ELIJAH DOXEY AND HIS LOCKED BOX

"Well," suggested Mrs. Lathrop one pleasant Saturday morning, a few days later, when she and her friend met at the fence. Miss Clegg looked slightly fretted and more than slightly warm, for she had been giving her garden an uncommonly vigorous weeding on account of an uncommonly vigorous shower which had fallen the afternoon before. The weeding had been so strenuous that Miss Clegg was quite disposed to stop and rest, and as she joined her neighbor and read the keen interest that never failed to glow in the latter's eyes, her own expression softened slightly and she took up her end of the conversation with her customary capability at giving forth.

"I don't know," she began, "an' Mr. Kimball don't know either. Elijah was tellin' me all about it last night. He is a trouble, Mrs. Lathrop, but I don't know but what it pays to have a man around when you can have them to talk to like I have him. Of course a new broom sweeps clean an' I've no intention of supposin' that Elijah will ever keep on coverin' his soap an' scrapin' his feet long, but so far so good, an' last night it was real pleasant to hear the rain an' him together tellin' how much trouble they're havin', owin' to Hiram's bein' too energetic wringin' the handle of the printin' press an' then to think as when he was all done talkin' it would be him an' not me as in common decency would have to go out in the wet to padlock the chickens. Seems, Mrs. Lathrop, as they're really havin' no end o' trouble over the new paper an' Elijah's real put out. He says Hiram had a idea as the more the speed the better the paper an' was just wringin' for dear life, an' the first thing he knew the first issue begin to slide a little cornerways an' slid off into a crank as Elijah never knowed was there, an' him an' Mr. Kimball spent the whole of yesterday runnin' around like mad an' no way to fix it. As a consequence Elijah's very much afraid as there'll be no paper this week an' it's too bad, for every one is in town spendin' the day an' waitin' to take it home with them. Young Dr. Brown is goin' to feel just awful 'cause he'd bought twenty-five papers to mail to all his college class. There was goin' to be a item about him, an' Mrs. Brown says it was goin' to be a good one for she fed Elijah mince pie while he made his notes for it an' had Amelia play on her guitar, too."

"What do you—?" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, I can't say as I really know what to think of him just yet. I never see such a young man afore. He has some very curious ways, Mrs. Lathrop, ways as make me feel that I can't tell you positively what I do think. Now yesterday was the first day as I knowed he'd be gone for long, so I took it to go through all his things, an' do you know, away down at the bottom of one of his trunks I found a box as was locked an' no key anywhere. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I hunted, an' I hunted, an' I hunted, an' I couldn't find that key a tall. I never had any thin' of that kind in my house afore an' of course I ain't goin' to give up without a good deal more lookin', but if I can't find that key it'll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt as Elijah Doxey ain't of a trustin' nature an' if that's true I don't know how I ever will be able to get along with him. A trustin' nature is one thing to have around an' a distrustin' nature is another thing, an' I can tell you that there's somethin' about feelin' as you ain't trusted as makes me take my hands right out of my bread dough an' go straight upstairs to begin lookin' for that key again. The more I hunt the wilder I get, for it's a very small box for a man to keep locked, an' it ain't his money or jewelry for it don't rattle when you shake it. It's too bad for me to feel so because in most other ways he's a very nice young man, although I will say as sunset is midnight compared to his hair."

"Do—" began Mrs. Lathrop.

"Then too, he said yesterday," Miss Clegg continued, "as he wanted it distinctly understood as his things was never to be touched by no one an' I told him as he could freely an' frankly rely on me. Now that's goin' to make it a great deal more work to hunt for that key from now on. An' I don't like to have it made any harder work to find a thing, as I have n't found yet a tall."

"Wh—" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Not me," said Miss Clegg; "I ain't got any give-up in me. I'll keep on until I find it if I have to board Elijah Doxey till he dies or till I drop dead in my huntin' tracks. But I can see that my feelin' towards him is n't goin' to be what it might of been if he'd been frank an' open with me as I am with him an' every one else. He seems so frank an' open, too—in other ways than that box. He read his editorial aloud night afore last an' I must say it showed a real good disposition for he even wished the president well although he said as he knowed he was sometimes goin' to be obliged to maybe be a little bit hard on him. He said as plain speakin' an' to the purpose 'd be the very breath an' blast of the Megaphone an' he should found it on truth, honor an' the great American people, an' carry Judge Fitch to congress on them lines. I thought as Judge Fitch would object to goin' to congress on any lines after all he's said about what he thought of congress in public, but Elijah says a new paper must have a standard, an' he asked Judge Fitch if he minded being nailed to ours, an' the judge said he did n't mind nothin' these degenerate days, so Elijah just up with him."

