ired of hearin' 'em quarrel that I
ain't prepared to say as she'd rebel at anythin' as sent Lucy back to
her father.

"Elijah went on to tell me a lot about insurance an' railroads, but all
about insurance an' railroads is 'way beyond my interest an' 'way beyond
the understandin' of every one else here, an' nobody's goin' to remember
a thing about any of it a year from now anyhow. That's the trouble with
this country,--they don't remember nothin',--everybody forgets
everythin' before the month is out. Most of the people never thinks o'
San Francisco now, an' as for that fire they had in Baltimore, it's as
dead as Moses.

"That's the advantage the rest of the country has over us when it comes
to exposin'. They can expose an' expose, an' all the folks who read
about it forget an' forget, but here in this community it's different
an' you can't count on _our_ forgettin' things a _tall_, an' if Elijah
was turned loose I'll venture to say every last one o' them papers
would be saved until doomsday. I know that an' knowin' that I very
carefully restrain him. There's a many as knows as Mr. Kimball's dried
apples is often very under rate, an' a many others as knows whose dead
cat that was as Mrs. Sweet had to bury after vowin' she would n't till
she smelt as she'd got to. Every last one of us knows what Dr. Brown
gets at the drug store when he asks for what he usually gets an' there's
a good many as thinks as Mrs. Macy goes to Meadville more on a'count o'
Dr. Carter than to see her cousin, Mrs. Lupey. But I was n't goin' to
set Elijah swimmin' in any such deep water. Elijah is a young man an'
the age to go wrong easy, an' when that age see how easy it is to go
wrong they're nothin' but foolish if they waste another second goin'
right, so if Elijah wants to go to exposin' he'll have to get his stuff
from some one else beside me."

"You--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, I don't say that," said Miss Clegg, "I'm only human after all an'
I can't in conscience deny as I should like to see them as I don't like
showed up just as much as any other man as is makin' a business of
showin' up his neighbors, likes it. But I know I've got to live here an'
it'd be very poor livin' for me after I'd aired myself by way of Elijah.
There's a great difference between knowin' things all by yourself an'
readin' 'em in the paper, an' I know as that dead cat would cause a
great deal o' hard feelin' in print, while buried by Mrs. Sweet it only
helps her g