But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please him, so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly fagged out.
He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had hard times to git along. But what property they had wuzn’t taxed, so that helped some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways.
No, their property wuzn’t taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the supervisor taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it wuz said, so’s to be sure to git it onto the tax list, and comply with the law.
You see Eliphelet’s salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the law thought, seein’ she wuz havin’ trouble, she might jest as well have a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent for before.
But she had this to console her that the law didn’t forgit her in her widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez it protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep for wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin’ her now.
Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she did. But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin’ woman that it wuz spozed she wanted to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad luck she had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a perfect wanderer. He couldn’t keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark.
He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her into a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the western states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live in the wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control of her body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with him. And I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin’ and nourishin’ her when it wuz joltin’ her over them prairies and mountains and abysses. But it jest kep’ her shook up the hull of the time.
It wuz the regular Pester luck.
And then another of her aunts, Drusilly Pester, married a industrious, hard-workin’ man, one that never drinked, wuz sound on the doctrines, and give good measure to his customers, he wuz a groceryman. And a master hand for wantin’ to foller the laws of his country as tight as laws could be follered. And so knowin’ that the law approved of moderate correction for wimmen, and that “a man might whip his wife, but not enough to endanger her life”; he bein’ such a master hand for wantin’ to do everything faithful and do his very best for his customers, it wuz spozed he wanted to do the best for the law, and so when he got to whippin’ Drusilly, he would whip her too severe, he would be too faithful to it.
You see what made him whip her at all wuz she wuz cross to him. They had nine little children, she thought two or three children would be about all one woman could bring up well by hand, when that hand wuz so stiff and sore with hard work.