famine big
enough to make it pay to register the letter when the cheque goes. He
says the trouble with the fund is no one has no relations there an' a
good many thought as it was mostly Chinamen as is starvin' anyhow.
Elijah says the world is most dreadful hard-hearted about
Chinamen--they don't seem to consider them as of any use a _tall_. He
says it's mighty hard to get up a interest in anythin' here anyhow, Lord
knows--for he says that San Francisco fund an' what become of it has
certainly been a pill an' no mistake. The nearest he come to that was
gettin' a letter as Phoebe White wrote the deacon about how the
government relief train run right through the town she's in, but Elijah
says after all his efforts he has n't swelled the famine fund
thirty-five cents this week. He says Clightville has give nine dollars
an' Meadville has give fifteen dollars an' two barrels an' a mattress,
if anybody wants it C. O. D., an' here we are stuck hard at six dollars
an' a quarter an' two pennies as the minister's twins brought just after
they choked on them licorish marbles."

"Did--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"No, I did n't. I tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, I keep a learnin'; in
regard to givin' to funds I've learned a very good trick from
Rockefeller an' Carnegie in the papers; they come to me about that San
Francisco one an' I said right out frank an' open that if the town would
give five hundred dollars I'd give fifty. That shut up every one's mouth
an' set every one to thinkin' how much I was willin' to give an' as a
matter of fact I did n't give nothin' a _tall_."

"But about--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes," said Susan, opening the paper which she had in her hand, "I was
just thinkin' of it, too. I'll read it to you right off now an' you see
if you don't think about as I do. I think myself as Elijah's made some
pretty close cuts at people, only of course every one will guess as he
must of made 'em up 'cause they don't really fit to no one. Still, it's
a risky business an' I wish he'd let it alone for he lives in my house
an' I know lots of folks as is mean enough to say that these things was
like enough said to him by me--a view as is far from likely to make my
friends any more friendly."

"Do--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, I'm goin' to." Then Miss Clegg drew a long breath and re-began
thus:

"Well, now, the first is, 'How can you put pickles up so they'll keep
the year 'round?'" She paused there and looked expectantly at the