remarked 't it was surprisin' how foolish we got 's we got old, 'n' let it go 't that. It was a while after 's he took her to Meadville to the circus; it 's a well-known fact 's she was fool enough to look upon bein' took to a circus 's next thing to bein' asked out 'n' out. She come up to tell me all about it afterward."

"'N' yet—" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"It just shows the vanity o' feelin' sure o' mortal man," continued Susan. "She was sure, 'n' Mrs. Allen was sure, 'n' the minister had faith; 'n' then there was Mrs. Macy, too. There was a while when it looked to me 's if swoopin' down 'n' then pinnin' flat c'd catch anythin,' 't Mrs. Macy 'd have the deacon, she was so everlastingly on hand. Why, I never walked by his house but I met her, 'n' that was far too often to ever by any chance be called a' accident. But she was too open; my own experience is 't bein' frank 'n' free is time throwed away on men. If anythin' serious is to be done with a man, it's got to be done from behind a woodpile. I had some little dealin's with men in the marryin' line once, 'n' I found 'em very shy; tamin' gophers is sleepin' in the sun beside grabbin' a man 's dead against bein' grabbed. I don't say 's it can't be done, but I will say 't it 's hard in the first 'n' harder in the last, when you 've got him 'n' he's got you, like the minister 's got his wife."

"But Mrs. Macy ain't—" protested Mrs. Lathrop.

"No; 'n' it's her own fault, too. He told me this afternoon 's the way she smiled on him right in the first days made the marrow run up 'n' down his back. He said he c'd 'a' stood lots o' things, but no human bein' but gets mad bein' forever smiled at. Then she knit him things. He says she knit him a pair o' snap-on slippers 's Heaven 'll surely forgive him if he ever see the like of. He said they stuck out 's far behind 's in front, 'n' all in the world 't he c'd do was to sit perfectly still in the middle of 'em 'n' content himself with viewin' 'em 's slippers. But he says the worst was, she cooked him things; he says he won't say what he 's paid young Dr. Brown for advice regardin' things 's she 's cooked him, not to speak o' that time he cut himself so bad pryin' at one o' her undercrusts. 'N,' just between you 'n' me, Mrs. Lathrop, he says it 's a secret 's he will carry to his grave unsealed as she give him a crock o' gherkins on his birthday, with a pair o' buttonhole scissors at the bottom.

"He said he jus' felt he 'd enjoy to have the revenge o' stayin' single. But he said it did n't take him long to see 's stayin' single is 

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