“How are you a-goin’ to stand it through the winter?”
My soul wuz racked with the same agonizin’ apprehensions. But I tried to
be calm; I wuz cool, I know,—freezin’ cool.
Wall, that afternoon I made a voyalent effort to have that furnace took
out, and a bigger one put in, and one that had a warmer circulation and
a more healthy constitution inside of it.
“For,” sez I, “if we enter this house with that furnace in it, we shall
all likewise perish.”
I thought mebby if I used a skriptural term the man would hear to me,
seein’ he wuz a perfesser.
But no, he stood firm. He said “we hadn’t tested it sufficient.” And the
rest of the men a-standin’ round with blue noses, all jined in with him:
“No, we hadn’t tested it.”
Wall, I gin my shawl a closter wrop round my chilly frame, and pinted my
frigid forefinger towards the empty coal-ben, and sez,—
“If four tons of coal hain’t a test, what do you call one?”
And sez I, “If that hain’t a test, there is a woman a-perishin’ out
there now, a-settin’ on the regester: bring her in for a test if you
want another.”
But no; one of ’em recommended givin’ her whiskey to keep her
temperature up till she got the carpet down.
But Josiah rousted up at that, and said “he wuzn’t goin’ to stand the
expense of keepin’ folkses heat up with brandy.” (That man is close.)
And I repudiated the idee, and said, “I put more faith in soapstuns and
woollen shawls.”
And I sez ag’in, in eloquent axents, “Take out that furnace, and put in
a bigger one, and I will move in and test it.”
And then they said “they wouldn’t.”
And we said “we wouldn’t.”
And then the man threw some hints at us about the law.
And then Tirzah Ann throwed some back at him, about its not bein’ a new
furnace.
Such news had come to us, and come very straight and direct. Miss Deacon
Elikum Peck told she that wuz Hetty Avery, and she that wuz Hetty told
old Miss Blodgett, and she told the editor of the Augurses wife, and she
told Miss Preserved Green, and she told Tirzah Ann. It come straight.
And then the man said that it hadn’t never been sot up before, and also
that it had all been fixed over sense it wuz sot up.
This wuz very satisfactory to Josiah, but not to me, and I told him
ag’in, impressively,—
“Take out that furnace. My life I feel is at the stake.”
But they stood firm. And when one party stands firm and won’t move, the
other party has got to; that is, if there is any movement.
So finally, with a forebodin’ mind and a frosty frame, I took the
venter.
I had a large coal stove in the kitchen, so I knew that part of the
house wuz habitable. So I moved in, accompanied by a good wood stove,
which wuz sot up in my room.
Wall, the first thing that happened to me wuz a cold that set my teeth
to achin’ so hard it seemed as if they must shatter the gooms, and my
face swelled up almost enormous. I lay in the most excrutiating agony
for a week. The pain I suffered every hour wuz costly enough to me to
buy the furnace, pipe and all, if pain could profit a man or woman.
At last I got easier through the constant application of hot poultices,
mustard, catnip, etcetery. And a hot fire in my wood stove made me
comfortable in frame. I couldn’t sleep, so I could ’tend to havin’ the
wood put in.
One night, the coldest of the season, worn out with long watchin’ and
pain, I slept sound. So did the one who took care on me: we slept so
sound that my wood fire languished and went out, and we wuz left in our
weakness, in the silence and darkness, to the mercy of that poor little
furnace.
Curious little thing, it wuzn’t to blame: it did the best it could with
its circulation and size.
But in the mornin’ I waked up so cold that it seemed as if I would have
loved to go to Greenland to have warmed up some, or Iceland would have
been a grateful change.
Waked up with a cold ketched there in my peaceful bed, that brung me
down to the very verge of the grave. Yes, I went down so close to the
dark river that I could almost hear the mysterious swashin’ of its waves
against the shores of the Present.
For eight long weeks did I lay there and suffer, and doctors and nurses
a-sufferin’ too; for it wuzn’t only me they had to take care on, they
had to take constant and broodin’ care of that poor feeble little
furnace: that had to be sot up with jest as regular as I did. Sometimes
they hired a man to set up with it regular till two in the mornin’,
thinkin’ then it would survive till mornin’. Sometimes they tried
waitin’ on it three or four times a night, and keepin’ it alive that
way.
Wall, after eight or nine weeks of sufferin’ almost onexampled, I got
better; but the poor little furnace kep’ on a-growin’ weaker and more
weak, its circulation more and more clogged up, and its inward fires
a-expirin’ gradual.
And finally consent wuz giv that we should put in a new furnace. And we
imegiatly and to once bought a big noble-sized one, with a good healthy
circulation, that makes our house like summer all the time, day and
night.
Why, it fairly fools the house-plants, makes the silly things think it
_is_ summer. And up stairs and down, in almost every livin’-room their
big green leaves and dewy blossoms shine out, not mistrustin’ that it
hain’t June.
And the red and green parrot sets and talks and looks wise, and is
a-s’pozin’ all the time that he is in New Mexico.
Wall, the day that the little furnace wuz took out of the suller (poor
little weak broken-down creeter, I can’t help bein’ sorry for it), that
very day I paid my doctor’s bill,—a good hefty one. The nurse’s bill,
and the bills of them that had sot up with me, and sot up with the
furnace, hadn’t come in yet; but I knew they would be big, and ort to
be, a-takin’ care on us both.
The doctor had just gone, and I wuz a-settin’ in my room relapsted into
meditation and a big rockin’-chair,—for I wuz far from bein’ strong
yet,—when all of a sudden my pardner burst into the room, all rousted up
and agitated to a extreme degree, and sez he,—
“What do you s’poze we have discovered now, Samantha? How old do you
think that furnace is, Samantha Allen?”
And I sez, “I don’t feel like guessin’ on deep subjects, feelin’ as I
do, weak as a cat.”
“Wall,” sez he, “the body part of it is the very same old potash-kettle
that George Washington made potash in before the war of 1812.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe any such thing,” and sez I, a-leanin’ back in my
copperplate chair,—
“You tire me, Josiah, with your wild and impassioned skemes and idees.
Only a little while ago you wuz a-tryin’ to sell your clothes to escape
the burnin’ qualities of that furnace, and now you are a-tryin’ to make
it out older’n the hills.”
“But this is a fact,” sez he. “I re_cog_nized it the minute it wuz
oncovered. I see a picture of it once in a Life of Washington. It is a
peculiar shape, and I can’t be mistook.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Wall,” sez he, firmly, “I can prove it.”
“How?” sez I.
“Wall, there is a big hole in the side of it where his hired man got mad
and kicked at it. It has been all cemented up and mended, but you can
see the marks plain.”
“How did you get holt of that idee?” sez I, sternly.
“History,” sez he. “I read a good deal that I never told you about.”
“I should think as much,” sez I. And I sez further,—
“Get that idee out of your head to once, Josiah Allen. George Washington
never see this furnace: it wuz made sense his time.”
[Illustration: “George Washington’s hired man kicked at it.”]
But Josiah contended it wuz so, and left the room mad as a hen to think
I wouldn’t give in with him.
And in less than ten minutes up he hurried with another idee in his
head. And sez he the first thing,—
“More proof, Samantha! in takin’ the furnace apart we have found the old
rim that Washington’s folks used with his potash-kettle, all broke to
pieces and wired together.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Wall,” sez he, triumphantly, “come down suller, and I will prove it.”
So I tottered down suller (for what will not a wife do to please her
pardner?), and there, sure enough, wuz a iron rim which had been broke
long ago to all appearance, and mended with old wire. And the big part
did indeed look in shape like a old potash-kettle with some places in
the side that had been patched up with cement.