Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs
"And to think there's been a blue automobile puffing at these very kitchen steps! To think you and me was over to Meadville and back between dinner and supper one day! I guess Mrs. Lupey never got such a start. She'd been all the morning getting home on the train and was only just putting her bonnet away in its box when we rolled up. I never enjoyed nothing like that roll up in all my life! I never see automobiles from the automobile's side before, but now[Pg 71] I can. When a automobile goes over a duck it makes all the difference in the world whether it's your automobile or your duck.

[Pg 71]

"And then Jathrop's generosity! Not but what he was always generous. Deacon White says he will say that for Jathrop, he was always generous. And look what he brought home. Every child in town is just about out of their senses. Felicia Hemans is crazy about the earrings, and 'Liza Em'ly won't never take off the bracelet. Mr. Shores can't keep the tears back when he looks at his watch charm. I think it was so kind of Jathrop. But Jathrop was always kind; you know yourself that a kinder creature never lived than Jathrop. I always said that for him.

"And then his having a new fence built around the cemetery. It was thoughtful, and Judge Fitch says nobody can't say more. But Judge Fitch says Jathrop was always thoughtful; he says he's been interested in him always just for that very reason.[Pg 72] Judge Fitch says Jathrop's nature was always that deep kind that's easy overlooked. He says he'll have to confess to his shame that some of the time he overlooked him himself. He says it's very difficult to understand a deep nature, because if a deep nature don't make money, there's hardly any way of ever knowing that it really was deep; people just think you're a fool then—like we always thought Jathrop was. You know, nobody ever thought he ever could amount to nothing. You know that yourself, Mrs. Lathrop. But making money lets you see just what a person's got in 'em and see it plain.

[Pg 72]

"I'm sure for all I've loved Jathrop as if he was going to be my own, for years and years and years, still I never credited him with being the man he is. I supposed he was a tramp somewhere—yes, I really did, Mrs. Lathrop, you may believe me or not, but that's just what I thought when I thought anything at all about him—which wasn't often.[Pg 73]

[Pg 73]

"Everybody in the whole place is busy remembering pleasant things about him now. The minister's 
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