Walking down a shady lane one might espy her endeavoring to hold a
friendly confab with some busy farmer's wife who, while hanging out her
washing, endeavored to hold a clothespin in her mouth, and at the same
time answer Mrs. Hodgkins' frequent questions, such as,

"Naow did ye ever hear anything ter beat that?

"Ain't ye amazed at the idee?"

Mrs. Hodgkins would on such occasions, lean against the rail fence and
bombard the busy woman alternately with bits of news, and pointed
questions until, the last piece of linen in place upon the line, the empty
basket would be a signal for adieus.

Then Sophrony Hodgkins would meander down the lane, and if fortune favored
her, would find at the next farm-house its mistress possibly at the well
or sunning her milk pans in a corner of the door-yard.

Immediately she would hail her with joy and proceed to repeat her own
stock of news with the addition of a few particulars gleaned from the
first friend.

"Sophrony Hodgkins' stories," remarked old Nate Burnham, "remind me of the
snowballs we used ter roll and roll 'til from a leetle ball we finally by
rollin' an' trav'lin' got one bigger'n all creation.

"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."