[Pg 33] "Why—" asked Mrs. Lathrop. "Well, I guess maybe he heard things yesterday as made him feel as it'd be just as well to let folks have time to sizzle down some afore they looked on his bright an' shinin' face again. I tell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, I can see as runnin' a newspaper ain't an easy thing an' the town is really so up in arms to-day, that I really would of made waffles for Elijah to eat instead of just plain cakes, if I'd knowed when he got up how mad every one was at him. I can see since I've been down town to-day as the square was n't likely to have been no bed of roses for him yesterday. The whole community is mad as hornets over the[Pg 34] paper. Why, I never see folks so mad over nothin' before. Nobody likes his puttin' his own name right under the paper's, an' Dr. Brown says the editor belongs on the inside, anyhow. Dr. Brown's most awful mad 'cause Elijah's put his item right in with the advertisement of Lydia Finkham, an' he says he ain't nothin' as pretends to cure anythin' or everybody. He says he's a regular doctor as you have to take regular chances with an' he feels like suin' Elijah for slander. Gran'ma Mullins is mad, too, 'cause she was put in the personals an' Elijah went an' called her the 'Nestor of the crick,' without never so much as askin' by her leave. She says she ain't never done nothin' with the crick, an' if she ever nested anywhere it was in her own owned an' mortgaged house. Hiram says he'll punch Elijah if he ever refers to his mother's nestin' again, an' I guess Hiram feels kind of sore over Elijah's talkin' of his mother's nestin' when all the town knows how much he wishes[Pg 35] as Lucy'd settle down and nest awhile instead of keepin' 'em all so everlastin'ly churned up. Mrs. Macy told me this mornin' as Lucy's whitewashin' the garret this week; she see the brush goin' 'round an' 'round the window on her side—she says it makes her bones ache just to live next door to Lucy's ways. She says they're so different from Gran'ma Mullins' ways. Gran'ma Mullins had n't had no whitewashin' done in twenty years—not since she rented the cottage of father. That's true an' I know it's true too because she's been askin' an' askin' me to have it done an' I said not by no means—so she's left off." [Pg 34] [Pg 35] "Did—?" asked Mrs. Lathrop. "The Jilkinses is real mad over the paper, too," Susan continued. "Seems as Elijah went an' called 'em the 'Chirpy Cherry Ponders,' an' Mrs. Jilkins says where he got the idea as either of 'em ever
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