"Next Wednesday. Elijah's comin' up freight with the printin' press. Mr. Kimball says he suggested that himself. He says it cuts two birds with one knife for it makes it look as if the printin' press was extra fine instead of second-hand, an' it gets Elijah here for nothin'."
"Dear—" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"I would, too," said Miss Clegg, "only you see I have n't got time. I ought not to be here now. I ought to be over gettin' his room ready an' takin' out the little comforts. As far as my order of thinkin' goes, little comforts is lost on men, Mrs. Lathrop, they always trip over them an' smash them in the dark."
CHAPTER II
ELIJAH DOXEY AND HIS LOCKED BOX
"Well," suggested Mrs. Lathrop one pleasant Saturday morning, a few days later, when she and her friend met at the fence. Miss Clegg looked slightly fretted and more than slightly warm, for she had been giving her garden an uncommonly vigorous weeding on account of an uncommonly vigorous shower which had fallen the afternoon before. The weeding had been so strenuous that Miss Clegg was quite disposed to stop and rest, and as she joined her neighbor and read the keen interest that never failed to glow in the latter's eyes, her own expression softened slightly and she took up her end of the conversation with her customary capability at giving forth.
"I don't know," she began, "an' Mr. Kimball don't know either. Elijah was tellin' me all about it last night. He is a trouble, Mrs. Lathrop, but I don't know but what it pays to have a man around when you can have them to talk to like I have him. Of course a new broom sweeps clean an' I've no intention of supposin' that Elijah will ever keep on coverin' his soap an' scrapin' his feet long, but so far so good, an' last night it was real pleasant to hear the rain an' him together tellin' how much trouble they're havin', owin' to Hiram's bein' too energetic wringin' the handle of the printin' press an' then to think as when he was all done talkin' it would be him an' not me as in common decency would have to go out in the wet to padlock the chickens. Seems, Mrs. Lathrop, as they're really havin' no end o' trouble over the new paper an' Elijah's real put out. He says Hiram had a idea as the more the speed the better the paper an' was just wringin' for dear life, an' the first thing he knew the first issue begin to slide a little cornerways an' slid off into a crank as Elijah never knowed was there, an' him an' Mr. Kimball spent the whole of yesterday runnin' around like mad an' no way to fix it. As a consequence Elijah's very much afraid as there'll be no paper this week an' it's too bad, for every one is in town spendin' the day an' waitin' to take it home with them. Young Dr. Brown is goin' to feel just awful 'cause he'd bought twenty-five papers to mail to all his college class. There was goin' to be a item about him, an' Mrs. Brown says it was goin' to be a good one for she fed Elijah mince pie while he made his notes for it an' had Amelia play on her guitar, too."
"What do you—?" began Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, I can't say as I really know what to think of him just yet. I never see such a young man afore. He has some very curious ways, Mrs. Lathrop, ways as make me feel that I can't tell you positively what I do think. Now yesterday was the first day as I knowed he'd be gone for long, so I took it to go through all his things, an' do you know, away down at the bottom of one of his trunks I found a box as was locked an' no key anywhere. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I hunted, an' I hunted, an' I hunted, an' I couldn't find that key a tall. I never had any thin' of that kind in my house afore an' of course I ain't goin' to give up without a good deal more lookin', but if I can't find that key it'll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt as Elijah Doxey ain't of a trustin' nature an' if that's true I don't know how I ever will be able to get along with him. A trustin' nature is one thing to have around an' a distrustin' nature is another thing, an' I can tell you that there's somethin' about feelin' as you ain't trusted as makes me take my hands right out of my bread dough an' go straight upstairs to begin lookin' for that key again. The more I hunt the wilder I get, for it's a very small box for a man to keep locked, an' it ain't his money or jewelry for it don't rattle when you shake it. It's too bad for me to feel so because in most other ways he's a very nice young man, although I will say as sunset is midnight compared to his hair."