“I was a-sweepin’, as I say, and Jabez come by and put his head in at the winder. ‘That’s too hard for ye, Alviry,’ says he. ‘Let the dust be–it ain’t eatin’ nothin’.’ Jest like a man, ye know!
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘if I didn’t sweep onc’t in a while, Jabez, we’d be wadin’ to our boot-tops in dirt.’ Like that, ye know, Ruthie. And he says, ‘They hev things nowadays for suckin’ up the dirt, instead of kickin’ it up that-a-way,’ and with that a voice says right in the yard, ‘You’re right there, Mister. An’ I got one of ’em here to sell ye.’
“There was a young feller in the yard with a funny lookin’ rig-a-ma-jig in his hand, and his hat on the back of his head, and lookin’ jest as busy as a toad that’s swallered a hornet. My! you wouldn’t think that feller had a minnit ter stay, the way he acted. Scurcely had time to sell Jabez one of them ‘Vac-o-jacs,’ as he called ’em.”
“A vacuum cleaner!” exclaimed Ruth.
“That’s something like it. Only it was like a carpet-sweeper, too. I seen pitchers of ’em in the back of a magazine onc’t. I never b’lieved they was for more’n ornament; but that spry young feller come in and worked it for me, and he sucked up the dust out o’ that ingrain carpet till ye couldn’t beat a particle out o’ it with an ox-goad!
“But I didn’t seem ter favor that Vac-o-jac none,” continued Aunt Alvirah. “Ye know how close-grained yer Uncle is. I don’t expect him ter buy no fancy fixin’s for an ol’ creetur like me. But at noon time he come in and set one o’ the machines in the corner.”
“He bought it!” cried Ruth.
“That’s what he done. He says, ‘Alviry, ef it’s any good to ye, there it is! I calkerlate that’s a smart young man. He got five dollars out o’ me easier than I ever got five dollars out of a man in all my days.’
“I tell ye truthful, Ruthie! I can’t use it by myself. It works too hard for anybody that’s got my back and bones. But Ben, he comes in once in a while and works it for me. I reckon your uncle sends him.”
“But, Aunt Alviry!” cried Ruth. “What about the Tintacker Mine? You haven’t told me a thing about that.”