Mrs. Macy's Flight

by Anne Warner

 

Mrs. Macy’s Flight

A Susan Clegg Story

BY ANNE WARNER

Author of “Susan Clegg and Her Friend, Mrs. Lathrop,” etc.

I

I D’N’ know, I’m sure, what star this town could ever have been laid out under,” said Susan Clegg one exceptionally hot night as she sat upon Mrs. Macy’s steps, “but my own opinion is as it must have been a comet for we’re always skiting along into some sort of hot water. When it aint all of us it’s some of us and when it aint some of us it’s one of us and now the walls of my house is up I’d be willing to bet a nickel as a calamity’ll happen along just because something’s always happening here and my walls is the youngest and tenderest thing in the community now.”

“Your roof aint—” began Mrs. Lathrop.

“Of course not; how could it be when my walls is only just up? I don’t say it wasn’t natural that your walls should go up first, Jathrop being your son, and, now that he’s rich, no more to me than a benefactor—”

“Oh, Susan!” expostulated Mrs. Macy.

“That’s what he is, Mrs. Macy; he’s my benefactor and I can’t escape if I want to. You may tend a man’s mother ten years, day and night, house-cleaning and cistern-cleanings, moths and the well froze up, and if the man comes back rich he’s your benefactor—”

“Susan!” cried Mrs. Lathrop, “you—”

“Don’t deny it, Mrs. Lathrop; it’s the truth. It’s one of those truths that the wiser they are the sadder you get. It’s one of those truths as is the whole truth and a little left over and I’m learning more every day that I’m to be what’s left over. After a life of being independent and living on my own money I’m now going down on my knees learning the lesson of being humbly grateful for what I don’t want. I may sound bitter, but if I do it isn’t surprising for I feel bitter and Gran’ma Mullins knows I’m always frank and open so she’ll excuse my saying that there’s nothing in living with her as tends to calm me much. A woman as sleeps in a bed as Hiram must have played leap-frog over all his life, from the feel of the springs, and pours out of a pitcher as has got a chip out of the tip of its nose, aint in no mood to mince nothing. I never was one to mince and I never will be—not now and not never. Mincing is for them as aint got it in them to speak their minds freely, and my mind is a thing that’s made to be free and not a slave.”

“Well, really, Susan,” expostulated Mrs. Macy, “what ever—”

“Don’t interrupt me, Mrs. Macy. I’m full of goodness knows what, but whatever it is I’m too full of it for comfort. There’s nothing in the life I’m leading this summer to make me expect comfort and very little to make me feel full, but there’s things as would make a man dying of starvation, bust if he experienced them, and I’m full of such things. I’m full of too much; I never had no idea of being out of my house all summer and now when my walls is up at last and it looks like maybe I’d get back a home-feeling some day soon, I must up and get quite another kind of feeling, a feeling that something is going to happen. It’s a very strange feeling and at first I thought it was just some more of Gran’ma Mullins’ cooking, but it kept getting stronger and when I was in the square I spoke to Mr. Kimball about it and he says this is cyclone weather and maybe a cyclone is going to happen. He says a man was in town yesterday wanting to insure everybody against fire and cyclones. Most everybody did it. Mr. Kimball says after the young man got through talking you pretty much had to do it. Them as already had policies with the company could get the word ‘cyclone’ writ in for a dollar. I guess the young man did a very good day’s work. Mr. Kimball says if it’s true as there’s any cyclone coming nosing about here he wants his dried-apple machine insured anyhow. It’s a fine machine and every kind of fruit as is left over each night comes out jam next day while all the vegetables make breakfast food. He says it’s a wonder.”

“What makes him think we’re going to have a cyclone?” inquired Mrs. Macy, anxiously.

“He says the weather is cyclony. And he says if I feel queer that’s a sign, for I’m a sensitive nature.”

“I never—” said Mrs. Lathrop.

“No, nor me neither, but Mr. Kimball seemed to feel there wasn’t no doubt. He says I’m just the kind of sensitive nature as could feel a cyclone; why, he says, cyclones take the roofs off the houses!”

