t, Mrs. Lathrop, how
contented Polly is. I don't believe they've ever had a word. He does the
cookin' an' washin' the same as he always did, an' lets her do anythin'
else she pleases, an' they say she's always very obligin' about doin'
it.

"So then Elijah crossed his legs the other way, an' asked if there was
n't anythin' bigger as could be looked into, but every one knows Hiram
is the biggest man anywhere around here, so that was no use. He asked
then if we did n't have a poorhouse or a insane asylum or a
slaughter-house or suthin' as he could show up in red ink. He said
somebody must be doin' suthin' as they had n't ought to be doin'
somewhere, an' it was both his virtue an' his business to print all
about it. He says exposin' is the very life o' the newspaper business,
an' you can't be nothin' nowadays without you expose. He seemed to feel
very much put out about us not bein' able to be exposed, an' I could n't
help a kind o' hurt feelin' as it was really so.

"But what can I do, Mrs. Lathrop, I did n't know of nothin'? We ain't
got no place to do anythin' except in the square an' nobody never does
nothin' without everybody knows that day or the next mornin' at the
latest. I don't believe as anybody could have a secret with anybody in
this town 'cause you'd know very well as if you did n't get 'round
pretty quick an' tell it first the other one would be gettin' ahead o'
you an' tellin' it before you. Of course I could see Elijah's drift all
right. Them city papers has turned his head completely just as they do
everybody else's when they first get a new idea. Elijah wants us to be
eatin' bluing for blueberries an' cats for calves jus' so he can be the
first to tell us about it, but there ain't a cat in town as ain't too
well known for anybody to eat without knowin' it, an' as for bluing, if
anybody can feed it to me for blueberries it's me as is the fool an'
them as is n't, an' that's my views.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Lathrop, I ain't got no great sympathy
with this new idea o' keepin' us all stirred up over how awful things
is. I won't say as I approved when that man in Chicago made sausage out
o' his wife 'cause he was tired o' her, but I will say as if Lucy see
her chance at Hiram that way I ain't sure as she could restrain herself.
Hiram's perfectly healthy an' could be depended upon not to disagree
with no one in sausage to anythin' like the extent Lucy disagrees with
him, an' Gran'ma Mullins is so t