an'
say, 'Did you call?' But anyway she's been away an' she's got back, an'
when I heard it in the square to-day I did n't mince up no matters none
but I just set my legs in her direction an' walked out there as fast as
I could. It does beat all how many changes can come about in two
weeks!--four more pickets has been knocked off the minister's fence an'
most every one has hatched out their chickens since I was that way last,
but I was n't out picketin' or chickenin'; I was out after Mrs. Macy an'
I just kept a-goin' till I got to her."

"Was she--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, she was," replied Susan, "an' thank the most kind an' merciful
Heavens, there was n't no one else there, so she an' I could just sit
down together, an' it was n't nothin' but joy for her to tell me hide
an' hair an' inside out of her whole visit. She got back day before
yesterday an' she had n't even unpacked her trunk yet she was that wore
out; you can judge from that how wore out she really is, for you know
yourself, Mrs. Lathrop, as when Mrs. Macy is too wore out to dive head
over heels into things, whether her own or other folks', she's been
pretty well beat down to the ground. She was mighty glad to see me,
though, even if she did n't come to the door, but only hollered from a
chair, an' I don't know as I ever had a nicer call on her, for she went
over everythin' inside out an' hind side before, an' it was nothin' but
a joy for me to listen, for it seems she had a pretty sad visit first
an' last what with being specially invited to sit up an' watch nights
with Mrs. Kitts an' then stay to the funeral--"

"Funeral!" cried Mrs. Lathrop,--"I nev--"

"For after bein' specially invited to help lay her out an' go to the
funeral," Susan repeated calmly, "Mrs. Kitts did n't die a _tall_."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Lathrop, terminating the whole of a remark, for once.

"No," said Susan, "an' every one else feels the same as you do about it,
too, but it seems as it was n't to be this time. Mrs. Macy says as she
never went through nothin' to equal these ten days dead or alive, an'
she hopes so help her heaven to never sit up with anybody as has got
anythin' but heart disease or the third fit of apoplexy hereafter. Why,
she says Mr. Dill's eleven months with Mrs. Dill flat on her back was a
child playin' with a cat an' a string in comparison to what the Lupeys
an' her have been goin' through with Mrs. Kitts these ten days. She says
all Meadville is witness t