"Anyway, Hannah coughed for a day or two more, and then her brother come
totin' in a big bottle of med'cine.
"'There!' he says. 'That'll fix you!'
"'Where'd you get it?' says she.
"'Down to Henry Tubman's,' he says.
"'Henry Tubman! What on earth! Why, Henry Tubman's a horse doctor!'
"'I know he is,' says Kenelm, solemn as a roostin' pullet, 'but we've
been fishin' with the wrong bait. 'Tain't consumption that's ailin' you,
Hannah; you've got the heaves.'
"So Hannah didn't cough much more, 'cause, when she did, Kenelm would
trot out the bottle of horse med'cine, and chuck overboard a couple of
barrels of sarcasm. She tried openin' all the windows, sayin' she needed
fresh air, but he locked himself up in the kitchen and filled that so
full of smoke that you had to navigate it by dead reckonin'--couldn't
see to steer. So she was about ready to give up; somethin' that anybody
but a stubborn critter like her would have done long afore.
"But one afternoon she was down to the sewin' circle, and the women
folks there, havin' finished pickin' to pieces the characters of the
members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how
much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if
'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'.
Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about--everybody but
Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that
Kenelm still herded with the goats.
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