f’r ’s much ’s a minute afore I c’d get voice to ask who give him the authority to teach me how to wash my own stockin’s.  ‘N’ then, when I did speak, I made no bones ’s to sayin’ jus’ what I thought.  I never was one to give my opinion o’ anythin’ or anybody aroun’ free, but I certainly did feel to be open at Mr. Shores.  I told him ‘s shrunk stockin’s to my order o’ thinkin’ was a species o’ spilt milk ‘s knowed no turnin’, ‘n’ I further told him ’t I ’d take it ’s a great kindness ’f he ‘n’ the rest o’ the town would shut their mouths right up tight on my stockin’s.  I says to him, I says, ‘Mr. Shores, when your wife eloped I was one o’ the few—­the very few—­’s blamed her, ‘n’ I beg ‘n’ pray ‘t the quality o’ your wool won’t force me to change my mind.  Your clerk ‘t she eloped with,’ I says, ‘once give me a nickel three cent piece in place of a dime,’ I says, ‘’n’ up to the first washin’ o’ them stockin’s I never so much ‘s breathed a suspicion of your mebbe dividin’ that seven cents with him.  But I ain’t so sure now,’ I says, ‘’n’ I ain’t prepared to say what I ‘ll think from now on,’ ‘n’ then I walked off, leavin’ him good ‘n’ meek, I c’n assure you; ‘n’ the come-out o’ that little game is as my trade, which ranged fr’m ten to fifty cents a week ‘n’ always cash, is lost to him forever hereafter.”

Mrs. Lathrop was fairly choking with impatience.

“‘N’ your cousin—­” she interjected quickly, as Susan halted for a slight rest.

“Yes,” said that lady, with a certain chilling air of having up to now suffered from inexcusable neglect on the part of her friend, “I was thinkin’ ’s it was about time ’t you begin to show some interest in what I come over to tell you—­’n’ me here for the best part o’ a good half-hour already.  Well, ‘n’ my cousin!  She come out o’ a letter, Mrs. Lathrop, a old torn letter ’s you or any other ordinary person would probably ‘a’ throwed away without even readin’.  But I was never one to do things slipshod, ‘n’ I read every scrap ’s I ’ve got time to piece together, so it was nothin’ but natural ’s I sh’d quit work ’s soon ’s I see Cousin Marion’s letter ‘n’ sit right down to read it.  ‘N’ it’s good as I did too, for ’f I ’d been careless ‘n’ burned my rubbish unread, Cousin Marion ’d certainly ‘a’ burnt with the other scraps, ‘n’ as a consequence I’d ‘a’ missed about the happiest minutes ’s I ‘ve knowed since father died.  You c’n believe me or not, jus’ ’s you please, Mrs. Lathrop, but I cried over that letter; ‘n’ if some was the dust in my nose, the rest was real affection, for, Lord knows, when you ‘re scratchin’ out mice ‘n’ cobwebs you ain’t lookin’ to find a relation none.  But anyhow, there she was, ‘n’ if she ain’t died in the mean time—­f’r the letter was wrote over fifty years ago—­I may know suthin’ o’ family life yet.  It was the beautifullest letter ’t I ever read.  You c’d n’t imagine nothin’ more beautiful.  I’m afraid ’s mebbe mother ‘n’ me misjudged