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. There was only one door panel painted in the parlor. Land
sakes! the neighbors used to happen in 'bout every week for years 'n'
years, hopin' he'd get another one finished up, but he never did,--not
to my knowledge.... Why, it's the gospel truth that when Mis' Doolittle
died he had to have her embalmed, so 't he could git the front door
hung for the fun'ral! (No more tea, I thank you; my cup ain't out.) ...
Speakin' o' slow folks, Elder Banks tells an awful good story 'bout Jabe
Slocum.... There's another man down to Edgewood, Aaron Peek by name,
that's 'bout as lazy as Jabe. An' one day, when the loafers roun' the
store was talkin' 'bout 'em, all of a suddent they see the two of 'em
startin' to come down Marm Berry's hill, right in plain sight of the
store.... Well, one o' the Edgewood boys bate one o' the Pleasant River
boys that they could tell which one of 'em was the laziest by the way
they come down that hill.... So they all watched, 'n' bime by, when Jabe
was most down to the bottom of the hill, they was struck all of a heap
to see him break into a kind of a jog trot 'n' run down the balance o'
the way. Well, then, they fell to quarrelin'; for o' course the Pleasant
River folks said Aaron Pe