an' Mrs. Shores wasn't one to have any man but her own husband comin' in an' out o' the house at all hours, an' so if she'd got to the point where she wanted a man as wasn't her own husband comin' in an' out, she just had to up an' run away with him, an' I never have been one to say no ill of her, for I look on Mr. Shores with a cool an' even eye, an' lookin' on Mr. Shores with a cool an' even eye leads me to fully an' freely approve of every thin' as his wife ever done."
"I—" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes, I know it, an' that's why I speak as I do. But Elijah seems to think as suthin' else ought to of happened since then, an' he asked me if I didn't know of nothin' as was bein' tried to be covered up as he could uncover, an' I really did try to think of suthin' but nobody ever covers up nothin' here. Nobody could if they wanted to. Everybody knows everythin' about everybody. We all know about Lucy an' Hiram, 'cause Gran'ma Mullins is always tellin' her side an' Hiram's side, an' Lucy is always tellin' her side an' Hiram's other side. Gran'ma Mullins says when she sees a man like Hiram havin' to devote his strength an' his Sundays to catchin' water-bugs, she most feels she's been a mother in vain, an' Lucy says when she realizes as she's married a man as can't be put to no better use Sundays than catchin' water-bugs, she ain't got no doubt at all as to what she's married. Lucy's gettin' very bitter about marriage; she says when she thinks as she may be picked out for a golden weddin' she feels like tyin' balloons to her feet an' goin' out an' standin' on her head in the crick. Elijah asked me if maybe she was n't in love with some one else as he could just notice in general kind o' terms, but I told him he did n't know what Lucy Dill was on men now as Hiram has got her eyes open. Why, Lucy don't believe no more in love a tall. Lucy says if she was rid of men an' left on a desert island alone, with one cow, so she could have eggs an' milk toast regular, she'd never watch for no ship, an' if a ship heaved up anywhere near, she'd heave down so quick that if any one on the ship had seen her they'd think they imagined her afore they'd get ready to go to her rescue. Elijah shook his head then, an' trailed off to Polly Allen; he said there must be thirty-five years between Polly an' the deacon, an' could n't suthin' be hinted at about them. That set me to wonderin', an' it's really very strange when you come to think of it, Mrs. Lathrop, how contented Polly is. I don't believe they've ever had a word. He does the cookin' an' washin' the same as he always did, an' lets her do anythin' else she pleases, an' they say she's always very obligin' about doin' it.
"So then Elijah crossed his legs the other way, an' asked if there was n't anythin' bigger as could be looked into, but every one knows Hiram is the biggest man anywhere around here, so that was no use. He asked then if we did n't have a poorhouse or a insane asylum or a slaughter-house or suthin' as he could show up in red ink. He said somebody must be doin' suthin' as they had n't ought to be doin' somewhere, an' it was both his virtue an' his business to print all about it. He says exposin' is the very life o' the newspaper business, an' you can't be nothin' nowadays without you expose. He seemed to feel very much put out about us not bein' able to be exposed, an' I could n't help a kind o' hurt feelin' as it was really so.