Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs

I

SUSAN CLEGG'S COURTING

Mrs. Lathrop sat on her front piazza, and Susan Clegg sat with her. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking, and Susan was just back from the Sewing Society. Neither Mrs. Lathrop nor Susan was materially altered since we saw them last. Time had moved on a bit, but not a great deal, and although both were older, still they were not much older.

They were not enough older for Mrs. Lathrop to have had a new rocker, nor for Susan to have purchased a new bonnet. Susan indeed looked almost absolutely unaltered. She was a woman of the best wearing quality; she was hard and firm as ever, and if there were any plating about her, it was of the quadruple kind and would last.

If the reader knows Susan Clegg at all, he will surmise that she was talking. And he will be right. Susan was most emphatically talking. She had returned from the Sewing Society full to the brim, and Mrs. Lathrop was already enjoying the overflow. Mrs. Lathrop liked to rock and listen. She never went to the Sewing Society herself – she never went anywhere.

"We was talking about dreams," Susan was saying; "it's a very curious thing about dreams. Do you know, Mrs. Lathrop," wrinkling her brow and regarding her friend with that look of friendship which is not blind to any faults, "do you know, Mrs. Lathrop, they said down there that dreams always go by contraries. We was discussing it for a long time, and they ended up by making me believe in it. You see, it all began by my saying how I dreamed last night that Jathrop was back, and he was a cat and your cat, too, and he did something he wasn't let to, and you made one jump at him, and out of the window he went. Now that was a very strange dream for me to have dreamed, Mrs. Lathrop, and Mrs. Lupey, who's staying with Mrs. Macy to-day and maybe to-morrow, too, says she's sure it's a sign. She says if dreams go by contraries, mine ought to be a sign as Jathrop is coming back, for the contraries is all there: Jathrop wasn't a cat, and he never done nothing that he shouldn't – nor that he should, neither – and you never jump – I don't believe you've jumped in years, have you?"

"I – " began Mrs. Lathrop reminiscently.

"Oh, that time don't count," said Susan, "it was just my ball of yarn, even if it did look like a rat; I meant a jump when you meant it; you didn't mean that jump. Well, an' to go back to the dream and what was said about it and to tell you the rest of it, there wasn't any more of it, but there was plenty more said about it. All of the dream was that the cat went out of the window, and I woke up, but, oh, my, how we did talk! Gran'ma Mullins wanted to know in the first place how I knew that the cat was Jathrop. She was most interested in that, for she says she often dreams of animals, but it never struck her that they might be any one she knew. She dreamed she found a daddy-long-legs looking in her bureau drawer the other night, but she never gave it another thought. She'll be more careful after this, I guess. Well, then I begun to consider, and for the life of me I can't think how I knew that that cat was Jathrop. As I remember it was a very common looking cat, but being common looking wouldn't mean Jathrop. Jathrop was common looking, but not a common cat kind of common looking. It was a very strange dream, Mrs. Lathrop, the more I consider it, the more I can't see what give it to me. I finished up the doughnuts just before I went to bed, for I was afraid they'd mold in another day with this damp weather, but it don't seem as if doughnuts ought to result in cats like Jathrop. If I'd dreamed of mice, it'd been different, for some of the doughnuts was gnawed in a way as showed as there'd been mice in the jar. It does beat all how mice get about. Maybe it was the mice made me think Jathrop was a cat. But even then I can't see how I did come to dream that dream. Unless it was a sign. Mrs. Lupey's sure it was a sign. We talked about signs the whole of the Sewing Society. Dreams and signs. Everybody told all they knew. Mrs. Macy told about her snow dream. Whenever Mrs. Macy has her snow dream, somebody dies. She says it's so interesting to look in a paper the next time she gets hold of one and see who it was. One time she thought it was Edgar Allen Poe, but when she read it over twice, she see that it was just that he'd been born. She says her snow dream's a wonderful sign; it's never failed once. She dreamed it the night before the earthquake in Italy, and she says to think how many died of it that time!

