"I'll say one thing 'bout her, though," remarked Silas Barnes, "with all
her talkin' an' tellin' she never tells anything that's detrimental to
somebody's character. She's full er tellin' ordinary news, but when it
comes ter news that would stir up strife, Sophrony's got nothin' ter say;
so let her talk, I say, ef she enjoys it; she 'muses herself an' don't
hurt no one else."

On the sunny morning when Barnes' store had been the scene of the gossip
and discussion in regard to the new quarters for the school, Sophrony
Hodgkins had made an early start on a "c'lection tour," as old Nate
Burnham would have called it. She had met Janie Clifton at the Pour
Corners, and had stopped for a chat with her, had waylaid Molly Wilson in
the middle of the road, in order to inquire for her mother and baby
sister, had stopped for a moment at Mrs. Jenks' door just to ask if she
had heard the wonderful news about Dot Marvin's old uncle Jehiel, had
paused to look over the wall at the new Jersey cow which old Mr. Simpkins
had recently purchased, and to casually inquire if Timotheus was intending
to again be a pupil at the deestrict school, bein's he'd growed so durin'
the summer'n seemed more like a man than a boy, and had asked little
Johnny Buffum what on airth his sister Hitty had her head tied up in hot
weather for, when beet juice dropped in her ear would cure her earache in
two minutes, and had been informed that,

"Hitty hadn't got no earache, 'twas a bee sting on her cheek;" all this
and much more had filled Mrs. Hodgkins' mind so completely that she was
amazed to find that eleven o'clock had arrived, and that she must turn
about and hasten home if she wished to have dinner ready when the kitchen
clock struck twelve.

"I'll git something on the table when Joel gits in from the field, though