"So Hannah was set back a couple of rows, but she wa'n't
discouraged--not by a forty fathom. She got after her brother mornin',
noon and night about the smokin' habit. The most provokin' part of it,
so she said, was that he always agreed with her.
"'It's ruinin' your health,' she'd say.
"'Yes,' says Kenelm, lookin' solemn, 'I cal'late that's so. I've been
feelin' poorly for over a year now. Worries me consider'ble. Pass me
that plug on the top of the clock, won't you, Hannah?'
"Now what can you do with a feller like that?
"She couldn't start him with fussin' about HIS health, so she swung over
on a new tack and tried her own. She said so much smoke in the house
was drivin' her into consumption, and she worked up a cough that was
a reg'lar graveyard quickstep. I heard her practicin' it once, and, I
swan, there was harps and halos all through it!
"That cough made Kenelm set up and take notice; and no wonder. He
listened to a hundred or so of Hannah's earthquakes, and then he got up
and pranced out of the house. When he came back the doctor was with him.
"Now, this wa'n't exactly what his sister was lookin' for. She didn't
want to see the doctor. But Kenelm said she'd got to have her lungs
sounded right off, and he guessed they'd have to use a deep-sea lead,
'cause that cough seemed to come from the foundations. He waylaid the
doctor after the examination was over and asked all kinds of questions.
The doctor tried to keep a straight face, but I guess Kenelm smelt a
rat.
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