“Ow!” cried Gran’ma Mullins in surprise.

“If one’s coming I’m glad to know for I never see one near to,” said Mrs. Macy, pensively.

“You wont see it a tall,” said Susan. “Mr. Kimball says the only safe place in a cyclone is the cellar and pull a kitchen table over you to keep the house from squashing you flat when it caves in, so it goes without saying that you wont get much view.”

“My heavens alive!” cried Mrs. Lathrop.

“That’s what he said. But he says not to worry for the young man told him as they’re getting so common no one notices them any more. He says they’re always going hop, skip, and jump over Kansas and nobody pays any attention to ’em out there any more. He knows all about cyclones now. He talked with the young man a full hour. The young man wanted it clear, as he was only insuring for cyclones—he says his firm wouldn’t have nothing to do with tornadoes. You can get as much on a cyclone as on a fire, but you can’t get a penny on a tornado—”

“What’s the diff—” asked Gran’ma Mullins.

“That’s the trouble—nobody can just tell. A cyclone is wind and lightning mixed by combustion and drove forward by expulsion, the young man told Mr. Kimball. He said they’d got cyclones all worked out and they can average ’em up same as everything else, but he says a tornado is something as no man can get hold of and no man will ever be able to study. Tornadoes drive nails through fences—”

“Where do they get the nails?” asked Gran’ma Mullins.

“I d’n’ know; pick ’em out of the fences first, I guess, and they strip the feathers off chickens and scoop up haystacks and carry them up in the air for good and all.”

“Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Macy.

“Mr. Kimball said the young man told him that a tornado dug up a complete marsh once in Minnesota and spread it out upside down on top of a wood a little ways off, and when there’s a tornado anywhere near, the sewing-machines all tick like telegraphing.”

“No!” cried Mrs. Macy.

“Yes, the young man said so.”

“But do you believe him?”

“I don’t know why not. I wouldn’t believe Mr. Kimball because he’s always fixing up his stories to sound better than they really are—which makes me have very little faith in him; Judge Fitch says he’d make a splendid witness for anyone just on that very account; Judge Fitch says with a little well-advised help Mr. Kimball would carry convictions to any man—he don’t except none—but I see no reason why the young man wasn’t telling the truth—young men do tell the truth sometimes—most everybody does that. A tornado catches up pigs and carries ’em miles and pulls up trees by the roots—I don’t wonder they wont insure ’em.”

“The pigs?” asked Mrs. Macy.

“No, the tornadoes.”

“What’s the signs of a tornado?” asked Gran’ma Mullins, uneasily.

“Well, the signs is alike for both. The signs is weather like to-day and a kind of breathlessness like to-night. Mr. Kimball says a funnel-shaped cloud is a great sign and when you see it, in three minutes it’s on you and off goes your roof if it’s a cyclone and off you go yourself if it’s a tornado.”

“My heavens alive!” cried Mrs. Lathrop, clutching the arms of her old-gold-plush stationary rocker.

“Do people ever come down again?” Gran’ma Mullins inquired; she was very pale.

“Elijah didn’t, Mr. Kimball says.”

“Elijah Doxey?” cried Mrs. Macy.

“No, Elijah in the Bible, you know, the Elijah as was caught up in a chariot of fire; Mr. Kimball says there aint a mite of doubt in his mind but that it was a tornado. I guess Mr. Kimball told the truth that time for it’s all in the Bible.”

“That’s true,” said Gran’ma Mullins. “I remember Elijah myself. He kept a tame raven, seems to me, or some such thing.”

“Oh, Susan!” Mrs. Lathrop cried out suddenly, “there’s a fun—” Her voice failed her—she raised her hand and pointed.

Susan turned quickly and her face became gray-white. “It can’t be a cy—” she faltered.

With that all four women jumped different ways.

“Where shall we go?” shrieked Mrs. Macy. “Oh, saint and sinners preserve us! Oh, Susan, where shall we go?”

But Susan Clegg stood as if paralyzed, staring straight at the funnel-shaped cloud.

