hey put the crowbar across a
footstool, an' Hiram jerked on the other side at the same time, an' with
a yell like Judgment Day they sat her up.

"An' what do you think, Mrs. Lathrop? What _do_ you think? There was a
tack stickin' square in the middle of her back!

"Oh, my, but young Dr. Brown was awful mad! Mr. Kimball says he guesses
he's got suthin' out of somebody now as he won't care to preserve in
alcohol for a ornament to his mantelpiece. Hiram is mad, too, for he was
goin' over to Meadville to fan a baseball team this afternoon an' he
says Mrs. Macy has used up all his fannin' muscle. An' Lucy's mad 'cause
she says she was way ahead of Gran'ma Mullins in what they were talkin'
about an' now she's forgotten what that was. But Gran'ma Mullins was
maddest of all when she found out about the duck, 'cause it seems as
Drusilla Cobb's husband was a relation of hers an' as a consequence she
never could bear Drusilla, so I said I'd take the duck."

"What--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"I shall fat him an' eat him."

"An' what--" asked Mrs. Lathrop, further.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that: Mrs. Macy hunted up the magazine an'
looked 'em up an' for a fact it was Kulosis after all. As soon as she
see it she remembered the four noses an' all, but she says she was too
done up to go any further at the minister just then."

"Is--" asked Mrs. Lathrop, finally.

"I don't know, an' I don't care anyhow, an' I ain't goin' to catch no
spider for the sake of findin' out. He'll eat just as well as she will,
I reckon, an' if I have any doubts, my ways of settlin' 'em 'll be by
parboilin' instead of spiders."

So saying Susan rose, sought her duck, and departed.

CHAPTER XIII

MONOTONY OF MINISTERIAL MONOLOGUES

Mrs. Lathrop never went to church. She had relinquished church when she
had given up all other social joys that called for motive power beyond
the limits of her own fence.

Elijah rarely ever went to church. The getting the paper out Friday for
Saturday delivery wore on him so that he nearly always slept until noon
on Sunday.

So Susan went alone week after week, just as she had been going alone
for years and years and years. She always wore a black dress to church,
her mother's cashmere shawl, and a bonnet of peculiar shape which had no
strings and fitted closely around her head. She always took about an
hour and a half to get home from church, although it was barely ten
minutes' walk, and she always went in Mr