I’m reading Hamlin Garland’s “Mrs. Ripley’s Trip” in his “Main-Travelled Roads” collection. 

There’s a woman in the story (the neighborhood gossip) who repeatedly says, “Says I.”

There’s a Twain book with a similar lady - I think she appears toward the end of “Huck Finn,” at the Phelps farm.

Does anybody know if Twain and Garland were aware of each using a similar character?

I think Twain’s predated Garland’s. Shades of plagiarism?

-- B. Clay Shannon