Gran’ma Mullins started for her own house; Mrs. Lathrop sprang up and clasped the piazza post nearest; Mrs. Macy grabbed her skirts up both sides and faced the cyclone just as she had once faced a cow.

The funnel-shaped cloud came sweeping towards them; the town was between, and a darkness and a mighty roar arose; buildings seemed falling; the din was terrible.

“I knew it,” said Susan, grimly. “It is a cyclone!” She faced the worst—standing erect.

The next instant the storm was on them all. It lifted Mrs. Lathrop’s old-gold-plush, stationary rocker and hurled it at that good lady, smashing her hard against the post; it raised the roof of Mrs. Macy’s house and dropped it like an extinguisher over the fleeing form of Gran’ma Mullins.

“Oh, Gran’ma Mullins, it is a cyclone! There goes a roof!” Susan shrieked, but Gran’ma Mullins answered not.

A second mighty burst of fury blew down two trees and blew Susan herself back against the side-wall of the house, which shook and swayed like a bit of card-board.

“Oh, yes, it’s a cyclone,” Susan screamed over and over. “Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, it’s a real cyclone! It aint a tornado; you can see the difference now. It’s a cyclone—look at the roof—it’s a cyclone!”

Mrs. Lathrop could see nothing. She and the old-gold-plush stationary rocker were all piled together under the piazza post.

And now came the third and worst burst of fury. It crashed on the blacksmith’s shop, carried the sails of the wind-mill swooping down the road, and then without halting, without rest, lifted Mrs. Macy with her outspread skirts and carried her straight up in the air. “Oh, Oh!” she shrieked, and sailed forth.

Susan gave a piercing yell. “Oh, Mrs. Macy, you see as it’s a tornado, it’s a tornado!” But Mrs. Macy answered not.

Tipping, swaying, ducking to the right or left, she flew majestically away, passing over her own prostrate roof first and then over that of Gran’ma Mullins’ wood-shed.

“Help, help,” cried Gran’ma Mullins from under the roof.

Mrs. Lathrop was oblivious to all, smashed by her own old-gold-plush, stationary rocker.

Susan Clegg stood as one fascinated, staring after the trail, which was all that was left, of Mrs. Macy.

“It is a tornado,” she said over and over. “Mrs. Macy’ll always believe in the Bible now, I guess. It’s a tornado. It’s a tornado.”

II

“No, they aint found her yet,” Susan said the day after Mrs. Macy’s flight, coming into the hotel room where Mrs. Lathrop and Gran’ma Mullins had found a pleasant and comfortable refuge and were occupied in recuperating together at Jathrop’s expense. Neither lady was seriously injured. Gran’ma Mullins had been preserved from even a wetting through the neat capping of her climax by Mrs. Macy’s roof, while Mrs. Lathrop’s squeeze between the piazza post and her well beloved old-gold-plush, stationary rocker had not—as Gran’ma Mullins put it—so much as turned a hair of even the rocker.

“No one’s heard anything from her yet,” continued Susan. “But that aint so surprising as it would be if anybody had time to want to know. But nobody’s got time for nothing to-day. The town’s in a awful taking and I d’n’ know as I ever see a worse situation. You two want to be very grateful as you’re so nicely and neatly laid aside, for what has descended on the community now is worse’n any cyclone and if you could get out and see what the cyclone’s done you’d know what that means.”

“Was you to my house, Susan?” asked Gran’ma Mullins, anxiously.

“I was, but the insurance men was before me—or anyhow we met there.”

“The insurance men!”

“That’s what I said—the insurance men. Oh, Mrs. Lathrop, we all know one side of what it is to insure ourselves, but now the Lord, in his infinite wrath, has mercifully seen fit to show us the other side. The Assyrian pouncing down on the wolf in his fold is a young mother wrapping up her first baby to look out the window, compared to those insurance men. They descended on us bright and shining to-day, and if we was murderers with our families buried under the kitchen floor we couldn’t be looked on with more suspicion. I was far from pleased when I first laid eyes on ’em, for there’s a foxiness in any city man as comes to settle things in the country as is far from being either soothing or sirupy to him as lives in the country, but you can maybe imagine my feelings when they very plainly informed me as I couldn’t put the roof back on Mrs. Macy’s house till it was settled whether it was a cyclone or a tornado—”

“Settled whether it’s a—” cried Mrs. Lathrop.

