"Well, Ruth," he said, "I thought we'd have a tub for the boys, a tub for the girls, then tubs for you and me, mother, and one for our hired help."
"Sakes alive, Joe! All those tubs to keep clean!"
"But didn't you want a large bathroom?" the old Squire rejoined, with twinkling eyes.
"Yes, yes," cried grandmother, "but I had no idea you were going to make a regular Bethesda!"
Bethesda! Sure enough, like the pool in Jerusalem, it had five porches! And that name, born of grandmother Ruth's indignant surprise, stuck to it ever afterwards.
When the old Squire began work on that bathroom he expected to have it finished in a month. But one difficulty after another arose: the tank leaked; the sewer clogged; nothing would work. If the hardware dealer from the village came once to help, he came fifty times! His own experience in bathrooms was limited. Then, to have hot water in abundance, it was necessary to send to Portland for a seventy-five-gallon copper heater; and six weeks passed before that order was filled.
November, December and January passed before Bethesda was ready to turn on the water; and then we found that the kitchen stove would not heat so large a heater, or at least would not do it and serve as a cook-stove at the same time. Nor would it sufficiently warm the bathroom in very cold weather even with the kitchen door open. Then one night in February the pipes at the far end froze and burst, and the hardware man had to make us another hasty visit.
To ward off such accidents in the future the old Squire now had recourse to what is known as the Granger furnace—a convenience that was then just coming into general favor among farmers. They are cosy, heat-holding contrivances, made of brick and lined either with fire brick or iron; they have an iron top with pot holes in which you can set kettles. The old Squire connected ours with the heater, and he placed it so that half of it projected into the new bathroom, through the partition wall of the kitchen. It served its purpose effectively and on winter nights diffused a genial glow both in the kitchen and in the bathroom.
But it was the middle of April before the bathroom was completed; and the cost was actually between eight and nine hundred dollars!
"My sakes, Joseph!" grandmother exclaimed. "Another bathroom like that would put us in the poor-house. And the neighbors all think we're crazy!"