“Before they got it sot up.”
“Yes,” sez Josiah. “But this is such a heater, Samantha, I s’poze there hain’t nothin’ like it in the country for pourin’ out the heat in torrents. And it takes next to nothin’ in coal to run it. I am sorry I got so much coal,” sez he, dreamily, a-lookin’ at the big heaped-up ben. “It is all onnecessary; it hain’t a-goin’ to take more’n a ton, if it duz that, to run it all winter.”
“Oh, shaw!” sez I.
“Wall, it won’t take but a few pounds more, anyway. I know it won’t from what the agent sez. I am sorry,” sez he, “that I didn’t get it by the pound as we needed it. It hain’t likely we shall ever empty that ben, not if we don’t live beyond the nateral age of mortals.”
And Josiah looked sad.
But I merely sez ag’in, “Oh, shaw!” For I didn’t fall in with his idees at all. And the idee looked silly to me of his goin’ to Jonesville and bringin’ coal home a few pounds at a time, like tea, or suger; and so I sez “Oh, shaw!” to it.
And then he started off on a new tact, and sez he, “I am afraid it is resky, anyway, to have it round. I am afraid it will burn up the house.”
But I kep’ on a-counselin’ him to keep calm, and try it, and then he begin on a new idee, about heatin’ the door-yard with it from the furnace-room door, and raisin’ vegitables and flowers for market.
But I sez, “With snow eight or ten feet deep, and old zero a-goin’ down to forty, I guess we can’t raise many vegitables and flowers in the door-yard.”
“Of course we couldn’t without the furnace,” sez he. “But that furnace, from what that agent sez, would jest melt the snow right down and keep it warm as summer clear to the orchard fence. And the meltin’ snow would make the ground moist and rich. Why,” sez he, “Samantha, I believe we could make our everlastin’ fortune by it.”