“Don’t you go to breakin’ up ground and puttin’ in garden-seeds in
November on the strength of that furnace.”
But sez he, “The heat of it ort to be utilized. It is not only resky to
have so much heat a-layin’ loose round, but it seems wicked to waste
it.”
And I ketched Josiah Allen that day a-figgerin’ on a blank page in Fox’s
Book of Martyrs how he could carry the waste heat to the barn and heat
up the cattle.
But I kep’ calm through it all. Of course I knew from the agent’s talk
that we wuz takin’ a great resk onto us, almost like goin’ to a torrid
zone in the fall of the year. And though I did in my secret thoughts
apprehend sunstrokes and prostrations, and perused the medical portion
of the Almanac in my hours of leisure, for directions to fetch folks to
when they wuz prostrated by heat, still I kep’ a calm demeanor on the
outside of me, and never let on to Josiah that I had a apprehension.
That is my way, to keep still, and calm, and do everything I can to
avert danger.
[Illustration: “I ketched Josiah a-figgerin’.”]
In the same quiet way, I got out three old palm-leaf fans, and put new
bindin’s round the edges, and hemmed over the bottom of my old lawn
dress, and I bought eleven yards of cheese bandage cloth at a outlay of
five cents a yard, and colored it a soft gray with plum boughs. If I
couldn’t wear calico in the winter, as I mistrusted I couldn’t from the
agent’s talk, why, I laid out to be prepared. And if my apprehensions
wuz futile, why, I laid out to make it into a comforter for my bed. Ten
yards would make the comforter, and the odd yard I needed for a
wipin’-cloth.
They wuz quite a long time a-settin’ up the furnace. It seemed to me to
take a good while, but I wuzn’t used to the common behavior of furnaces,
and didn’t know but it wuz one of their habits to be a good while
a-bein’ sot up.
Of course, Josiah bein’ a man, and bein’ round with the workmen more,
and hearin’ more of the skairful talk of that agent, about the heat that
wuz soon a-goin’ to pour onto us, it wuz nateral that he should get
skairter than I wuz, and it wuz on the very afternoon that they finished
settin’ it up, and I s’poze the agent had acted very skairful, and also
the men that wuz a-helpin’ set it up (for of course it wuz nateral that
they should all be linked together in their talk about it).
It wuz that very afternoon, along towards night, that I overheard
Josiah, out by the gate, a-tryin’ to sell his clothes, all his thick
ones. And I walked right out bareheaded, and interfered.
But Josiah sez, “What will I ever want of ’em ag’in?”
And I sez, “You act like a luny. Hain’t you got to go out any more to
mill or to meetin’?”
But sez he, “I am only sellin’ them that I wear round the house
winters.”
But I sez, “Do you desist imegiatly,” sez I. “If the clothes hain’t
wanted, I need ’em for carpet-rags.”
“Carpets!” sez he. “Do you s’poze we can stand carpets in such a heat? I
am goin’ to buy mattin’, mattin’ of the very coolest kind.”
Sez I, sternly, “Do you stop sellin’ or buyin’, and wait.”
“Yes,” sez he, bitterly, “wait! till we all have sunstrokes, and are
dead and buried.”
I see he wuz fearfully worked up, and all the rest of the afternoon I
made errents for him to keep him away from that agent and the workmen. I
see he wuz gettin’ completely onstrung. And I, with my own inward
apprehensions, wuz in no state to string him up ag’in.
So I kep’ him away from them by borrowin’ things I didn’t want of Mrs.
Gowdey, and sendin’ home tea I never had to Miss Bobbitses, and etc.
etc.
Yes, to such depths of deceit will a woman’s devoted love lead her.
Wall, about night they got it sot up, and Josiah and I proceeded
down-stairs to see it. They had all gone then, for Miss Bobbit had
detained Josiah with a long story. She mistrusted sunthin’.
Wall, when we went down to see it, it looked queer enough. The furnace
wuz so very small, and the big pipes a-leadin’ from it in every
direction looked so very big.
I don’t know as I can describe it any better than to say it looked like
a small teacup sot out in a door-yard, with very big eave-spouts
a-runnin’ from it all over the yard. Or as a very small infant of a few
weeks of age would look, a-settin’ up with a man’s high hat on, and a
pair of number eleven boots.
It looked curious, and strange, so strange that I sithed, as I looked at
it, and Josiah looked stunted, and he took out his bandanna handkerchief
and wiped his forward, without words.