n' to be pleasanter than livin' in the house with the woman as
he's then an' there livin' in the house with. The main thing in life is
to keep men down to a low opinion of every woman's cookin' but yours an'
keep yourself down to a low opinion of the man. You don't want to marry
him then an' he don't want to live with any one else. An' to my order of
thinkin' that's about the only way that a woman can take any comfort
with a man in the house."

CHAPTER V

SUSAN CLEGG'S FULL DAY

"Well," said Miss Clegg, with strong emphasis, as she mounted Mrs.
Lathrop's steps, "I don't know, I'm sure, what I've come over here for
this night, for I never felt more like goin' right straight off to bed
in all my life before." Then she sat down on the top step and sighed
heavily.

"It's been a full day," she went on presently; "an' I can't deny as I
was nothin' but glad to remember as Elijah was n't comin' home to
supper, for as a consequence I sha'n't have it to get. A woman as has
had a day like mine to-day don't want no supper anyhow, an' it stands to
reason as if I don't feel lively in the first place, I ain't goin' to be
made any more so by comin' to see you, for I will remark, Mrs. Lathrop,
that seein' you always makes me wonder more'n ever why I come to see you
so often when I might just as well stay home an' go to bed. If I was in
my bed this blessed minute I'd be very comfortable, which I'm very far
from bein' here with this mosquito aimin' just over my slap each time;
an' then, too, I'd be alone, an' no matter how hard I may try to make
myself look upon bein' with you as the same thing as bein' alone, it is
n't the same thing an' you can't in conscience deny _that_, no matter
how hard you may sit without movin'."

Mrs. Lathrop made no reply to this frank comment on her liveliness, and
after a short pause, Miss Clegg sighed heavily a second time, and
continued:

"It's been a full day, a awful full day. In the first place the rooster
was woke by accident last night an' he up an' woke me. He must of woke
me about three o'clock as near as I can figure it out now, but I
supposed when I was woke as of course it was five so I got right up an'
went in an' woke Elijah. Elijah told me last week as he did n't believe
he'd ever seen the sun rise an' I was just enough out of sorts to think
as to-day would be a good time for him to begin to turn over a new leaf
as far as the sunrise was concerned. I must say he was n't very spry