“Carpets!” sez he. “Do you s’poze we can stand carpets in such a heat? I am goin’ to buy mattin’, mattin’ of the very coolest kind.”
Sez I, sternly, “Do you stop sellin’ or buyin’, and wait.”
“Yes,” sez he, bitterly, “wait! till we all have sunstrokes, and are dead and buried.”
I see he wuz fearfully worked up, and all the rest of the afternoon I made errents for him to keep him away from that agent and the workmen. I see he wuz gettin’ completely onstrung. And I, with my own inward apprehensions, wuz in no state to string him up ag’in.
So I kep’ him away from them by borrowin’ things I didn’t want of Mrs. Gowdey, and sendin’ home tea I never had to Miss Bobbitses, and etc. etc.
Yes, to such depths of deceit will a woman’s devoted love lead her.
Wall, about night they got it sot up, and Josiah and I proceeded down-stairs to see it. They had all gone then, for Miss Bobbit had detained Josiah with a long story. She mistrusted sunthin’.
Wall, when we went down to see it, it looked queer enough. The furnace wuz so very small, and the big pipes a-leadin’ from it in every direction looked so very big.
I don’t know as I can describe it any better than to say it looked like a small teacup sot out in a door-yard, with very big eave-spouts a-runnin’ from it all over the yard. Or as a very small infant of a few weeks of age would look, a-settin’ up with a man’s high hat on, and a pair of number eleven boots.
It looked curious, and strange, so strange that I sithed, as I looked at it, and Josiah looked stunted, and he took out his bandanna handkerchief and wiped his forward, without words.