on: "WON'T YOU BE STILL?"]

Sez I agin in a whisper, "Do be still, and I'll let 'em in, I don't want
them to ketch you a talkin' so and a-actin'." "Wall, I want 'em to
ketch me, that is jest what I want 'em to do. If it is a man he'll say
every word I say is Gospel truth, and if it is a woman it will make her
perfectly happy to see me a-swelterin' in the job--seven times a year do
I have to move this stove back and forth--and I say it is high time I
said a word. So you can let 'em in just as quick as you are a mind to."

Sez I, a whisperin' and puttin' my finger on my lip:

"Won't you be still?"

"No, I won't be still!" he yelled out louder than ever. "And you may go
through all the motions you want to and you can't stop me. All you have
got to do is to walk round and let folks in, happy as a king. Nothin'
under the heavens ever made a woman so happy as to have some man
a-breakin' his back a-luggin' round a stove."

I see he wouldn't stop, so I had to go and open the door, and there
stood Serena Fogg, there stood the author of "Wedlock's Peaceful
Repose." I felt like a fool. For I knew she had heard every word, I see
she had by her looks. She looked skairt, and as surprised and sort o'
awe-stricken as if she had seen a ghost. I took her into the parlor, and
took her things, and I excused myself by tellin' her that I should have
to be out in the kitchen a-tendin' to things for a spell, and went back
to Josiah.

And I whispered to him, sez I: "Miss Fogg has come, and she has heard
every word you have said, Josiah Allen. And what will she think now
about Wedlock's Peaceful Repose?"

But he had got that wild and reckless in his demeanor and acts, that
he went right on with his hollerin', and, sez he, "She won't find much
repose here to-day, and I'll tell her that. This house has got to be all
tore to pieces to get that stove started."

Sez I, "There won't be nothin' to do only to take off one side of the
door casin'. And I believe it can be done without that."

"Oh, you believe! you believe! You'd better take holt and lug and lift
for two hours as I have, and then see."

Sez I, "You hain't been here more'n ten minutes, if you have that. And
there," sez I, liftin' up one end a little, "see what anybody can do who
is calm. There I have stirred it, and now you can move it right along."
"Oh, _you_ did it! I moved it myself."

I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.

[Illustration: "AND H