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