Well, Jabez said it wuz the sudden change from cold to hot water that
had caused the overflow, so we put the biler on the kitchen stove and
the caldron kettle in the woodhouse, and het water bilin' hot and filled
the empty tank, Josiah groanin' loud as he lugged it up and sayin' when
he thought I didn't hear him, "Oh, gracious Heavens! is this two pails a
year?"
Then we all gathered in the front chamber agin watchin' events to come,
Jabez boastin' louder than ever how like a charm it would work, and
Karen opholdin' him. But Josiah looked anxious as I could see. When agin
that loud angry roar begun in the suller, and agin Ury ketched Philury
round the waist, for she wanted to stand her ground, but he yanked her
down stairs and half way acrost the back yard. He loves her dearly and
thinks it a man's place to protect his pardner. He didn't go so fur this
time, but had almost onbeknown to himself sought safety for his dear
Philury in flight.
Agin Jabez and Josiah and Royal rushed down suller. The dretful roar
ended in a higher more steaminer volume of water than before, agin we
laid to and bailed it out, our ranks bein' reinforced anon by the
returnin' Ury and Philury, and anon furder by Josiah, Royal, and Jabez.
Jabez didn't boast quite so loud now, and I wuz glad to see that Rosy
kinder cuddled up closter to Royal as she wielded the dipper, as if she
thought him a refuge in time of storm.
Well, from that time, about three in the afternoon, till ten P.M. the
programmy wuz stidy over and over. Fillin' the tank, low snortin' and
rushin' of the waters up and down, chasin' along the pipes in every
room, hammerin', kickin', shootin', like enraged artillery, at last
thundering like the most skairful clap of thunder and then with a
fearful roar the volume of water would mount up and pour into the spare
room and drizzle down into the settin' room below, takin' off the
plasterin' in spite of our very best efforts to bail it out. Over and
over agin wuz the wearisome and soul tuckerin' job carried out, varied
every time by Ury ketchin' Philury and fleein' with her, but the
distance shortened every time, till at last he fled with her no furder
than the top of the kitchen stairs. Karen's horrow struck, mortified
looks, Jabez'es entire absence of boastin', which in itself wuz dog
queer, and Rosy's instinctive turning to Royal for protection, which wuz
gladly granted.
Over and over the seen wuz enacted, Jabez every time turnin' some screw
or valve or sunthin' and prophesyin' every time it would go right the
next time, but said it with feathers droopin', so to speak, more humble
like and doubtful. My poor pardner as he lugged up two heavy pails of
water at half-past nine P.M., I hearn him say:
"Oh, gracious, Peter! is this two pails a year? This makes more'n a
hundred pails I've carried up to-night myself besides Ury's and
Jabezs'es." It wuzn't so, he hadn't carried up more'n thirty or forty
twelve quart pails. But yet I pitied him. Well, that also thundered and
deluged and guyzered out onto the floor accompanied by the drips and
drizzles into the settin' room, Ury's flight with Philury, Karen's
mourns, and Josiah's groans, for he had lost his pride and openly
groaned and jawed at Jabez and sez to him:
"You dum fool you! you don't know beans from a broom stick! I wouldn't
trust you to make splinters to do up a dog's leg!" And Jabez jawed back
again, and Josiah sez, "I'll make you pay heavy damages for this job,
and I've as good a mind as I ever had to eat, to give you a good
floggin' with a rawhide." And as he grew madder and madder he went on:
"This is your perfectly noiseless apparatus is it?" sez he pintin' down
towards the thunderin' roar, "this is your summer heat, hain't it?"
pintin' to the shiverin' crowd. "This is your freedom from
labor-two-pails-a-year job! one hundred pails of water have I lugged
upstairs to-night if I have a pint! Now," sez he, makin' towards him,
"do you start out of this house before I fall on you and rend you."
Karen screamed and rushed between 'em and fell onto Jabez and dragged
him off with her, he seemin' glad to go.