"Did you—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"See Mrs. Macy?—yes, I see her in the square yesterday noon. She was just back from Meadville. She says the editor of the Meadville Mixture is awful bitter over our havin' a paper of our own, an' says he'll cross tinfoils with Elijah any day. I told Elijah what she said last night, but Elijah did n't mind. I hoped tellin' him'd take his appetite away, but he ate eleven biscuits just the same. That reminds me as he's comin' home to dinner to-day, an' I ought to be goin' in."

"Goo—" said Mrs. Lathrop.

—"But I'll come over after he goes an' tell you how the paper's comin' out," Susan added, as she turned from the fence; and as she was always true to her promises she did come over to Mrs. Lathrop's kitchen after dinner, wearing a clean apron and a new expression—an expression of mixed doubt and displeasure.

Mrs. Lathrop hurried to give her a chair and make her welcome, and then took a chair herself and sat at attention.

Susan began at once.

"Well," she said, "it's a good thing as the Fishers are thinkin' some of sendin' John Bunyan to college, for he's surely a sight too smart for this town."

Mrs. Lathrop opened her eyes in wide surprise, as it was certainly not about John Bunyan that she had expected to hear tales.

"Elijah says as John Bunyan made them all feel pretty cheap down at the printin' press this mornin'," Miss Clegg went on: "seems the whole community was squeezin' into the back of Mr. Kimball's store to see what under the sun could be done to get the first paper out of the press, when all of a sudden John Bunyan spoke up an' asked why they did n't turn the handle backward an' empty the whole muss out that way. Well, every one see the sense of what he said right off, an' so they began, an' as soon as they began to turn the crank backward the paper began to come out backward, tore, of course, but as nice as pie.

"Well, Elijah says he most thought his uncle was goin' to take his job as editor away and give it to John Bunyan right off, he was so pleased. But Mr. Kimball ain't the sort of uncle as Elijah so far supposes himself to of got, an' he only give John Bunyan fifty cents' worth of soda water tickets, an' they're to work to-night (if Lucy'll let Hiram), an' have the paper ready for church to-morrow. The Jilkins an' Sperrits was a little disapp'inted 'cause they was n't comin' in to church, countin' on stayin' home an' readin' the paper all day instead, but Elijah's goin' to put in a late column of late news an' give 'em their money's worth that way. Mr. Kimball had arranged to have one whole column of Ks to draw attention to his dried apples, an' he's goin' to give it up for the occasion an' let Elijah write a Extra about the cause of the delay, for that's really all the late news there is. Then, too, Elijah's goin' to have a joke about the paper's comin' in among us like a man goes into politics, kind of slidin' an' turnin' this way an' that, an' I must say I begin to find some of Elijah's ideas pretty bright. But my mind's taken a new turn on his subjeck from what he said at dinner, an' I will admit, Mrs. Lathrop, as I see now as I misjudged him in one way, for he come an' asked me while I was washin' up if I knowed any way to open a locked box without a key, for he could n't find the key to his flute box nowhere, an' when he was a little nervous nights he always wore it off practisin' on his flute. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can maybe imagine as learnin' as there was a flute in that box an' the key lost, an' him in the habit of playin' that flute nights, altered my views more 'n a little, an' I can tell you that I had to think pretty fast afore answerin' him. While I was thinkin' he said he had n't played since he was here, an' he was gettin' so wild to play he thought the best way would be to maybe pry the lock open. I see then as I'd got to come out firm an' I said I'd never consent to no young man in my house, spoilin' a good box like that an' maybe a fine flute too, just because he had n't got a little patience. He said I was right about its being a fine flute, an' he was just achin' to hear it an' blow it. I told him to let me hunt an' maybe I'd find the key, an' so he went off some soothed, an' now the Lord have mercy on you an' me, for Elijah Doxey never will from this day on. Will you only think of him bein' nervous an' playin' nights! It'll be worse than a tree-toad an' you know what a tree-toad is, Mrs. Lathrop,—I declare to goodness if Elijah acts like a tree-toad he'll drive me stark, ravin' mad."

"Ca—" suggested Mrs. Lathrop.

"I don't see how I can," said Miss Clegg, dubiously. "I shall do my best, but, oh my, a young man as is a editor an' has red hair an' a flute is awful uncertain to count on. I almost wish I had n't took him."

"Why—" asked Mrs. Lathrop.

"I can't now," said Miss Clegg, "the arrangements of this world is dreadful hard on women. It's very easy to take a man into your house but once a woman has done it an' the man's settled, nobody but a undertaker can get him out in any way as is respectable accordin' to my order of thinkin'."

"But you—" suggested Mrs. Lathrop, comfortingly.

"I know, but even three months is a long time," said Miss Clegg, "an' he's begun to leave his soap uncovered already, an' oh my heavens alive, how am I ever goin' to stand that flute!"