"The horse did n't bite the pole," continued Susan; "he said as he wa'n't no cribber. I told him it wa'n't cribs as was the question, but clothes-poles, an' I might of spoken some stronger, but just then he stepped on the edge of the cistern cover 'n' I got such a turn as drove everythin' else clean out o' my mind. You know how easy it is to turn that cover, Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' I must say that if he and it had fell in together there'd have been a fine tale to tell, for the cover always sinks straight to the bottom, 'n' is no joke to find 'n' fish up,—you and I both know that. Ever since the brace give way I 've always got it on my mind to keep the clothes-bars sittin' over it, but now the brace in the clothes-bars is give way too 'n' as a consequence they won't sit over nothin' no more. If money was looser I 'd certainly never spare it gettin' them two braces mended, but money bein' tight and me alone in the house 'n' the most of my callers them as it 's all one to me whether I see 'em in the parlor or in the cistern, I ain't botherin'. I was never one to worry an' scurry unnecessarily, Mrs. Lathrop, an' you know that as well as I do, 'n' to-day I had my mind all done up in my curtains anyway, 'n' I was more'n' a little put out over bein' interrupted, even by a man as come in through the woodshed door, that I never bolt 'cause it 's a understood thing as woodshed doors is not to be come in at. The turn he give me when I hear him clutterin' aroun' in the woodshed!—I thought he was rats, an' then a cat, an' then a rat an' a cat come together, an' then all of a sudden I see him an' remembered the cistern cover."

"But who—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

Susan looked surprised.

"Why, I thought you said you seen him," she said; "you certainly give me that impression, Mrs. Lathrop. I 'd have took any vow anywhere as I asked you if you seen him 'n' you said you did. It's funny if you did n't for he drove hisself in 'n' hitched hisself too, 'n' me up in the garret when he done it, foldin' off my curtains to iron. My, to think how I did hate the idea o' ironin' them curtains! Mother always ironed the curtains. She said I was young n' she did n't mind anyhow. I ain't washed 'em since. I 've been in the habit o' sayin' I was afraid it'd bring mother over me too much to take 'em down without her. That 's a thing as this community can easy understand, f'r they leave all their hard work layin' around for any reason a tall, and although I can't in reason deny as in most ways they 're as different from me as anything can be from me, still when it comes to ironin' curtains the stove is as hot on the just as on the unjust 'n' you can't 

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