“Cyclone or tornado,” repeated Susan. “The first thing aint to get to rights, but it is to settle whether we’ve got any rights to get. I never dreamed what it was to be insured—no, or no one else neither; seems if it’s a tornado we don’t get a cent of our insurance. And to think it all depends on Mrs. Macy.”

“On Mrs.—” cried Gran’ma Mullins.

“Yes, because she’s the only one as really knows whether she was carried off or not. Until she comes back and says so, seems there’s really no legal proof as she was ever carried off. Well, all I can say is, if she don’t come back pretty quick we’re going to have a little John Brown raid right here in town, we—”

“But what—”

“I’m telling you. It’ll be the town rising up against the insurance men and the insurance men will soon find that when it comes to dilly-dallying with folks newly cycloned upside-down, it’s life and death if you don’t deal fair. What with chimneys down and roofs turned up at the corner like the inquiring angels didn’t have time to take the cover all off but just pried up a little to see what was inside—I say with all this and everything wet and Mrs. Macy gone, this community was in no mood to be sealed up—”

“Sealed up!” cried Mrs. Lathrop and Gran’ma Mullins together.

“That’s what it is. Sealed up, we are, and sealed up we’ve got to stay until Mrs. Macy gets back—”

“But—” cried Gran’ma Mullins.

“Everybody’s just as mad as you are. Charging bulls is setting hens beside this town to-night. Even Mr. Kimball’s mad for once in his life; he’s losing money most awful, for he can’t sell so much as a paper of tacks. They’ve got both his doors and all his windows sealed, and he’s standing out in front with nothing to do except to keep a sharp eye out for Mrs. Macy. He says it aint in reason to expect as she’ll fly back, but she’s got to come from somewhere and he means to prevent her getting away again on the sly. He says his opinion is as she’d have stood a better chance before airships was so common; he says ten years ago folks would have took steps for hooking at her just as quick as they saw her coming along, but nowadays it’d be a pretty brave man as would try to stop anything he saw flying overhead. I guess he’s about right there. It’s a hard question to know what to do with things that fly even if Mrs. Macy hadn’t took to it, too. My view is as we advance faster than we can learn how to manage our own new inventions. I d’n’ know, I’m sure, what Mrs. Macy is going to do about this trip of hers. She went without even the moment’s notice as folks in a hurry always has had up to now. She’s been gone most twenty-four hours; she’s skipped three meals already not to speak of her night and her nap and you know as well as I do how Mrs. Macy was give to her nights and her naps.”

Susan shook her head, and Mrs. Lathrop looked wide-eyed and alarmed.

“But now—” Gran’ma Mullins asked.

“I’ve been all over the place,” Susan continued. “I didn’t understand fully what was up when I scurried off to try and get those men to put the roof back on Mrs. Macy’s house, but I know it all now. It’s no use trying to get anybody to do nothing now—the whole town’s upside down and inside out. I never see nothing like it. And the insurance men has got it laid down flat as nobody can’t touch nothing till it’s settled whether it’s a cyclone or a tornado. Seems a good many was insured for cyclones right in with their fires anyway without ever having known it, but there aint a soul in the place insured against a tornado because you can’t get any insurance against tornadoes—no one will insure them. The insurance men say if it’s a tornado we wont have nothing to do except to do the best we can, but if it’s a cyclone we mus’n’t touch anything till they can get some one to judge what’s worth saving and how much it’s worth and deduct that from our insurance. That’s how it is.”

“How long—” demanded Mrs. Lathrop.

