And sure enough I couldn’t dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and sufferin’s seemed to be epidemic in the race of Pester wimmen. Why, one of her aunts on her father’s side, Huldah Pester, married for her first husband, Eliphelet Perkins. He wuz a minister, rode on a circuit, and he took Huldah on it too, and she rode round with him on it a good deal of the time. But she never loved to, she wuz a woman that loved to be still, and kinder settled down at home. But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please him, so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly fagged out. He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had hard times to git along. But what property they had wuzn’t taxed, so that helped some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways. No, their property wuzn’t taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the supervisor taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it wuz said, so’s to be sure to git it onto the tax list, and comply with the law. You see Eliphelet’s salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the law thought, seein’ she wuz havin’ trouble, she might jest as well have a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent for before. But she had this to console her that the law didn’t forgit her in her widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez it protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep for wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin’ her now. Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she did. But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin’ woman that it wuz spozed she wanted to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad luck she had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a perfect wanderer. He couldn’t keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark. He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her into a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the western states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live in the wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control of her body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with him. And I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin’ and nourishin’ her when it wuz joltin’ her over them prairies and mountains and abysses. But it jest kep’ her shook up the hull of the time. It wuz the regular Pester luck.