"Joel Whitten's widder's just drawed his pension along o' his bein' in the war o' 1812. ... It's took 'em all these years to fix it. ... Massy sakes! don't some folks have their luck buttered in this world?... She was his fourth wife, 'n' she never lived with him but thirteen days 'fore he up 'n' died. ... It doos seem's if the guv'ment might look after things a little mite closer.... Talk about Joel Whitten's bein' in the war o' 1812! Everybody knows Joel Whitten wouldn't have fit a 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 four or five times before he got roun', for one patch o' shingles used to wear out 'fore he got the next patch on. He 'n' Mis' Doolittle lived in two rooms in the L. There was elegant banisters, but no stairs to 'em, 'n' no entry floors. There was a tip-top cellar, but there wa'n't no way o' gittin' down to it, 'n' there wa'n't no conductors to the cisterns.