“Nobody knows,” said Susan. “The whole town is asking and nobody knows. The insurance company wont let anybody go home or get anything unless they’ll sign a paper giving up their insurance and swearing that it was a tornado. Mr. Dill just had to sign the paper, because he was taking a bath and had nothing except the table-cover to wear. He signed the paper and said he’d swear anything if only for his shoes alone and it seems that his house aint hurt a mite and he didn’t have no insurance anyhow. A good many is feeling very bitter towards him about it, but he says he really couldn’t think in the excitement and the table-cloth. It’s a awful state of things. The cyclone has tore everything to pieces and the insurance men has put their seal on the chips. People is being drove to all lengths. The minister and his family is camping in the hen-house. Our walls is fell in, so goodness knows what will happen to you and me next, Mrs. Lathrop. The wires is all down, so we can’t hear nothing about the storm. The rails is all up, so there’s no trains. The church is stove in, so we can’t pray. And I must say, as to my order of thinking, it looks as if no one feels like praying. The insurance men is running all over like winged ants hatching out, sealing up more doors and more windows every minute, and getting’ more signatures as it was a tornado before they’ll unstick them. Nothing can’t be really settled till Mrs. Macy comes back. Mrs. Macy is the key to the whole situation.”

“But why—” asked Mrs. Lathrop.

“The Jilkinses is in from Cherry Pond and all it did there was to rain. The Sperritses was in, too, and the storm was most singular with them; it hailed in the sunshine till they see four rainbows—they never see the beat. Mr. Weskins is advising everybody to go into their houses and make a test case of it. Judge Fitch is advising everybody not to. It’s plain as he’s on the side of the insurance men. He says, just as they do, that we’d better wait till Mrs. Macy comes back and hear her story; he says in the very nature of things her view’ll be a most general one. He says all there is to know she’ll know; she’ll know the area affected and be able to tell whether it was electricity or just wind. Mr. Kimball said if she went far enough she’d be a star-witness, but no one thinks jokes about Mrs. Macy ought to be told now; the situation is too serious. It may be very serious for Mrs. Macy. If the storm stopped sudden it may be very serious indeed for Mrs. Macy. Mrs. Macy aint as young as she was and she hadn’t the least idea of leaving town—she wasn’t a bit prepared—that we can all swear to. She was just carried away by a sudden impulse—as you might say—and the main question is how far did she get on her impulse and where did it let her down? To my order of thinking it all depends on how she come down. Cycloning along like she was, if she come down on a pond or a peak she’ll be far from finding it funny. I was thinking about her all the way here and I can’t think of any way as’ll be easy for her to come to earth, no matter how she comes. And if she hits hard she aint going to like it. Mrs. Macy was never one as took a joke pleasant; she never made light of nothing. She took life very solemn-like—a owl was a laughing hyena compared to Mrs. Macy. It’s too bad she was that way. My own view is as she never got over not getting married again. Some women don’t. She always took it as a reflection. There’s no reflection to not getting married; my opinion is as there’s a deal of things more important and most things is more comfortable. If Mrs. Macy was married she’d be much worse off than she is right now, for instead of being able to give her whole time and attention to whatever she’s doing and looking over, she’d be wondering what he was giving his time and attention to doing and prying into. When a man’s out of your sight you’ve always got to wonder, and most of the time that’s all in the world you can do about a man. Now Mrs. Macy’s perfectly independent; she can go where she pleases and come down when she pleases, and she hasn’t got to tell what she saw unless she wants to. Mrs. Brown says she aint never been nowhere. It’s plain to be seen, as Mrs. Brown’s envying Mrs. Macy her trip.”

“But why—” began to interpose Gran’ma Mullins with great determination.

“That’s just it,” replied Susan promptly. “I declare, I can’t but wonder what will happen next. I’m in that state that nothing will surprise me. Everything’s so upset and off the track it’s no use even trying to think. My walls is fell into my cistern and Mrs. Macy’s roof is sitting on the ground beside her house, yet. The insurance men has sealed up Gran’ma Mullins’ house and they wouldn’t leave the hen-house open till I signed a affidavit on behalf of the hens and released ’em from all claims. Mr. Dill said they tried to seal up his cow; they’ve got Mr. Kimball’s dried apple-machine tied with a rope. It’s awful.”

“But, Susan—” interrupted Gran’ma Mullins.

