hen it wuz too late.

He had got it fixed in such a way that he couldn't get into the kitchen
himself without gettin' over the stove, and I, in the course of duty,
thought it wuz right to tell him that if he had heerd to me he wouldn't
have been in such a fix. Oh! the voyalence and frenzy of his demeanor as
he stood there a-hollerin'. I wuz out in the wood-house shed a-bilin' my
cider apple sass in the big cauldron kettle, but I heard the racket,
and as I come a-runnin' in I thought I heard a little rappin' at the
settin'-room door, but I didn't notice it much, I wuz that agitated to
see the way the stove and Josiah wuz set and wedged in.

There the stove wuz, wedged firm into the doorway, perfectly sot there.
There wuz sut all over the floor, and there stood Josiah Allen, on the
wood-house side, with his coat off, his shirt all covered with black,
and streaks of black all over his face. And oh! how wild and almost
frenzied his attitude wuz as he stood there as if he couldn't move nor
be moved no more than the stove could. And oh! the voyalence of the
language he hurled at me acrost that stove.

"Why," sez I, "you must come in here, Josiah Allen, and pull it from
this side."

And then he hollered at me, and asked me:

"How in thunder he was a goin' to _get_ in." And then he wanted to know
"if I wanted him squshed into jelly by comin' in by the side of it--or
if I thought he wuz a crane, that he could step over it or a stream
of water that he could run under it, or what else do you think?" He
hollered wildly.

"Wall," sez I, "you hadn't ort to got it fixed in that shape. I told
you what end to move first," sez I. "You have moved it in side-ways. It
would go in all right if you had started it the other way."

"Oh, yes! It would have been all right. You love to see me, Samantha,
with a stove in my arms. You love it dearly. I believe you would be
perfectly happy if you could see me a luggin' round stoves every day.
But I'll tell you one thing, if this dumb stove is ever moved either way
out of this door--if I ever get it into a room agin, it never shall
be stirred agin so much as a hair's breadth--not while I have got the
breath of life in me."

Sez I, "Hush! I hear somebody a-knockin' at the door."

"I won't hush. It is nothin' but dumb foolishness a movin' round stoves,
and if anybody don't believe it let 'em look at me--and let 'em look at
that stove set right here in the door as firm as a rock."

[Illustrati