Susan Clegg and a Man in the House

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Clegg and a Man in the House, by Anne Warner

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Title: Susan Clegg and a Man in the House
Author: Anne Warner
Illustrator: Alice Barber Stephens
Release Date: October 3, 2007 [EBook #22872]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: "'He is a trouble, Mrs. Lathrop.'" FRONTISPIECE(See page 21.)]

Susan Clegg And a Man in the House
BY ANNE WARNER
Author of "Susan Clegg and her Friend Mrs. Lathrop," "A Woman's Will," "The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary," "Seeing France with Uncle John," etc.
Illustrated from Drawings by ALICE BARBER STEPHENS
Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1907
Copyright, 1906, By Katharine N. Birdsall
Copyright, 1907, By The Butterick Company, Ltd.
Copyright, 1907, By Little, Brown, and Company
All rights reserved
Published October, 1907
GRIFFITH-STILLINGS PRESS, BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Man's Proposal 1
II. Elijah Doxey and His Locked Box 20
III. The First Issue of the Newspaper 32
IV. Settling down after the Honeymoon 43
V. Susan Clegg's Full Day 64
VI. The Editor's Advice Column 85
VII. Mrs. Macy and the Convention 98
VIII. The Biennial 113
IX. The Far Eastern Tropics 128
X. The Evils of Delayed Decease 142
XI. The Democratic Party 156
XII. The Trials of Mrs. Macy 168
XIII. Monotony of Ministerial Monologues 200
XIV. Advisability of Newspaper Exposures 212
XV. The Trial of a Sick Man in the House 223
XVI. The Beginning of the End 235
XVII. An Old-fashioned Fourth 251
XVIII. Celebrating Independence Day 261
XIX. Exit the Man out of Susan Clegg's House 273

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'He is a trouble, Mrs. Lathrop.'" Frontispiece
PAGE
"'A lady come up, looked at my flag, an' asked me if I was a delegate or an alternative'" 119
"'Mrs. Macy was just about plum paralyzed at that'" 179
"'The bottom come out an' the duck flew down the car'" 188

Susan Clegg And a Man in the House
CHAPTER I
MAN'S PROPOSAL
Susan Clegg had dwelt alone ever since her father's death. She had not been unhappy in dwelling alone, although she had been a good daughter as long as she had a parent to live with. When the parent departed, and indeed some few days before his going, there had arisen a kind of a question as to the possibility of a life-companion for the daughter who must inevitably be left orphaned and lonely before long. The question had arisen in a way highly characteristic of Miss Clegg and had been disposed of in the same manner.[A] The fact is that Miss Clegg had herself proposed to four men and been refused four times. Then her father had died, and, upon the discovery that he was better endowed with worldly wealth than folks had generally supposed, all four had hastened to bring a return suit at once. But Miss Clegg had also had her mind altered by the new discovery and refused them all. From that time to this period of which I am about to write there had never been any further question in her mind as to the non-advisability of having a man in the house.
[A] See "Susan Clegg and her Friend Mrs. Lathrop."
"As far as I can see," she said confidentially to her friend, Mrs. Lathrop, who lived next door, "men are not what they are cracked up to be. There ain't but one woman as looks happy in this whole community and that's Mrs. Sperrit, an' she looks so happy that at first glance she looks full as much like a fool as anythin'. The minister's wife don't look happy,--she looks a deal more like somethin' a cat finds an' lugs home for you to brush up,--an' goodness knows Mrs. Fisher don't look happy an' she ain't happy neither, for she told me herself yesterday as since Mr. Fisher had got this new idea of developin' his chest with Japanese Jimmy Jig-songs, an' takin' a cold plunge in the slop jar every mornin', that life hadn't been worth livin' for the wall paper in her room. She ain't got no sympathy with chest developin' an' Japanese jiggin' an' she says only to think how proud she was to marry the prize boy at school an' look at what's come of it. She asked me if I hear about his goin' to town the other day an' buyin' a book on how to make your hair grow by pullin' it out as fast as it comes in, an' then gettin' on the train, an' gettin' to readin' on to how to make your eyebrows grow by pullin' them out, too, an' not noticin' that