Well, we let the fire go down as low as we could without goin' out, and
went to bed shiverin' and half froze, but with soap stuns and hot-water
bags we made out to git through the night. In the mornin' a sorry seen
greeted us, coldness, discomfort, broken plasterin' and dirt, and no
prospect to all appearance of havin' any better times. The only gleam of
light I could see in the hull prospect wuz that Josiah in his excitement
and wretchedness had seemin'ly forgot that he'd ever mentioned the
Exposition of St. Josiah.
Well, right after breakfast Karen come over lookin' as if she hadn't
slep' a wink and sez she, "Jabez lay awake all night studyin' on it and
he knows now where he made the mistake, he pinted one small lead pipe up
where it ort to been pinted down, he can make it all right in an hour."
Well, Josiah, so sure it is that the hottest love soonest cools, vowed
that Jabez should never step his foot into the house agin. And I wuz
glad enough to see that Rosy agreed with him.
But I wuz naterally made more megum, and thought, any port in a storm,
and a hour won't be much anyway. If we've stood all this dirt and
confusion for five weeks we could stand it a hour longer.
"Well," sez Josiah, "I shall go into the woods for a jag of maple, I
won't see him, I dassent, for I should fall on him and destroy him if I
did."
So he went after a load of maple wood and Jabez come and tinkered and
hammered and pounded and then sayin' with some of his pride returned
into his port:
"It will go now like clock work."
He filled the tank and lit the fire agin with Ury's help. But I wuz glad
enough that Josiah wuz absent, for this time the noise wuz so skairful
that when Ury ketched Philury round the waist and absconded with her, he
didn't stop till they had ploughed through the snow clear past the old
hen house.
I, too, ketched Rosy by the arm and run and stumbled along most to the
barn before I remembered myself and regained my faculties, so to speak,
it wuz so turrible this time the loud, angry, roarin', hissin' noise.
Karen nobly stood by Jabez, who I must say stood by his job in that
respect, but I guess they went out into the hall, I thought I ketched a
glimpse of 'em, as I havin' regained my faculty, run in. We got in jest
after the deluge poured out agin, higher, louder and more steaminer than
ever, and when what few scraps of plaster remained on the settin' room
had fell victims to the bilin' flood. Well, we let the fire go down agin
and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to
bed. That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the
furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm. We
cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively
comfortable for three days. The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz
up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up
by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a
loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and
sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha? Who ever heard of thunder at this
time of year? Or is it a earthquake?"
But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez,
"Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we
hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and
drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room. Even as I spoke Rosy
come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep,
but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a
fearful time!" sez she.
And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the
midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words
sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a
star shinin' out over a wild western tornado. But before I could reply
Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he
wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and
bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that
invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip
him within an inch of his life!"
It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp
light. Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of
the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what
ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz
set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so
it would be entirely right. Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used
by that dum fool to try his experiments on? Let him take it out or I
will take it out and throw it at him!"
But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the
meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this
note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try
it."
"For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her? It is all
_her_ fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to
the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we
shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as
frogs, and our house a wreck!"
But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he
gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all
day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall
on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work
made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more
tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by
my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home
cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his
righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.
Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window
and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive
into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet
face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the
horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable
brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet
smiles and cordial words.
She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love
and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for
Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their
happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us
wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The
first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the
furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to
Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to
put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to
come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled
with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a
coldness between 'em and they don't speak.
Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good
workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull
job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost
like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and
plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down
the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and
quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too
voylent wrath upon his nerve.
Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy
with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home,
Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome
gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be
married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their
weddin' tower.
And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the
bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through
darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself
to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new
plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz
lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth
as glass.
Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the
troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.
And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the
Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the
children and I wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up. But, alas! in this
world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain't.
And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought--I
like Karen and felt to rejoice with her. It seemed that Luman Heath, not
havin' heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the
very next day after he finished here. And the Perpetually Gushing Hot
Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind's inventive ambition, and
alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath's beloved ones, the
hull family circle on 'em.
