the smell shows as all the
flies they put in the rooms must of surely been killed, so the
experiment's a success in one way at least. Mrs. Fisher walked part way
home with me an' we had a nice talk about the Browns. She says the
Browns is most amusin' always in the ways they use flies; she says when
young Dr. Brown was little, Mrs. Brown used to put a fly in the
sugar-box when she went down to the square for things so she could tell
when she come back whether he'd been at the sugar, an' so let the fly
out. She says young Dr. Brown cured her o' that happy thought by takin'
the fly out himself when she was down town one time an' puttin' a mad
bee in instead. She says she guesses Dr. Brown has given her many a
little lesson like that or he'd never be able to keep her stirrin'
anythin' as smells for two hours."

"Where--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, the Fitches took Amelia an' her husband of course an' Mrs. Brown
is goin' over to Meadville to-morrow. Mrs. Macy says maybe old Dr.
Carter will marry her now as she ain't got any house to be attached to.
I don't see why that would n't be a good end for Mrs. Brown, she can
step right into Mrs. Carter's shoes--an' her clothes, too, for that
matter, for he never give away a thing when she died. Yes, he did, too,
though, she wanted her nieces to have a souvenir an' he give one the
waist an' the other the skirt to the same dress, but Mrs. Fisher says
what he would n't give away to no man for love or money was all her
union underwear for winter. Seems she always wore the best an' finest,
an' when she died Dr. Carter said he'd keep all them union suits an'
wear 'em out himself."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, an' I would n't either," said Miss Clegg; "there would n't be no
comfort marryin' a man whose first wife could n't call even her union
suits her own after she died, not to my order of thinkin'."

"Was--" asked her friend.

"Oh, the picnic?" said Susan, "no, that was n't a success a _tall_. They
spread the tablecloth over a flyin' ant nest in the first place an' Mrs.
Macy says shad bones is nothin' to the pickin' out as they had to do
while eatin' as a consequence. She says they very soon found out as they
was under a wood-tick tree too, an' the children run into a burr-patch
after dinner. The minister tried to teach the twins to fish an' the bank
caved in with 'em all three, an' the minister had to go all the way home
that way. Gran'ma Mullins got a gnat in her eye an' Hir