"Takin' other folks' advice about your own affairs," began Cap'n Obed, "is like a feller readin' patent medicine circulars to find somethin' to cure a cold.Afore he gets through his symptoms have developed into bronchitis and pneumony, with gallopin' consumption dead ahead.You never can tell what'll happen.
"You noticed how Hannah Parker sort of riz up when Kenelm started smokin' yesterday? Yes, I know you did, 'cause you spoke of it.
And you notice, too, how meek and lowly she laid down and give in when he kept right on doin' it.That ain't her usual way with Kenelm by a consider'ble sight.I told you there was quite a yarn hitched to that smokin' business.So there is.
"Kenelm's an old bach, you know.One time he used to work, or pretend to, because he needed the money; but his Aunt Phoebe up to Brockton died and left him four or five thousand dollars and he ain't worked of any account since.He's a gentleman now, livin' on his income--and his sister.
"Hannah ain't got but precious little money of her own, but she knows how to take care of it, which her brother don't.She was housekeepin' for some folks at Wapatomac, but when the inheritances landed she headed straight for East Wellmouth, rented that little house they're in now, and took charge of Kenelm.He wa'n't overanxious to have her do it, but that didn't make any difference.
One of her pet bugaboos was that, now her brother was well-off--'cordin' to her idea of well-offness--some designin' woman or other would marry him for his money.Down she come, first train, and she's been all hands and the cook, yes, and paymaster--with Kenelm a sort of steerage passenger, ever since.She keeps watch over him same as the sewin' circle does over the minister's wife, and it's 'No Anchorage for Females' around that house, I can tell you.
"Another of her special despisin's--next to old maids and young widows--used to be tobacco smoke.We had a revival preacher in East Wellmouth that first winter and he stirred up things like a stick in a mudhole.He was young and kind of good-lookin', with a voice like the Skakit foghorn, and he took the sins of the world in his mouth, one after the other, as you might say, and shook 'em same's a pup would a Sunday bunnit.He laid into rum and rum sellin', and folks fairly got in line to sign the pledge.'Twas 'Come early and avoid the rush.' Got so that Chris Badger hardly dast to use alcohol in his cigar-lighter.
"Then, havin' dried us up, that revival feller begun to smoke us out.He preached six sermons on the evils of tobacco, and every one was hotter'n the last.Accordin' to him, if you smoked now you'd burn later on.Lots of the men folks threw their pipes away, and took to chewin' slipp'ry ellum.
"Now, Kenelm smoked like a peat fire.He lit up after breakfast and puffed steadily until bedtime, only puttin' his pipe down to eat, or to rummage in his pocket for more tobacco.Hannah got him to go to one of the anti-tobacco meetin's.He set through the whole of it, interested as could be.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 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.
