“What do you s’poze we have discovered now, Samantha? How old do you think that furnace is, Samantha Allen?”
And I sez, “I don’t feel like guessin’ on deep subjects, feelin’ as I do, weak as a cat.”
“Wall,” sez he, “the body part of it is the very same old potash-kettle that George Washington made potash in before the war of 1812.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe any such thing,” and sez I, a-leanin’ back in my copperplate chair,—
“You tire me, Josiah, with your wild and impassioned skemes and idees. Only a little while ago you wuz a-tryin’ to sell your clothes to escape the burnin’ qualities of that furnace, and now you are a-tryin’ to make it out older’n the hills.”
“But this is a fact,” sez he. “I recognized it the minute it wuz oncovered. I see a picture of it once in a Life of Washington. It is a peculiar shape, and I can’t be mistook.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Wall,” sez he, firmly, “I can prove it.”
“How?” sez I.
“Wall, there is a big hole in the side of it where his hired man got mad and kicked at it. It has been all cemented up and mended, but you can see the marks plain.”