“Mr. Weskins says the great difficulty is, the insurance men say they don’t see how anything is going to be settled or decided until we hear from Mrs. Macy. The point’s right here—if she comes back it’s evidence as it was a tornado, because if she comes back it proves as she was carried off—in which case the insurance men wont have to pay nothing anyhow and we’ll all be unsealed and allowed to go to work putting our roofs back on our heads and clearing up as fast as we can. But Mr. Weskins says if Mrs. Macy don’t come back there’ll be no way to prove as she was even carried off by the storm, for you” (to Mrs. Lathrop) “had your back turned, and you” (to Gran’ma Mullins) “was under the roof, and I’m the only one as could see and it takes two witnesses to prove anything as is contrary to law and nature.”

“Do they doubt—” cried Mrs. Lathrop, quite excited—for her.

“Yes, they do. They doubt everything. Insurance men wont have to pay, nothing granted. They’ve decided to just pin their whole case to Mrs. Macy and there’s Mrs. Macy gone away to heaven knows where.”

“Well, Susan,” said Gran’ma Mullins, “we must look on the bright side. Mrs. Macy’ll have something to talk about as’ll always interest everybody, if she does come back, and if she don’t come back we’ll always have her to remember.”

“Yes, and if we don’t get our houses un-stuck pretty soon we’ll long remember her,” said Susan darkly.

III

Three days were nearly passed by and no word from Mrs. Macy. As soon as the telegraph assumed its usual route messages were sent all over in the direction whence she had flown, but not a trace of her was discovered by anyone. The town was very much wrought up, for, although its members were given to having strange experiences, no experience as strange as this had ever happened there before. The aggravations of being barred out of the house and home of each until Mrs. Macy should be found naturally heightened the interest. Susan was much wrought up.

“Well, Mrs. Lathrop,” she said on the afternoon of the third day, as she came into the hotel room where Jathrop’s mother was now equal to her usual vigorous exercise in her newly mended old-gold-plush, stationary rocker—“Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you may well be grateful as Jathrop has got money enough for us to be living here, for the living of the community is getting to be no living a tall.”

Gran’ma Mullins, still in bed, turned herself about and manifested a vivid interest. “Susan,” she said, solemnly, “it’s three days now; how long is this going to keep up?”

“It can’t keep up very much longer or we’ll have, not a John Brown raid, but a new French Revolution, that’s what we’ll have,” said Susan. “Why, the community is getting where it wont stand even being said good-morning to pleasantly. The children is running all over pulling each other’s hair and Deacon White says he’s going to buy a pistol. Things is come to a pretty pass when Deacon White wants to buy a pistol for he’s just as afraid of one end as the other. But it’s a straw as shows which way the cyclone blew his house.”

“But isn’t something going to be—”

“Something has got to be done. The boys stretched a string across the door to the insurance men’s room this morning so they all fell in a heap when they started down town. Some one as nobody can locate poured a pitcher of ice-water through the ventilator as is over their bed last night. I guess they begin to see then as public feeling is on the rise, for right after breakfast they sent 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 wont stand for any more hanging around waiting for nothing. I never see us so before. Everyone is so upset and divided in his 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 Pennnybackers,” 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 when he’s young. I’m always reading what they went through in the papers, but it never helped none. A millionaire is a thing as if 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, reflectively. “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, also reflectively. “Mrs. Cogetts came way from Tacoma 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 any lengths to save money.”

“I wonder where Mrs. Macy is now,” said Gran’ma Mullins with a sigh.

“Nobody knows. 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 aint 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 cow-shed, with two lengths of side-walk 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’d be so much easier to be scalped than to do your hair under some circumstances. Mr. and Mrs. Craig takes turns at one hammock all night long. Mrs. Craig says they change regular, for whoever starts to turn over spills out and the other one as is sitting looking at the moon and waiting gets right in.”

“I declare, Susan,” said Gran’ma Mullins, warmly. “I think it’s most shocking. I wont say outrageous, but I will say shocking.”

