born idiot for a boy to come all the way from India and tell him what
to do for his best friend.

"Agnes Tomlins says she's got a good mind to go and see the minister
about Hen. She says that if Hen don't quit abusing her and tormenting
her she's going to leave him; that her sister Mary over in Aberdeen has
a big up-stairs bedroom all aired and waiting for her. It seems that
Hen's more than contrarily stubborn lately. He's contradicted Agnes
publicly time and again and gone against her in private till Agnes says
there's no living with him.

"But she says she would overlook everything except Hen's keeping a
secret drawer in his chiffonier. It seems Hen has gone and locked that
bottom drawer and Agnes can't either buy or borry a key that will open
it. And she can't find where Hen has hid his, try as she may. And
when she mentions that drawer to Hen, saying she wants to red up, he
lets on like he don't know what she's talking about but he does,
because he told Doc Philipps, when he went to see about his liver, that
if he couldn't wear a soft collar or a soft hat like other men and keep
a dog and smoke in the house, and eat strawberries or whistle or go to
ball games on Sundays and prize fights on the sly, why, there was one
thing he could do and would have and that was a drawer, a whole
chiffonier drawer, all to himself. And that he bet there weren't many
men in Green Valley that could say as much. Hen just swore that he
intends to have something all his own and that nobody'll open that
drawer except over his dead body.

"Dolly Beatty was sitting in the waiting room and heard him. Of
course, she's a great friend of Bessie Williams and told her and Bessie
told Laura Enbry and of course it got to Agnes. So she's going to