PART FOURTH
MR. JILKINS'S HAT
Polly Allen's wedding took place the next day, and Mrs. Lathrop came out on her front piazza about half past five to wait for her share in the event.
The sight of Mrs. Brown going by with her head bound up in a white cloth, accompanied by Gran'ma Mullins with both hands similarly treated, was the first inkling the stay-at-home had that strange doings had been lately done.
Susan came next and Susan was a sight! Not only did her ears stand up with a size and conspicuousness never inherited from either her father or her mother, but also her right eye was completely closed and she walked lame.
"The Lord have mercy!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, when the full force of her friend's affliction effected its complete entrance into her brain,—"Why, Susan, what—"
"Mrs. Lathrop," said Miss Clegg, "all I can say is I come out better than the most of 'em, 'n' if you could see Sam Duruy or Mr. Kimball or the minister you 'd know I spoke the truth. The deacon 'n' Polly is both in bed 'n' can't see how each other looks, 'n' them as has a eye is goin' to tend them as can't see at all, an' God help 'em all if young Dr. Brown an' the mud run dry!" with which pious ejaculation Susan painfully mounted the steps and sat down with exceeding gentleness upon a chair.
Mrs. Lathrop stared at her in dumb and wholly bewildered amazement. After a while Miss Clegg continued.
"It was all the deacon's fault. Him 'n' Polly was so dead set on bein' fashionable 'n' bein' a contrast to Hiram an Lucy, 'n' I hope to-night as they lay there all puffed up as they 'll reflect on their folly 'n' think a little on how the rest of us as did n't care rhyme or reason for folly is got no choice but to puff up, too. Mrs. Jilkins is awful mad; she says Mr. Jilkins wanted to wear his straw hat anyhow, 'n' she says she always has hated his silk hat 'cause it reminds her o' when she was young 'n' foolish enough to be willin' to go 'n' marry into a family as was foolish enough to marry into Deacon White. Mrs. Jilkins is extra hot because she got one in the neck, but my own idea is as Polly Allen's weddin' was the silliest doin's as I ever see from the beginnin', 'n' the end wa'n't no more than might o' been expected—all things considered.
"When I got to the church, what do you think was the first thing as I see, Mrs. Lathrop? Well, you 'd never guess till kingdom come, so I may as well tell you. It was Ed 'n' Sam Duruy 'n' Henry Ward Beecher 'n' Johnny standin' there waitin' to show us to our pews like we did n't know our own pews after sittin' in 'em for all our life-times! I just shook my head 'n' walked to my pew, 'n' there, if it was n't looped shut with a daisy-chain! Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I wish you could have been there to have felt for me, for I may remark as a cyclone is a caterpillar wove up in hisself beside my face when I see myself daisy-chained out o' my own pew by Polly Allen. Ed was behind me 'n' he whispered 'That's reserved for the family.' I give him one look 'n' I will state, Mrs. Lathrop, as he wilted. It did n't take me long to break that daisy-chain 'n' sit down in that pew, 'n' I can assure you as no one asked me to get up again. Mrs. Jilkins's cousins from Meadville come 'n' looked at me sittin' there, but I give them jus' one look back 'n' they went 'n' sat with Mrs. Macy themselves. A good many other folks was as surprised as me over where they had to sit, but we soon had other surprises as took the taste o' the first clean out o' our mouths.