"But what can I do, Mrs. Lathrop, I did n't know of nothin'? We ain't got no place to do anythin' except in the square an' nobody never does nothin' without everybody knows that day or the next mornin' at the latest. I don't believe as anybody could have a secret with anybody in this town 'cause you'd know very well as if you did n't get 'round pretty quick an' tell it first the other one would be gettin' ahead o' you an' tellin' it before you. Of course I could see Elijah's drift all right. Them city papers has turned his head completely just as they do everybody else's when they first get a new idea. Elijah wants us to be eatin' bluing for blueberries an' cats for calves jus' so he can be the first to tell us about it, but there ain't a cat in town as ain't too well known for anybody to eat without knowin' it, an' as for bluing, if anybody can feed it to me for blueberries it's me as is the fool an' them as is n't, an' that's my views.
"I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I ain't got no great sympathy with this new idea o' keepin' us all stirred up over how awful things is. I won't say as I approved when that man in Chicago made sausage out o' his wife 'cause he was tired o' her, but I will say as if Lucy see her chance at Hiram that way I ain't sure as she could restrain herself. Hiram's perfectly healthy an' could be depended upon not to disagree with no one in sausage to anythin' like the extent Lucy disagrees with him, an' Gran'ma Mullins is so tired of hearin' 'em quarrel that I ain't prepared to say as she'd rebel at anythin' as sent Lucy back to her father.
"Elijah went on to tell me a lot about insurance an' railroads, but all about insurance an' railroads is 'way beyond my interest an' 'way beyond the understandin' of every one else here, an' nobody's goin' to remember a thing about any of it a year from now anyhow. That's the trouble with this country,—they don't remember nothin',—everybody forgets everythin' before the month is out. Most of the people never thinks o' San Francisco now, an' as for that fire they had in Baltimore, it's as dead as Moses.
"That's the advantage the rest of the country has over us when it comes to exposin'. They can expose an' expose, an' all the folks who read about it forget an' forget, but here in this community it's different an' you can't count on our forgettin' things a tall, an' if Elijah was turned loose I'll venture to say every last one o' them papers would be saved until doomsday. I know that an' knowin' that I very carefully restrain him. There's a many as knows as Mr. Kimball's dried apples is often very under rate, an' a many others as knows whose dead cat that was as Mrs. Sweet had to bury after vowin' she would n't till she smelt as she'd got to. Every last one of us knows what Dr. Brown gets at the drug store when he asks for what he usually gets an' there's a good many as thinks as Mrs. Macy goes to Meadville more on a'count o' Dr. Carter than to see her cousin, Mrs. Lupey. But I was n't goin' to set Elijah swimmin' in any such deep water. Elijah is a young man an' the age to go wrong easy, an' when that age see how easy it is to go wrong they're nothin' but foolish if they waste another second goin' right, so if Elijah wants to go to exposin' he'll have to get his stuff from some one else beside me."
"You—" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"No, I don't say that," said Miss Clegg, "I'm only human after all an' I can't in conscience deny as I should like to see them as I don't like showed up just as much as any other man as is makin' a business of showin' up his neighbors, likes it. But I know I've got to live here an' it'd be very poor livin' for me after I'd aired myself by way of Elijah. There's a great difference between knowin' things all by yourself an' readin' 'em in the paper, an' I know as that dead cat would cause a great deal o' hard feelin' in print, while buried by Mrs. Sweet it only helps her garden grow. So I shall keep on talkin' as usual, but I shall hold Elijah out o' print an' so keep the country safe."
"I—" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, the paper'll do just as well," said Susan; "he's goin' to print one sheet as comes all printed from the city every week an' he says that'll put new zest in the thing. It'll be a great deal better to get the zest that way than to get it exposin'. Zest is suthin' as is always safest a good ways off. Elijah saw that, too, afore he got done last night, for in his hitchin' about he hitched over the edge o' the piazza in the end."
"Did—" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, no," said Miss Clegg. "But he tore a lot of things an' smashed a rose bush, but I did n't care about that. I just told him to leave 'em on a chair this mornin' an' I'd sew 'em all up again, an' I done it, an' as to the rose bush, I'll have him get another an' give it to me for a present the next time I go to the city to pick it out myself."