"She starts in with what _she's_ heard. Then she adds on what somebody else has heard, and after that, what this one an' that one and t'other one has heard, 'til the size of the yarn must astonish her." "I'll say one thing 'bout her, though," remarked Silas Barnes, "with all her talkin' an' tellin' she never tells anything that's detrimental to somebody's character. She's full er tellin' ordinary news, but when it comes ter news that would stir up strife, Sophrony's got nothin' ter say; so let her talk, I say, ef she enjoys it; she 'muses herself an' don't hurt no one else." On the sunny morning when Barnes' store had been the scene of the gossip and discussion in regard to the new quarters for the school, Sophrony Hodgkins had made an early start on a "c'lection tour," as old Nate Burnham would have called it. She had met Janie Clifton at the Pour Corners, and had stopped for a chat with her, had waylaid Molly Wilson in the middle of the road, in order to inquire for her mother and baby sister, had stopped for a moment at Mrs. Jenks' door just to ask if she had heard the wonderful news about Dot Marvin's old uncle Jehiel, had paused to look over the wall at the new Jersey cow which old Mr. Simpkins had recently purchased, and to casually inquire if Timotheus was intending to again be a pupil at the deestrict school, bein's he'd growed so durin' the summer'n seemed more like a man than a boy, and had asked little Johnny Buffum what on airth his sister Hitty had her head tied up in hot weather for, when beet juice dropped in her ear would cure her earache in two minutes, and had been informed that, "Hitty hadn't got no earache, 'twas a bee sting on her cheek;" all this and much more had filled Mrs. Hodgkins' mind so completely that she was amazed to find that eleven o'clock had arrived, and that she must turn about and hasten home if she wished to have dinner ready when the kitchen clock struck twelve. "I'll git something on the table when Joel gits in from the field, though land knows what it'll be with only an hour ter git it in," she muttered between short, puffing breaths, for Mrs. Hodgkins was stout, and she had already taken a long walk. The dinner was indeed an odd one, made up from what were termed by Mrs. Hodgkins "odds and ends," but Joel Hodgkins was a patient man, and his appetite was one which never needed tempting, so he partook of the viands which his wife offered him with an apparent relish, and was soon at work again in the field. Then Mrs. Hodgkins donned a fresh apron preparatory to going out, remarking as she tied her sunbonnet strings with a twitch, "I reely must go over to Almiry's, it's only a step er two, and what's the use of havin' a niece in the neighborhood ef not ter tell news ter, an' what's the use er hearin' news an' keepin' it ter yourself?