“Oh, you did it! I moved it myself.”
I didn't contend, knowin' it wuz men's natural nater to say that.
Wall, at last Josiah got the stove in, but then the stove-pipe wouldn't go together, it wouldn't seem to fit. He had marked the joints with chalk, and the marks had rubbed off, and he said I had “rubbed 'em out.” I wuz just as innocent as a babe, but I didn't dispute him much, for I see a little crack open in the parlor door, and I knew the author of “Wedlock's Peaceful Repose” was a-listenin'.
But when he told me for the third time that I rubbed 'em out on purpose to make him trouble, and that I had made a practice of rubbin' 'em out for years and years—why, then I had to correct him on the subject, and we had a little dialogue.
I spoze Serena Fogg heard it. But human nater can't bear only just so much, especially when it has stoves a dirtien up the floor, and apple sass on its mind, and unexpected company, and no cookin' and a threshin' machine a-comin'.