nfounded thing.

We forgot what Jones told us about the dampers, and she kept a biling.
The only thing we could do was to go to bed, and leave the thing to burn
the house up if it wanted to. We stood off with a pole and turned the
damper every way, and at every turn she just sent out heat enough to
roast an ox. We went to bed, supposing that the coal would eventually
burn out, but about 12 o'clock the whole family had to get up and sit on
the fence.

Finally a man came along who had been brought up among coal stoves, and
he put a wet blanket over him and crept up to the stove and turned the
proper dingus, and she cooled off, and since that time has been just as
comfortable as possible. If you buy a coal stove you want to learn how
to engineer it, or you may get roasted.

A COLD, CHEERLESS RIDE.

Probably the most cold-blooded affair that ever occurred took place at
a certain summer resort a couple of weeks ago. There was going to be
a picnic, and a young man and the girl he was engaged to be married to
started in a row-boat to cross the lake, taking an ice cream freezer
full of frozen ice cream for the picnic. Just before arriving at the
picnic the boat capsized. The boat was bottom side up, and the young man
helped the girl on to the ice cream freezer, and he got on the boat, and
after floating for half an hour they were rescued.

The girl did not complain at the time she was put on the freezer, as she
was glad enough to get on anything that would float, but after they got
ashore, and she had a chance to reflect on the matter, and talk with the
other girls, she concluded that his getting on the boat, which was nice
and warm, and putting her aboard the ice cream freezer, which was so
cold and cheerless, was a breach of etiquette that would stamp any man
as being a selfish, heartless villain, and she refuses to speak to him,
and has declared the engagement off.

He is very much mortified over the affair, and tries to explain that he
was more accustomed to a boat than she was, while he reasoned that she
would naturally be more familiar with an ice cream freezer. It certainly
looks to us to have been a cold-blooded transaction, and while the young
man might have been rattled, and powerless to grasp the situation as he
would if he had it to do over again, the girl is certainly justified in
being indignant.

An ice cream freezer is a cold and cheerless companion even when empty,
but filled with congealed cream