"But isn't something—?"
"Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the door of the insurance men's room this morning, and they fell in a heap when they started out; and some one as nobody can locate poured a pitcher of ice water through the ventilator as is over their bed. Seeing that public feeling is on the rise, they sent right after breakfast for the appraisers, and they're going to begin appraising and un-sealing to-morrow morning. They've entirely give up the idea of waiting for Mrs. Macy. The town just won't stand for any more hanging around waiting for nothing. I never see us so before. Every one is so upset and divided in their feelings that some think we'd ought to horsewhip the insurance men, and some think we'd ought to hold a burial service for Mrs. Macy."
"I wouldn't see any good in holding a service for Mrs. Macy," said Gran'ma Mullins. "She wouldn't have been buried here if she was dead; she was always planning to go to Meadville when she was dead."
"Yes," said Susan, "I know. Because Mrs. Lupey's got that nice lot with that nice mausoleum as she bought from the Pennybackers when they got rich and moved even their great-grandfather to the city."
"I remember the Pennybackers," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Old man Pennybacker used to drive a cart for rags. It was a great day for the Pennybackers when Joe went into the pawnbroker business."
"Yes," said Susan, "it's wonderful how rich men manage to get on when they're young. Seems as if there's just no way to crowd a millionaire out of business or kill him off. I'm always reading what they went through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a thing as when it's going to be is going to be, and you've just got to let 'em do it once they get started."
"It was a nice mausoleum," said Gran'ma Mullins. "Mrs. Macy has told me about it a hundred times. It's so big, Mrs. Lupey says, she can live up to her hospitable nature at last, for there's room for all and to spare. Mrs. Macy was the first person she asked. Mrs. Macy thought that was very kind of just a cousin. There's only Mrs. Kitts there, now, and Mrs. Lupey's aunt, Mrs. Cogetts."
"Mrs. Macy didn't know she had a aunt," said Susan. "Mrs. Cogetts came way from Jacoma just on account of the mausoleum. That's a long ways to come just to save paying for a lot where you are, seems to me; but some natures'll go to any lengths to save money."
"I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now," said Gran'ma Mullins, with a sigh.
"Nobody knows. A good many is decided that it's surely a clear case of Elijah, only nobody pretends to believe in the Bible so much as to think that she can go up and stay there. Mrs. Macy'd have to come down, and the higher she went the more heaven help her when she does come down. Mrs. Macy was very solid, as we all know who've heard her sit down or seen her get up, and I can't see no happy ending ahead, even though we all wish her well. The insurance men is very blue over her not coming back, for they expected to prove a tornado sure; but even insurance men can't have the whole world run to suit them these days. Anyhow, my view is as it's no use worrying. Spilt milk's a poor thing to cook with. If you're in the fire, you ain't in the frying-pan. The real sufferers is this community, as is all locked out of their houses. The Browns is living in the cellar to the cowshed, with two lengths of sidewalk laid over them. Mrs. Brown says she feels like a Pilgrim Father, and she sees why they got killed off so fast by the Indians,—it was so much easier to be scalped than to do your hair. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change regular, for whoever turns over spills out, and the other one is sitting looking at the moon and waiting all ready to get in."