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