Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition, Marietta Holley [classic english novels txt] 📗

stoppin' till they got to the barn, then he leggo of her and stood in the barn door to reconnoiter. It wuz a awful and skairful seen. I couldn't blame Ury, but like Sara of old, I felt that I must stay by my stuff, and Rosy and Karen hung to each other, and both hung onto me, all on us tremblin' like three popple leaves.

Finally, jest as the three men come hurryin' back into the room to rescue or die with us I spoze, the boilin' water gin a louder, angrier roar, and riz up out of the tank three feet into the air and poured and steamed and deluged all over the floor. Well wuz it I took up the carpet. But Josiah Allen, to prove he feared no danger, had insisted on leavin' the dressin' gown he worshipped hangin' up in the clothes press where the tank wuz. Alas! alas! as he brung it out drippin' and steamin' from the fiery bath, where wuz the once gay colors? Them tossels and red palm leaves on yeller ground that had so lately been the light of his eyes and desire of his heart? Who could tell which wuz palm leaves and which wuz yeller ground? And as for the red tossels, their glory had departed forever. Josiah groaned aloud as he bore it out leavin' a watery wake of red and yeller all the way to the kitchen, where I follered him and told him, so strong is woman's love in the hour of trouble, "Dear Josiah, I am sorry for you, but I told you jest how it would be."

He dashed it onto the floor and hollered out, "You didn't tell me nothin' about it! you never said the word dressin' gown! and I'd like to know what you're sorry about, it is nothin', only a valve has bust or sunthin'."

"Yes," sez I sadly, "I guess it is a sunthin'." Here he kicked aginst the suller door so hard one of the panels has been shaky to this day, and run down there, Jabez follerin' him, while I seized a dipper and a twelve quart pail and hurried up to the flooded deestrick, which we commenced to bail out like a sinkin' boat, Royal, Karen and Rosy helpin' me, and Ury havin' his first fears squenched by the overflow of water (which he expected he said would blow off the hull ruff and top story of the house), he and Philury laid to and helped.

CHAPTER III.

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