"This started Gran'ma Mullins, and Gran'ma Mullins told about that dream she had the year before she met her husband. That was an awful dream. I wonder she met her husband a tall after it. She thought she was alone in a thick wood, and she saw a man coming, and she was scared to death. She says she can feel her trembling now. She didn't know what to do, 'cause if she'd hid among the trees he couldn't have seen her, and that idea scared her as bad as the other. So she just stood and shook and watched the man coming nearer and nearer. I've heard her tell the story a hundred times, but my blood always sort o' runs cold to hear it. The man come nearer and nearer and, my, but she says he was a man! She was just a young girl, but she was old enough to be afraid, and old enough not to want to hide from him, neither. She says it was an awful lesson to her about going in woods alone, because of course you can't never expect any sympathy if the man does murder you or kiss you – everybody'll just say, 'Why didn't she hide in the woods?' Well, Gran'ma Mullins says there she stood, and she can see herself still standing there. She says she's never been in the woods since just on account of that dream – and then, too, she's one of those that the mosquitos all get on in the woods. And then, besides, she doesn't like woods, anyway. And then, besides, there ain't no thick woods around here. But, anyhow, you know what happened – just as he got to her she woke up, and I must say of all the tame stories to have to sit and listen to over and over, that dream of Gran'ma Mullins is the tamest. I get tired the minute she begins it, but my dream had started every one to telling signs, and so of course Gran'ma Mullins had to tell hers along with the rest.

"When she was done Mrs. Lupey told us about her mother, Mrs. Kitts, and a curious kind of prophetic dream she used to have and kept right on having up to the day she died. Mrs. Lupey said she never heard the like of those dreams of her mother's, and I guess nobody else ever has, either. No, nor never will. Well, it seems Mrs. Kitts used to dream she was falling out of bed, and the curious part is that she always did fall out of bed just as she dreamed it, so it never failed to come true. She'd dream she hit the floor bang! and the next second she'd hit the floor bang! Mrs. Lupey said she never saw such a dream for coming true; if old Mrs. Kitts dreamed she hit her head, she'd hit her head, and the time she dreamed she sprained her wrist, she sprained her wrist, and the time she had her stroke, as soon as her mind was got back in place she told them she'd dreamed she had a stroke in her chair just before she fell out of her chair with the stroke. Even the minister's wife didn't have a word to say.

"Mrs. Lupey said her mother was a most remarkable woman. She's very sorry now she didn't board that painter for a portrait of her. The painter was so awful took with old Mrs. Kitts that he was willing to do her for six weeks and with the frame for two months. But Mrs. Lupey was afraid to have a painter around. She'd just read a detective story about a painter that killed the woman he was painting because he didn't want any one else to paint her. Mrs. Lupey said it was a very Frenchy story – there was a lot between the lines and on the lines, too – as she couldn't make out, but it taught her never to have painters around, for you never could be sure in a house with four other women that he'd kill the one he was painting. But she's sorry now, for she's older now and wiser and a match for any painter going, long-haired, short-haired or no hair at all. But it's too late now, and there's Mrs. Kitts dead unpainted, and all they've got left is a sweet memory and that cane she used to hit at 'em with when they weren't spry enough to suit her, and her hymn-book which she marked up without telling any one and left for a remembrance. Mrs. Lupey says such markings you never heard of.

"When Mrs. Lupey was all done, Mrs. Brown took her turn and told us some very interesting things about Amelia. Seems Amelia is so far advanced in learning what nobody can understand that she can see quite a little ways ahead now and tell just what she's going to do. She can't see for the rest of the family, but she can see for herself. Sometimes it's just a day ahead, and sometimes it's a long way ahead. The longest way ahead that she's seen yet is that she can't see herself ever getting up to breakfast again. Mrs. Brown says of course she respects Amelia's religious views, but it's trying when Amelia wants to go to church, but doesn't see herself going, so has to stay at home. She says Amelia just loves to sew, but she can't see herself sewing any more, so she's given it all up. She says Amelia's got a superior mind – anybody can tell that only to see the way she's took to doing her hair – but she says it's a little hard on young Doctor Brown and her, who haven't got superior minds, to live with her. Amelia don't want to kill flies any more, for fear they're going to be her blood relations a million years from now, and Mrs. Brown says she never was any good once a mouse was caught, but now she won't even hear to setting a trap; she says all things has equal rights, and if she feels a spider, some one has got to take it off her and set it gently outside on the grass. Oh, Mrs. Brown says, Amelia's very hard to live up to, even with the best will in the world. Mrs. – "

Here Susan was interrupted by Brunhilde Susan, the minister's youngest child, who brought the evening milk and the evening paper.

"There was a letter, so I brought that, too," said Brunhilde Susan.

