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' pa.s.sers 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 n.o.ble 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 s.h.a.grin 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 b.u.t.ter, 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:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 da.s.sent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he knowed all the circ.u.mstances 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.

CHAPTER IV.

I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that mind.

Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a a.s.sault of such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.

But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.

I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin, they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well off and a willin' creeter.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Josiah didn't seem to care either way, but languidly remarked that if he did go he wanted a sky blue neck-tie. That wuz the first sign of interest he had took in anything, and I hailed it as a good omen but got the tie as dark a blue as I dast.

Blandina Teeter, formerly Allen, is a widder with a tall spindlin' figger pale complected, with big light blue eyes that ruther stand out of her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and though folks don't philosophize on it you can be too good to be comfortable.

She is a natural lover of mankind, nothin' light in it, jest a deep meetin' house love. She wuz born that way onbeknown to her I spoze, and so I d'no as I ort to blame her for her soft ways. I hadn't seen her for some years and had kinder forgot how soft and squshy she wuz in her nater, and I declare for't when I got her and Josiah both together, had marshaled my forces, as you may say before my mind's review, I didn't know how I wuz goin' to git 'em to St. Louis and back agin hull. It did seem to me that if I got through all right with Josiah, she wuz that soft and meller she would spile on my hands anyway.

But she wuz the only one on his side available in the position of second chaperone to Josiah and so I took my chances.

She had been a widder some years; Teeter had used her shameful, spent her property and throwed her round considerable, but still she kep' up her perennial love and pa.s.sionate adoration of man. And thinkses I it will work well anyway with her Uncle Josiah, for lovin' all mankind as she did from infancy to age, I knowed that bein' the only male in the party she would keep her eye on him.