He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn
and heat up. And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin' acrost
the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted
right up into the air bilin' hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser
there in their kitchen. Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the
face.
They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they
never thought of havin' such doin's in their house, but the bilin'
crater pourin' down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto 'em
that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot
on the floor readin' Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Luman,
bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin'
to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin' room, he
wuz hit on top by the bilin' torrent and blistered right on his bare
head as big as your hand.
He laid his wife down half faintin', told the screamin' children to look
out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to
go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum. He bein' a good
man who wouldn't swear, or rare round kep in his feelin's more. The
children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they
screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way. But he wuz
bed sick for weeks holdin' onto his wrath and bein' too good to jaw and
kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.
But to resoom backwards. The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of 'em,
she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to
turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and
havin' to use both hands, and bein' smart and quick witted, she put the
coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some
scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen
winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin' water onto
the flower beds and acrost 'em into the road, scaldin' passers by, and
bein' a perfect horrow and mystery to 'em. It wuz big and powerful,
there hain't no doubt of that.
Well, owin' to the hired girl's courage, by the time the doctor got
there the tank wuz emptied, and the torrent had subsided into a drizzle.
Luman Heath didn't prosecute Jabez, bein' such a good man, and how I
honor him for it, how I honor him for not actin' and swearin'. The
doctor may say what he wants to, he wuz noble to bear it as he did. I
have seen kickin' and actin' in times of trial, and how I honor a man
who can refrain, and he got well as quick, I believe, as though he had
acted.
But as I wuz sayin' the greatest relief that come to the community from
our trials wuz as follers. Take it with his doin's at our house and
Luman Heath's, Jabez Wind had evidently had enough of inventions. He
hired out for a year the very next day after the eppisode, to work for
twenty dollars a month on a farm, house rent, wood, and cow furnished.
Kellup Wind is goin' to live with a daughter, and Karen is blissful at
thought of keepin' house for Jabez. Good creeter! I hope she will have a
little rest now. I said I meant to go and see her jest as soon as she
wuz settled.
Well, for two days my feelin's of joy and thankfulness wuz onclouded.
But alas, poor mortals! that plant the flowers of their happiness on
earthly sile, they must see 'em wither before their face and eyes anon
or oftener like Jonah's gourd.
The third day, whilst I wuz settin' happy and calm in my frame in my
warm peaceful settin' room often liftin' my eyes contentedly to the
satin smooth ceilin'.
What wuz my emotions of grief and horrow to see Josiah rise up, haul out
his tin trunk where he'd carefuly stored away the plans of the St.
Josiah Exposition, and go to studyin' 'em agin with renewed vigor,
sayin':
"I hope to gracious I can have my mind clear now to go on and plan my
Exposition; this dum work has set me back turribly."
I let my work fall into my lap and gin vent to some sithes, so deep they
wuz almost groans, whilst the bitter waters of disappintment trickled
over my hopes and drownded 'em out. Had I got to go through another
siege of argument and persuasion and extra vittles? Could my too hard
worked oratory hold out, and also my provisions?
I see the children next day and told 'em how it wuz, that their Pa
seemed more sot on his plan than ever, and talked more excited and
earnest about it than I had ever seen him. For it did seem as if his
deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke
loose into a wider, deeper current than ever. He talked incessantly
about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new
ones.
The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all
hazards!"
And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped?"
Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly
ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder
thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his
mind soothed by one."
"Accordeon!" sez I. "You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you
gin him one of the golden harps we read about."
Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and
it would probable kill her with mortification."
Thomas J. sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will
try one thing more."
I never knew exactly how Thomas J. worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I
know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked
Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so
with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors. He never could stood it with
his closeness.
Thomas J. didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones,
so I spoze. When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ
it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall. And of course I
stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and
the very best of vittles. Neither on 'em could carried the day alone,
but all together conquered. He gin in. The plan tottered over and fell
onto him, and my pardner, to continue the metafor, lay under the ruins
as squshed and mute as if he wuz never goin' to git up agin.