"A letter!" said Susan in surprise.

"It's for Mrs. Lathrop," said Brunhilde Susan.

"For me!" said Mrs. Lathrop in even greater surprise.

"Yes'm," said Brunhilde Susan.

A letter for Mrs. Lathrop was indeed a surprise, as that good lady had only received two in the last five years. As those had been of the least interesting variety, she looked upon the present one with but mild interest. The next minute she gave a scream, for, turning it over as some people always do turn a letter over before opening it, she read on the back "Return to Jathrop Lathrop…" and her fingers turning numb with surprise and her head dizzy for the same reason, she dropped it on the floor forthwith.

Brunhilde Susan had turned and gone back down the walk. Miss Clegg, who had been regarding her friend's slowness to take action with ill-concealed impatience, now made no attempt at concealing anything, but leaned over abruptly and picked up the letter. As soon as she looked at it she came near dropping it, too. "From Jathrop!" she exclaimed, in a tone appalled. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop!"

Mrs. Lathrop was quite speechless. Susan held the letter and began to regard it closely. It was quite a minute before another sound was made, then suddenly a light burst over the younger woman's face. "It's my dream. I told you so. It was a sign, just as Mrs. Lupey said. He's coming back!"

She looked toward Mrs. Lathrop, but Mrs. Lathrop still sat quite limp and gasping for breath.

"Shall I open it and read it to you?" Susan then suggested.

"Y – y – " began Mrs. Lathrop and could get no further.

At that Susan promptly opened the letter. It was written on the paper of a Chicago hotel, and ran thus:

"Dear Mother:

"Years have passed by, and here I am on my way home again. I've been to the Klondike and am now rich and on my way home. I hope that you are well and safe at home. You'll be glad to see me home again, I know. How is everybody at home? How is Susan Clegg? I shall get home Saturday morning.

That was all and surely it was quite enough.

"Well, I declare!" Susan Clegg said, staring first at the letter and then at the mother. "Well, Mrs. Lathrop! Well, I declare. It was a sign. You and me'll never doubt signs after this, I guess."

Mrs. Lathrop made an effort to rally, but only succeeded in just feebly shaking her head.

Susan continued to hold the letter in her hand and contemplate it. Another slow minute or two passed.

But at last the wheels of life began to turn again, and that active mind, which grasped so much so readily, grasped this news, too. Miss Clegg ceased to view the letter and began to take action regarding it.

"Did you notice what he says here, Mrs. Lathrop? He says he's rich. I don't know whether you noticed or not as I read, but he says he's rich. I wonder how rich he means!"

Mrs. Lathrop opened and shut her eyes in a futile way that she had, but continued speechless.

"Rich," repeated Miss Clegg, "and me dreaming of him last night; that's very curious, when you come to think of it, 'cause I'm rich, too. And I was dreaming of him! It doesn't make any difference my thinking he was a cat; I knew it was Jathrop, even if he was only a cat in a dream. Strange my dreaming of him that way! I can see him flying out of the window right now. He was one of those lanky, long cats that eat from dawn till dark and every time your back's turned and yet keep the neighbors saying you starve it. And to think it was Jathrop all the time! Thinking of me right that minute, probably. And he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?' And he's rich. I do wonder what he'd call rich!"

Susan paused and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop remained dumb.

"The Klondike, that's where he went to, was it? Goodness, I wonder how he ever got there! Well, I'll never be surprised at nothing after this. I've had many little surprises in my life, but never nothing to equal this. Jathrop Lathrop come back rich! Why, the whole town will be at the station to meet him to-morrow. I wonder if he'll come in the parlor-car! Think of Jathrop being a cat overnight and coming in a parlor-car next day! And he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?'"

The last three words seemed to make quite an impression on Susan, but Mrs. Lathrop appeared smashed so supremely flat that nothing could make any further impression on her. She continued dumb, and Susan continued to hold the letter and comment on it.

