e stealin' in to feel if Hiram was breathin' reg'lar, she was
going to get slapped for a mosquito in a way as she'd long remember."

"Dear me--" commented Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, I did n't blame her," said Miss Clegg. "Of course I did n't know
as I was going to hear the other side afore night fell, but hearin' her
side stirred me up so that I give her my advice, an' my advice was to
put the bootjack under her pillow. There ain't no sense in women
sufferin' any more, to my idea of thinkin'. It's a good deal easier to
go to bed with a bootjack, an' I look to see Lucy really happy or Hiram
smashed flat soon in consequence."

"But you--" said Mrs. Lathrop, wide-eyed.

"I know, an' that did change my ideas. Of course when I was talkin' to
Lucy I was n't expectin' to see Gran'ma Mullins so soon, but I won't say
but what I was glad to see Gran'ma Mullins, too. It's a most curious
feelin', I d'n know as I ever feel a curiouser than to hear both sides
of anythin' from the both sides themselves right one after the other in
the same day. O' course I learned long ago to never take any sides
myself unless one of 'em was mine; but I will say as I don't believe no
one could feel for others more 'n I do when I hear folks shakin' their
heads over what as a general thing a person with brains like mine knows
is their own fault, an' knowed was goin' to be their own fault afore
they ever even began to think of doin' it.

"Now there was Lucy Dill yesterday forenoon mournin' 'cause Hiram is
Hiram an' his mother is his mother, an' then after dinner there comes
Gran'ma Mullins with her bonnet strings an' her tears all streamin'
together, an' wants my sympathy 'cause Lucy herself is Lucy herself.
Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I can't but feel proud o' being able to hold the
reins so hard on my own bit that I never up an' told either on 'em the
plain truth, which is as they was all fools together to of ever looked
for the weddin' service to have changed any on 'em."

"What did--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"I don't know as I'm prepared to say what I think. To hear Lucy you'd
think _she_ was surely the martyr, but to hear Gran'ma Mullins you would
n't be sure after all. Gran'ma Mullins says after the honeymoon is over
every one expects to settle down as a matter of course, an' she would
n't say a word against it only it's Lucy is doin' all the settlin' an'
poor Hiram as is doin' all the down. She says it's heartbreakin' to be a
only mother an' watch the way