he was give to understand ‘t it was tippin’ a little, ‘n’ I was recommended to brace him up by givin’ him raw eggs for his breakfast.  Well, maybe all Mr. Kimball says is very witty, but it’s a poor kind o’ wit, I think.  He makes good enough jokes about the rest of the c’mmunity, but I may tell you in confidence, Mrs. Lathrop, ’t I ain’t never heard one joke ’t he’s told on me ’t I considered even half-way amusin’.”

Mrs. Lathrop shook her head sadly.

Then they went in.

The Sunday which followed this particular Saturday was of a heat truly tropical.  All the blinds of the Clegg and Lathrop houses stayed tightly closed all day, and it is only fair to surmise that those who remained behind them were not sorry that the minister’s absence allowed them to do so with a clear conscience.

But about half-past seven in the evening Susan’s shutters began to bang open with a succession of blast-like reports, and shortly after she emerged from her kitchen door and started down town.  Mrs. Lathrop, who was of course cognizant of every movement on her neighbor’s part, saw her go and made haste to be ready against her home-coming.  To that end she set her front door hospitably open, drew two rockers out upon the porch, laid a palm-leaf fan in one, and deposited herself in the other.

It was nearly an hour before Miss Clegg returned from town.  She appeared very warm, but pleased with herself for having gone.  As she sank down in the chair and began to agitate the fan, Mrs. Lathrop’s eyes fairly gleamed with anticipation.

“I s’pose—­” she began.

“Well, no,” said Susan, “seems they ain’t, after all.  The air down town is more like a revival than anythin’ else, everybody ’s up tellin’ their experience an’ callin’ out on Heaven to save ’em.  ‘N’ the worst of all is Mrs. Brown!—­she never knew ’t Henry Ward Beecher walks in his sleep!  No more did I nor nobody else, ‘n’ I must say ’t I do think ’t the minister ’d ought to ‘a’ told some of us so’s we could ‘a’ been a little prepared, for there’s many a night ’s I’ve left clothes out on the line ’s I’d never risked ‘f I’d been aware o’ the possibility o’ Henry Ward Beecher bein’ broad-cast.  Mrs. Brown says, though, ‘s it ain’t his walkin’ in his sleep as is troublin’ her, it’s his eatin’ in his walkin’.  Mrs. Lathrop, you never hear the like o’ what she told me!  It’s beyond all belief!  He eat the Sunday layer-cake ‘n’ the Sunday-dinner pie ‘n’ the whole week’s tin o’ doughnuts, ‘n’ then went back to bed ‘n’ never turned a hair.  Why, she says she never did—­in all her life.  She says when she see the jelly streaks on the bed an’ felt his sticky door-knob, she was all used up, for Babes in the Woods was criminal beside the way he looked to be sleepin’.  ‘N’ he don’t remember nothin’ a tall to-day, not one livin’ doughnut does that boy recolleck, ‘n’ she says ’f she didn’t know it to be so on a’count o’ the empty tin she’d doubt herself an’ believe him by choice, he looks so truthful.  But empty tins is empty tins, ‘n’ no one can deny that fact.