"I wonder what he looks like now. I wonder if he's grown any better looking! I certainly do wonder if he's got any homelier. And he's rich! Why, nobody from this town has ever gone away and got rich before, not that I can remember. I call myself a rich woman, but I ain't rich enough to dream of writing it in a letter. I certainly should like to know what Jathrop calls being rich. He couldn't possibly have millions, or it would have reached here somehow. Maybe he's been digging under another name! I suppose three or four thousand would seem enough to make him call himself rich. If he comes home with three or four thousand and calls that being rich, I shall certainly feel very sorry for you, Mrs. Lathrop. He'll be very airy over his money, and he'll live on yours. If you've got to have any one live with you, it's better for them to have no money a tall, because if they've got ever such a little, they always feel so perky over it. Mrs. Brown says if Amelia didn't have that six dollars and seventy-five cents a month from her dead mother, she'd be much easier to live with. Mrs. Brown says whenever Doctor Brown trys to control Amelia, Amelia hops up and says she'll pay for it with her own money. Mrs. Brown says to hear Amelia, you'd think she had at least ten dollars a month of her own. Mrs. Brown's so sad over Amelia. Amelia sees herself doing such outlandish things some days. Mrs. Brown says your son's wife is the biggest puzzle a woman ever gets. I guess Mrs. Brown would have liked young Doctor Brown never to marry."

Mrs. Lathrop opened her mouth and shut it again.

"I suppose you're thinking where to put Jathrop when he comes," Susan said quickly. "I've been thinking of that, too. Where can you put him, anyway? He never can sleep in that little shed bedroom where he used to sleep, if he's really rich, and he'll have to have some place to wash before we can find out."

Mrs. Lathrop looked distressed. "I – " she began.

"Oh, that wouldn't do," said Susan, knitting her brows quickly. "Think of the work of changing all your things. No, I'll tell you what's the best thing to do; he can sleep over at my house. Father's room was all cleaned last week, and I'll make up the bed, and Jathrop can sleep there until we find out how to treat him. Maybe his old shed bedroom will do, after all, or maybe he's so awfully rich he'll enjoy sleeping in it, like the president liked to stack hay. Maybe he'll ask nothing better than to chop wood and take the ashes out of the stove just for a change. I do wonder how rich he is. If he's rich enough to have a private car, I expect this town will open its eyes. You'll see a great change in your position, Mrs. Lathrop, if Jathrop comes in a private car to-morrow morning. There's something about a private car as makes everybody step around lively. I don't say that I shan't respect him more myself if he comes in a private car. But he can sleep one night in father's room, anyway, although if he calls it being rich to come home with just two or three thousand, I think he'd better understand it's for just one night right from the start. I wouldn't want Jathrop to think that I had any time to waste on him if he calls just two or three thousand being rich. It'd be no wonder I dreamed he was a cat, if he's got the face to call that being rich. But that would be just like Jathrop. You know yourself that if Jathrop could ever do anything to disappoint anybody, he never let the chance slide. I never had no use for Jathrop Lathrop, as you know to your cost, Mrs. Lathrop. But, still, if he really is rich, I haven't got anything against him, and I'll tell you what I'll do right now: I'll go home and put that room in order and get my supper, and then after supper I'll just run down to the square and see if anybody else knows, and then I'll come back and tell you if they do. It's no use your trying to put things a little in order, because you couldn't straighten this place up in a month, and, besides, it isn't worth fussing till we know how rich he is. He may just have writ that in for a joke – to break it to you gently that he's coming back again to live here. Heaven help you if that's the case, Mrs. Lathrop, for Jathrop never will. It isn't in me to deceive so much as a fly on the window, and I never have deceived you and I never will."

With which promise Susan took her departure.

It was all of three hours – quite nine in the evening – when Susan came back. She found Mrs. Lathrop transferred to her back porch and seemingly in a somewhat less complete state of total paralysis than when she had left her.

Mrs. Lathrop looked up as her friend approached and smiled.

