"What—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Love affairs is terrible tame to lookers-on, I think. If they get over it your time's wasted an' if they don't get over it the time's wasted all around. My own opinion is as all love affairs is a very foolish kind o' business, for you never find real sensible folks havin' anythin' to do with 'em. But it was no use talkin' that to-day, so Henry Ward Beecher hung up there on the breakfast foods, an' we sat an' watched him like combination cats till long about five Johnny come by an' said as Mr. Sperrit had took Emma home with them to tea."
"Oh—" cried Mrs. Lathrop, impulsively.
"I don't know why not," said Susan, "my own opinion is as he's a idiot—"
"Mr. Sper—"
"No, Henry Ward Beecher. It's always struck me as a very strange thing as we had n't got one single idiot in this community an' I guess the real truth is as we've had one all the time an' did n't know him by sight. There's a idiot most everywhere till he gets the idea into his head to kill some one an' so gives others the idea as he's safer shut up, an' so it ain't surprisin' our havin' one too. I see Mrs. Brown on my way home an' I asked her if she did n't think as I was right. She said she would n't be surprised if it was true, an' it was very odd as she'd never thought o' it before, recollectin' her experience with him years ago when she had him that time as the minister went to the Sperrits' on his vacation. She went on to say then as to her order o' thinkin' Mr. an' Mrs. Sperrit come pretty close to bein' idiots themselves, for she says she don't know she's sure what ails 'em but they've been married years now an' is still goin' round as beamin' as two full moons. She says it ain't anythin' to talk of in public but actually to see 'em drivin' back from market sometimes most makes her wish as she was n't a widow, an' she says anythin' as'd make her sorry she's a widow had n't ought to be goin' round loose in a Christian town. She was very much in earnest an' Mrs. Fisher overtook us just then an' she said it all over again to her an' she said more, too—she said as the way she looks at him in church is all right an' really nothin' but a joy to look on afore marriage, but she don't consider it hardly decent afterwards for it's deludin' an' can't possibly be meant in earnest. She says she was married, an' her son is married, an' her father was married, too, an' you can't tell her that the way Mr. an' Mrs. Sperrit go on isn't suthin' pretty close to idiocy even if it ain't the whole thing."
"You—" said Mrs. Lathrop."
"Mrs. Fisher said," continued Susan, "as she thought maybe she got used to lookin' pleasant at him in all them years as she kept house for him afore he made up his mind to get married to her, an' so the habit kind of is on her an' what's dyed in the wool keeps on stickin' to Mr. Sperrit. She said as they do say as he married her 'cause he wanted her bedroom to hang up corn to dry in. She went on to say as for her part she always enjoyed seein' the Sperrits so happy for it done any one good to only look at 'em an' that she'd only be too happy to be a idiot herself if it'd do any human bein' good to look at her an' Mr. Fisher afterwards. She went on to say as she'd heard as the other night Mr. Sperrit drove two miles back in the rain 'cause he'd forgot a cake o' sapolio as she'd asked him to bring. I spoke up at that an' I said I did n't see nothin' very surprisin' in that, for I know if I asked any man as I was married to to bring home a cake o' sapolio I should most surely look to see the cake when he come home."
"I know; but you always spoiled him," said Susan. "Well, what was I sayin'? Oh, yes, Mrs. Brown said as Mrs. Macy was tellin' her the other day as they've got a idiot in Meadville—a real hereditary one; the doctors have all studied him an' it's a clear case right down from his great-grandfather."