Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:--

"We was both, Ma'am, in the wash-house, Ma'am, a-standing at our tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
'Mary,' says she to me, 'I say'--and there she stops for coughin,
'That dratted copper flue has took to smokin very often,
But please the pigs,'--for that's her way of swearing in a passion,
'I'll blow it up, and not be set a coughin in this fashion!'
Well down she takes my master's horn--I mean his horn for loading.
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding.
'Lawk, Mrs. Round?' says I, and stares, 'that quantum is unproper,
I'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper;
You'll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff.'
Well, when the pinch is over--'Teach your Grandmother to suck
A powder horn,' says she--Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
'Come,' says she, quite in a huff, 'come keep your tongue inside your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these;
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.'
So in it goes, and Bounce--O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality.
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother,
Well, she'll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t'other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I