“But what are you going to do about it?” said Susan. ‘“That’s the rub in this country. There’s plenty as is shocking but here we sit at the mercy of any cyclone or Congress as comes along. Here we was, peaceful, happy and loving, and along comes a cyclone and swishes through us, and then down comes half a dozen men from the city and seals up everything in town. I tell you you ought to have heard me when they was sealing up your house and Mrs. Macy’s; I give it to ’em, and I didn’t mince matters none. I spoke my whole mind and it was a great satisfaction, but they went right on and sealed up the houses.”

“Oh, Susan,” began Mrs. Lathrop, “how are—”

“All in ruins,” replied Susan, promptly. “I don’t believe you and me is ever going to live in happy homes any more. Fate seems dead set against the idea. And nobody can get ahead of Fate. They may talk all they please about overcoming, and when I was young I was always charging along with my horns down and my tail waving, same as every other young thing, but I’m older now and I see as resignation is the only thing as really pays in the end. I get as mad as ever but I stay meek. I wanted to lam those insurance men with a stick of wood as was lying most handy, but all I did was to walk home. Mr. Shores says he’s just the same way. We was talking it over this morning. He says when his wife first run off with his clerk he was nigh to crazy; he says he thought getting along without a wife was going to just drive him out of his senses and he said her taking the clerk just seemed to add insult to perjury, but he says now, as he gets older, he finds having no wife a great comfort; he says only a married man really knows what a wife is—he says it aint possible for a single man to form the least idea.”

 

It was the next morning that Mrs. Macy reappeared on the scene. The insurance men had unsealed all the houses and the result was her discovery.

“Well, you could drown me for a new-born kitten and I’ll never open my eyes in surprise after this,” Susan Clegg expounded to the friends at the hotel. “But Mrs. Macy always was peculiar; she was always give to adventures! To think of her living there as snug as a moth in a rug, cooking her meals on the little oil stove—”

“But where—” interrupted Mrs. Lathrop.

“I’m telling you. She’s been sleeping in a good bed, too, and being perfectly comfortable while we’ve all been suffering along, waiting for her to come back—”

“But, Susan—” cried Gran’ma Mullins, wide-eyed.

“I’ll tell you where she was—she was in your house, that’s where she was. The cyclone just gave her one lift over your woodshed and then it set her down pretty quick. She says she came to earth like a piece of thistle-down on the other side. Her story is as your back door was open so she run in and then it begin to rain, so she saw no reason for going out again. When it stopped raining she looked out and see nobody. That aint surprising, for we wasn’t there. She thought that it was strange not seeing any lights opposite, but she started to go home and she says what was her feeling when she fell over her own roof in the path! She says of all the strange sensations a perfectly respectable woman can possibly ever get, to start to go home and fall over your own roof is surely the most singular. She says she was so sleepy she thought maybe she was dreaming, and not having any lantern it was no use trying to investigate, so she just went back to your house and went to bed in my bed!”

“Where is—” pursued Mrs. Lathrop.

“Oh, she’s gone straight over to Meadville,” said Susan. “Oh my, but she says her feelings as she sat inside that nice, comfortable house and realized that she was the only person in town with a roof over her head! You see, she heard me talking with the insurance men and she didn’t know why we was to be sealed up, but she got it all straight as we was going to be turned out of house and home and she says she made up her mind as no one should ever know as she was in a house and so come capering up to put her out. She says she settled down as still as a mouse, made no smoke and never lit so much as a candle, nights. Mrs. Macy is surely most foxy!”

“And she’s gone to Meadville,” said Gran’ma Mullins.

“Yes, she didn’t want to pay board here and her own house hasn’t got no roof, so she’s gone to Mrs. Lupey. Old Dr. Carter was over here to appraise the damage done to folks and he took her back with him.”

“I wonder if she’ll ever—” Gran’ma Mullins.

“I d’n’ know. If folks talk about a marriage long enough it usually ends up that way. Dr. Carter and Mrs. Macy has been kind of jumping at each other and then running away for fifteen years or so. They say he’d like her money, but he’d hate to have her around all the time.”

“She wouldn’t like him to be either,” said Gran’ma Mullins.

“I know,” said Susan, “that’s what’s makin’ so few people like to get married nowadays. They don’t want to be bothered with each other.”