te to be ready against her home-coming. To that
end she set her front door hospitably open, drew two rockers out upon
the porch, laid a palm-leaf fan in one, and deposited herself in the
other.

It was nearly an hour before Miss Clegg returned from town. She
appeared very warm, but pleased with herself for having gone. As she
sank down in the chair and began to agitate the fan, Mrs. Lathrop's
eyes fairly gleamed with anticipation.

"I s'pose--" she began.

"Well, no," said Susan, "seems they ain't, after all. The air down
town is more like a revival than anythin' else, everybody 's up
tellin' their experience an' callin' out on Heaven to save 'em. 'N'
the worst of all is Mrs. Brown!--she _never_ knew 't Henry Ward
Beecher walks in his sleep! No more did I nor nobody else, 'n' I must
say 't I do think 't the minister 'd ought to 'a' told some of us so's
we could 'a' been a little prepared, for there's many a night 's I've
left clothes out on the line 's I'd never risked 'f I'd been aware o'
the possibility o' Henry Ward Beecher bein' broad-cast. Mrs. Brown
says, though, 's it ain't his walkin' in his sleep as is troublin'
her, it's his eatin' in his walkin'. Mrs. Lathrop, you never hear the
like o' what she told me! It's beyond all belief! He eat the Sunday
layer-cake 'n' the Sunday-dinner pie 'n' the whole week's tin o'
doughnuts, 'n' then went back to bed 'n' never turned a hair. Why, she
says she never _did_--in all her life. She says when she see the jelly
streaks on the bed an' felt his sticky door-knob, she was all used up,
for Babes in the Woods was criminal beside the way he looked to be
sleepin'. 'N' he don't remember nothin' a _tall_ to-day, not one
livin' doughnut does that boy recolleck, 'n' she says 'f she didn't
know it to be so on a'count o' the empty tin she'd doubt herself an'
believe him by choice, he looks so truthful. But empty tins is empty
tins, 'n' no one can deny that fact.

"I see Mrs. Craig too. Mrs. Craig's some altered as to her yesterday's
view in regard to Augustus. That cat 't she makes so much over 's
gone, 'n' she's most crazy as a consequence. It's him as she warms her
feet on winters, 'n' when I asked her how under the sun she come to
feel the need o' it to-day she didn't even smile. She says she asked
Augustus right off 's quick 's she missed it, 'n' all he said was,
'Wash zhat? Zhat a cat? Zhi a cat? Zhu a cat?' 'n' she see 't there
wasn't no information to be got out o' him. She