But when his wild emotions of ambition and vanity and display wuz all
broke up a settled melancholy hovered down onto him and draped him like
a black mantilly. He seemed all onstrung, and all my efforts to string
him up agin seemed vain.
I strove to hide my apprehensions under a holler veil of calmness and
even hilarity; I give him catnip with a smile on my lip but deep
forebodin' in my mind, and the same with thoroughwert. But catnip didn't
nip his ambition and thoroughwort wuzn't thorough enough to restore his
cheerfulness.
I encouraged him to go to the lake fishin' with Deacon Henzy, though I'd
suffered more than I had ever told from similar occasions. Deacon Henzy
loves hard cider and keeps a kag on tap durin' the summer, he sez it is
for his liver, but liver or no liver it hain't right.
I hain't goin' to make no insinuations about their doin's though sister
Henzy has approached me on the subject time and agin, she hain't so
clost mouthed as I am. But I will merely say that when they got back
their two breaths didn't smell as two deacon's breaths ort to smell. But
I didn't say nothin' about it outside and shan't, I use tack. I spoke
on't to Josiah at the time, yes indeed I hearn the call of Duty and
obeyed.
But as I wuz sayin', though it trompled on all my feelin's and
forebodin's I urged 'em to go agin and they went. And I shan't tell how
their breaths smelt when they got back--it hain't best, only simply
sayin' that Josiah took an empty pint fruit can with him that mornin'
when he went over to the Deacon's to start, and I never inquired what he
took it for, so fur will a female let even her principles be outraged
when the life of her beloved companion is at the stake--I tried to think
he wuz goin' to take milk in it.
But the small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep
waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me,
only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack
mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! the
very idee on't!
But I kep' mum and dressed the fish myself and fried 'em in butter, only
hopin' I wouldn't lose 'em in the fryin' pan, but Josiah didn't seem to
relish 'em no better than he would side pork, and agin I felt baffled,
and rememberin' the fruit can, a element of guilt also mingled with the
baffle. Biled vittles with a bag puddin' which he loved almost to
idolatry I put before him in vain; I petted him; I called him "dear
Josiah" repeatedly; I fairly pompeyed him, but no change could I see, I
felt turrible.
He still kep' a runnin' down and I didn't know when he would stop
runnin' and I shuddered to think where he might run to. At last in spite
of Josiah's onwillingness I sent for Doctor Bombus. He come and took his
wrist in hisen and Josiah sez kinder mad actin': "What do you want to
feel of my polt for? My polt beats all right!"
He looked at his tongue, Josiah stickin' it out as if he wuz makin' a
face at him. He inquired about symptoms, all of which Josiah answered
snappishly, the examination over, the doctor walked the floor back and
forth with one hand under his coat tail and the other in his breast in
deep thought and then said:
[Illustration]
"My diagnosis denotes no diametrical and insurmountable difficulties but
I would recommend a temporary transition or in other words a change of
climate."
"Change of climate!" muttered Josiah, "I guess anybody that lives in
this state gits changes enough, from torrid to zero in twenty-four hours
lots of times--I'd like to know where you wintered!"
"Nevertheless and notwithstanding," sez Doctor Bombus, blandly ignoring
Josiah's muttering impatience, "I can but recapitulate my former
prescription, a temporary translation from surrounding environment."
And he gathered up his saddle bags and went out, bagoning me out into
the hall as he did so. And then he advised me to take him to the St.
Louis Exposition.
But I sez, "I dassent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he
knowed all the circumstances that had caused his sickness." But he wuz a
Homeopath and believed in takin' the same kind of medicine backward and
forward as it were, sunthin' as the poem runs:
Tobacco hic when you're well will make you sick,
Tobacco hic will make you well when you're sick.
I told him I thought it wuz a hazardous undertakin', and I hardly dast,
but he informed me in words more'n two inches long that he could do
nothing more for him, and if I didn't foller his advice it would be at
my own peril.