"Nobody knew," Susan announced as she mounted the steps, "but every one knows now, for I told them. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you never saw anything like it. There isn't a person in town as ever expected to see Jathrop again, and only about three as always thought he'd come back rich. Every one's going to the station to-morrow morning, even Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy says if it's one of the mornings she can't walk, she'll hire Hiram and his wheelbarrow just as she does for church those Sundays. Everybody's so interested. I told them about the private car, and everybody hopes that he's got one, and that he'll come in it. Mr. Dill says he must be rich if he's been to the Klondike and come back a tall. He says there's no halfway work about the Klondike. Either you come back a millionaire or else you eat first your dog and then your boots and that's the last of you. Gran'ma Mullins says she never heard of eating boots in the Klondike; she thought you rode on a sled there and that there weren't any women. She says Hiram's spoken of going there once or twice, and Lucy thought maybe the coasting would do him good, but Gran'ma Mullins says not while she's alive, no, sir. Why, it's 'way across America and up a ways, and so many people want to go up that they have to sleep three in a berth, and she says will you only think of Hiram, with the way she's brought him up, three in a berth. If the bed ain't tucked in with Gran'ma Mullins' own particular kind of tuck, Hiram kicks at night and don't get any proper nourishment out of his sleep. No, Gran'ma Mullins says she couldn't think of Hiram in the Klondike sleeping under a snow-pile and having to hunt up a whale whenever he was in need of more kerosene oil. And she says what good would millions do her with the bones of the only baby she ever had feeding whatever kind of creature they have up there. No, she says, no, and a million times more, no; she's been reading about it in a New York paper that came wrapped around her new stove lid, and she knows all there is to know on that subject now. She says a New York paper is so interesting. She says the way they print them makes it very entertaining. She was reading about a sea serpent, and when she turned, she turned wrong, and she read twelve columns about the suffragettes, looking eagerly to see when the sea serpent was going on again. She says she give up trying to see why they print them so or ever trying to finish any one subject at a time; she just goes regularly through the paper now and lets the subjects fight it out to suit themselves. She says it makes the last part very interesting. You read about a baby, and after a while you find out whether it's the Queen of Spain's or just a race-horse. She says she supposes next Sunday there'll be a picture of Jathrop in the paper; maybe there'll be a view of this house with you and me. I think that that would be very interesting."

Susan paused to consider the idyllic little picture thus presented to her mind's eye, and Mrs. Lathrop continued to say nothing. After a while Susan went on again:

"I've been thinking a good deal about that letter, Mrs. Lathrop. I don't know whether you noticed or not, but to my order of thinking it was very strange his saying, 'How's Susan Clegg?' That's a curious thing for an unmarried man to ask his mother about an unmarried woman. When you come to consider how Jathrop was wild to marry me once, it really means a terrible lot. I was the first woman except you he ever kissed; he wasn't but a year old, and I was thirteen, but those things make an impression. I don't mind telling you that I've often thought about Jathrop nights – and days, too. And lately I've been thinking of him more and more. And you can see that he's been feeling the same about me, for he's showed that plain enough by saying in black and white, 'How's Susan Clegg?' Jathrop is a very silent nature, you can see that from his never writing even to his own mother in all these years. It means a good deal when a silent nature opens its mouth all of a sudden and writes, 'How's Susan Clegg?' And then my dreaming of him was so strange. He had soft gray fur and big bright yellow eyes, and the way he flew out of the window! Even in my dream I noticed how nice he jumped. He made a beautiful cat. And you know I always stood up for him, Mrs. Lathrop, I always did that. Even when I thought he needed lynching as much as anybody, I never said so. And now he's come back rich, and he's coming home to you and me, and he says, 'How's Susan Clegg?' 'How's – Susan – Clegg?'"

Susan's voice died dreamily away. Mrs. Lathrop said nothing. After a minute Susan's voice went on again: "It's too bad I haven't time to sort of freshen up my striped silk. It's got awful creasy laying folded so long. I'd of put some new braid around the bottom if I'd known, and if this town wasn't so noticey, I'd put my hair up on rollers to-night. A little crimp sets my wave off so. But, laws, everybody'd be asking why I did it, and if Jathrop's got any idea of me in his head, it'll be very easy to knock it right straight out if this town gets first chance at him. But I don't intend that this town shall get first chance at him. I shall be on that platform to-morrow morning, and I'll be the nearest to that train, and once he gets off that train, I shall bring him right straight up here to you and me. It's safest, and it's his duty, too. As soon as you've seen him, I'll take him over to my house to wash. Then I'll give him his breakfast, and by the time he's done his breakfast, if he really means anything, I'll know it. If he really means anything, we'll come over after breakfast, and it'll do your heart good to see how happy we'll look. He can leave his bag in father's room then, for we'll have so much to talk over it'll be more convenient to take him over there. You can see that for yourself, Mrs. Lathrop – you know how young people like to be alone together when they're engaged, and a woman of my age don't need no looking after any longer. I'm no Gran'ma Mullins to be worrying over woods nor yet any Mrs. Lupey as supposes every man you let into your house may be going to hit you over the head when you're thinking of something pleasant.