Lathrop, rubbing her eyes.
"He's gone; I come over to tell you."
"What--" said Mrs. Lathrop.
"I would n't care if my ears was as big as a elephant's now."
"Why--" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Mrs. Lathrop, you know as I took them bonds straight after father died
'n' locked 'em up 'n' I ain't never unlocked 'em since?"
Mrs. Lathrop assented with a single rapt nod.
"Well, when I explained to Mr. Weskin as I 'd got to have money 'n' how
was the best way to sell a bond, he just looked at me, 'n' what do you
think he said--what _do_ you think he said, Mrs. Lathrop?"
Mrs. Lathrop hung far out over the window-sill--her gaze was the gaze of
the ever earnest and interested.
Susan stood below. Her face was aglow with the joy of the affluent--her
very voice might have been for once entitled as silvery.
"He said, Mrs. Lathrop, he said, 'Miss Clegg, why don't you go down to
the bank and cut your coupons?'"
* * * * *
A VERY SUPERIOR MAN
Miss Clegg sat in Mrs. Lathrop's rocking-chair, on Mrs. Lathrop's
kitchen stoop. Mrs. Lathrop sat at her friend's feet, picking over
currants. If she picked over a great many she intended making jelly; if
only a few, the result was to be a pie.
Susan had on her bonnet and mitts and held her sun-umbrella firmly
gripped between her two hands and her two knees. She looked weary and
worn.
"It seems kind o' funny that I bothered to go, now that I come to think
it over," she said, gazing meditatively down upon her friend and her
friend's currant-picking; "I wa'n't no relation of Rufus Timmans, 'n'
although I don't deny as it 's always a pleasure to go to any one's
funeral, still it's a long ways to Meadville, 'n' the comin' back was
most awful, not to speak o' havin' no dinner nowhere.
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