e. Then, when 'twas over, he stopped in the church entry to
load up his pipe, and walked home with his sister, blowin' rings and
scratchin' matches and talkin' loud about how fine the sermon was.
He talked all next day about that sermon; said he'd go every night if
they'd let you smoke in there.
"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.
"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 t
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