"Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news. "Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles--" Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! Ethan Ripley--wal, you beat all I ever see!" she added, in despair of expression. "I thought you had some sense left; but you hain't, not one blessed scimpton. Where is the stuff?" "Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. I've known you to buy things you didn't need time an' time an' agin--tins an' things, an' I guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you paid for that illustrated Bible." "Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man in my life. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles." She glared out at the sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen window. Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the floor of the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it like a cautious cat. "Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take. What'd you think you was goin' to do with it?" she asked in poignant disgust. "I expected to take it--if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He defiantly stood his ground, towering above her like a leaning tower. "The hull cartload of it?" "No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat--" "Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but an old numskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this minute! Take it right down to the sink-hole an' smash every bottle on the stones." Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old woman addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her grandson, who stood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet. "Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't keep a watch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought that lightnin'-rod man had give him a lesson he'd remember; but no, he must go an' make a reg'lar--" She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in the matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet. Uncle Ethan went about the house like a convict on shipboard. Once she caught him looking out of the window. "I should think you'd feel proud o' that." Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent and bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the matter with him. He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, because he had determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, after his chores were done, he put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brushing his hair into a ridge across the centre of his high, narrow head, when Mrs. Ripley came in from feeding the calves. "Where you goin' now?" "None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I can't stir without you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tukey?" "Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take him off this mornin' now! I don't care where you go."