itin' an' tellin' him so. She says she never
hear the beat of such impertinence in all her life. Why, she says when
she had a husband she never took no special interest in his garters as
she recollects. She says she remembers as he used to pull up when he
first got up in the mornin' an' then calmly wrinkle down all day, but
she says if her lawful husband's garters' wrinkles did n't interest her,
it ain't in reason as any other man's not wrinklin' is goin' to. But
she says that ain't all whatever I may think (or you either, Mrs.
Lathrop), for although the rest ain't maybe so bad, still it's bad
enough an' you 'll both agree to that when you hear it, I know. She says
more men wrote her, an' more, an' more, an' the things they said was
about all she could stand, so help her Heaven! One asked her if she
knowed she needed a new carpet an' he happened to keep carpets, an'
another told her her house needed paintin' an' he happened to keep
paint, an' another just come out flat as a flounder an' said if she
knowed how old her stove was, she'd come straight to him the first
thing, an' he happened to keep stoves. An' she says they need n't
suppose as she was n't sharp enough to see as every last one of them
letters was really writ to sound unselfish, but with the meanin'
underneath of maybe gettin' her to buy somethin'.

"An' then she says there come a new kind as really frightened her by
gettin' most too intimate on postal cards."

"On postal--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes--on postal cards. One wrote as she could get her husband back if
she'd only follow his direction, an' she says the last thing she wants
is to get her husband back, even if he is only just simply dead; an'
another told her if she'd go through his exercises she could get fat or
thin just as she pleased, an' the exercises was done in black without no
clothes on around the edge of the card, an' Mrs. Macy says when Johnny
handed her the card at the post office she like to of died then an'
there. Why, she says they was too bad to put in a book, even--they was
too bad to even send Mrs. Lupey!"

"Wh--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Then on Monday last still another new kind begin an' they've been
comin' more an' more each mail. They was the convention itself beginnin'
on her. An' she says she don't know whether they was a improvement or
worse to come. One wrote an' told her if she was temperance to report
to them the first thing, an' then stand shoulder to shoulder from then