So she was about ready to give up; somethin' that anybody but a stubborn critter like her would have done long afore.
"But one afternoon she was down to the sewin' circle, and the women folks there, havin' finished pickin' to pieces the characters of the members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'.

'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'.
Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about--everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still herded with the goats.
"They was all sorry for her, but the only one that had any advice to give was Abbie Larkin, she that was Abbie Dillin'ham 'fore she married old man Larkin.

Larkin had one foot in the grave when she married him, and she managed to crowd the other one in inside of a couple of years afterward.

Abbie is a widow, of course, and she is middlin' good-lookin' and dresses pretty gay.

Larkin left her a little money, but I guess she's run through most of it by this time.