elm by a
consider'ble sight. I told you there was quite a yarn hitched to that
smokin' business. So there is.

"Kenelm's an old bach, you know. One time he used to work, or pretend
to, because he needed the money; but his Aunt Phoebe up to Brockton died
and left him four or five thousand dollars and he ain't worked of any
account since. He's a gentleman now, livin' on his income--and his
sister.

"Hannah ain't got but precious little money of her own, but she knows
how to take care of it, which her brother don't. She was housekeepin'
for some folks at Wapatomac, but when the inheritances landed she headed
straight for East Wellmouth, rented that little house they're in now,
and took charge of Kenelm. He wa'n't overanxious to have her do it, but
that didn't make any difference. One of her pet bugaboos was that, now
her brother was well-off--'cordin' to her idea of well-offness--some
designin' woman or other would marry him for his money. Down she
come, first train, and she's been all hands and the cook, yes, and
paymaster--with Kenelm a sort of steerage passenger, ever since. She
keeps watch over him same as the sewin' circle does over the minister's
wife, and it's 'No Anchorage for Females' around that house, I can tell
you.

"Another of her special despisin's--next to old maids and young
widows--used to be tobacco smoke. We had a revival preacher in East
Wellmouth that first winter and he stirred up things like a stick in a
mudhole. He was young and kind of good-lookin', with a voice like the
Skakit foghorn, and he took the sins of the world in his mouth, one
after the other, as you might say, and shook 'em same's a pup would a
Sunday bunnit. He laid into rum and rum sellin', and folks fairly got in
line to sign the pledge. 'Twas 'Come early and avoid the rush.' Got so
that Chris Badger hardly dast to use alcohol in his cigar-lighter.

"Then, havin' dried us up, that revival feller begun to smoke us out. He
preached six sermons on the evils of tobacco, and every one was hotter'n
the last. Accordin' to him, if you smoked now you'd burn later on. Lots
of the men folks threw their pipes away, and took to chewin' slipp'ry
ellum.

"Now, Kenelm smoked like a peat fire. He lit up after breakfast and
puffed steadily until bedtime, only puttin' his pipe down to eat, or to
rummage in his pocket for more tobacco. Hannah got him to go to one of
the anti-tobacco meetin's. He set through the whole of it, interested as
could b