Not only did her ears stand up with a size and conspicuousness never
inherited from either her father or her mother, but also her right eye
was completely closed and she walked lame.

"The Lord have mercy!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, when the full force of her
friend's affliction effected its complete entrance into her
brain,--"Why, Susan, what--"

"Mrs. Lathrop," said Miss Clegg, "all I can say is I come out better
than the most of 'em, an' if you could see Sam Duruy or Mr. Kimball or
the minister you'd know I spoke the truth. The deacon an' Polly is both
in bed an' can't see how each other looks, an' them as has a eye is
goin' to tend them as can't see at all, an' God help 'em all if young
Dr. Brown an' the mud run dry!" with which pious ejaculation Susan
painfully mounted the steps and sat down with exceeding gentleness upon
a chair.

Mrs. Lathrop stared at her in dumb and wholly bewildered amazement.
After a while Miss Clegg continued.

"It was all the deacon's fault. Him an' Polly was so dead set on bein'
fashionable an' bein' a contrast to Hiram an' Lucy, an' I hope to-night
as they lay there all puffed up as they'll reflect on their folly an'
think a little on how the rest of us as didn't care rhyme or reason for
folly is got no choice but to puff up, too. Mrs. Jilkins is awful mad;
she says Mr. Jilkins wanted to wear his straw hat anyhow and, she says
she always has hated his silk hat 'cause it reminds her o' when she was
young and foolish enough to be willin' to go and marry into a family as
was foolish enough to marry into Deacon White. Mrs. Jilkins is extra hot
because she got one in the neck, but my own idea is as Polly Allen's