Take that slop out o' the house this minute! Take it right down to the sink-hole an' smash every bottle on the stones." Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old woman addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her grandson, who stood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet.
"Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't keep a watch on that soft-pated old dummy.

I thought that lightenin'-rod man had give him a lesson he'd remember, but no, he must go an' make a reg'lar"---- She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in the matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet.

Uncle Ethan went about the house like a convict on shipboard.

Once she caught him looking out of the window.
"I should _think_ you'd feel proud o' that." Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life.

He was bent and bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the matter with him.
He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs.Ripley commanded, because he had determined to sell it.