skeeter! He never got any further 'n Scratch Corner, any way, 'n' there
he clim a tree or hid behind a hen-coop somewheres till the regiment got
out o' sight.... Yes: one, two, three, four,--Huldy was his fourth wife.
His first was a Hogg, from Hoggses Mills. The second was Dorcas
Doolittle, aunt to Jabe Slocum; she didn't know enough to make soap,
Dorcas didn't.... Then there was Delia Weeks, from the lower corner....
She didn't live long.... There was some thin' wrong with Delia.... She
was one o' the thin-blooded, white-livered kind.... You couldn't get her
warm, no matter how hard you tried. ... She'd set over a roarin' fire in
the cook-stove even in the prickliest o' the dog-days. ... The
mill-folks used to say the Whittens burnt more cut-roun's 'n' stickens
'n any three fam'lies in the village. ... Well, after Delia died, then
come Huldy's turn, 'n' it's she, after all, that's drawed the
pension.... Huldy took Joel's death consid'able hard, but I guess she'll
perk up, now she's come int' this money. ... She's awful leaky-minded,
Huldy is, but she's got tender feelin's.... One day she happened in at
noon-time, 'n' set down to the table with Si 'n' I.... All of a suddent
she bust right out cryin' when Si was offerin' her a piece o' tripe, 'n'
then it come out that she couldn't never bear the sight o' tripe, it
reminded her so of Joel! It seems tripe was a favorite dish o' Joel's.
All his wives cooked it firstrate.... Jabe Slocum seems to set
consid'able store by them children, don't he?... I guess he'll never
ketch up with his work, now he's got them hangin' to his heels.... He
doos beat all for slowness! Slocum's a good name for him, that's
certain. An' 's if that wa'n't enough, his mother was a Stillwell, 'n'
her mother was a Doolittle!... The Doolittles was the slowest fam'ly in
Lincoln County. (Thank you, I'm well helped, Samanthy.) Old Cyrus
Doolittle was slower 'n a toad funeral. He was a carpenter by trade, 'n'
he was twenty-five years buildin' his house; 'n' it warn't no great,
either.... The stagin' was up ten or fifteen years, 'n' he shingled it