Whatever else the furnace could do, or couldn’t do, it could devour coal with the best of ’em. Like some folks I have seen, it wuz small in size, but had a immense appetite.
Ton after ton vanished like tales that wuz told, into its insatiable mouth (door of furnace).
But as the weather wuz still hot, it heat the house beautifully, so Josiah didn’t complain. But he lay awake nights a-worryin’ about the effects of heat.
But finally there come on a cold snap, jest as I wuz a-gettin’ the new house cleaned, and carpets put down, and I found there wuzn’t a room I could set down in, it wuz so cold.
It wuz a very cold day when I had the dinin’-room carpet put down, and I had hired a stout healthy woman, two hundred pounds wuz her weight, and her temperature wuz above normal, it wuz so good.
I went over to the house that mornin’, and I shivered imperceptibly as I walked through the rooms,—I didn’t venter to set,—and I met Josiah a-comin’ up from the suller with his mittens on, and a comforter round his neck, and his teeth a-chatterin’.
And I sez to him, “Hain’t you glad you didn’t sell your mittens and comforter, Josiah?”
And he sez, real snappish, “I wouldn’t be a fool!”
And I sez, “I didn’t mean no hurt, Josiah,” and I added further, as I clapped my hands together to warm ’em, “We are both sufferers, Josiah Allen.”
“Wall,” sez he, “when we get into the house it will be different. Then we can give it a fair test.”