“Well,” sez he, a bright idee occurrin’ to him, “it will be a first rate job for the men to do rainy days. In buildin’ a house there hain’t much a man can do durin’ a hard thunder storm, or hail storm, but they can go right on with the suller jest as well as though it wuz a sunshiny day. That is one great thing that architects have heretofore overlooked, work that men can do durin’ cyclones—I have met that want,” sez he proudly.
“I should think as much,” sez I mekanically, for my thoughts wuzn’t there, they wuz afar with Tirzah with her poor health, and the blow that had got to come onto her, when she see this thing that wuz rared up in front of me.
Well, I went round to the kitchen door, the winders all seemed sot in tottlin’ and shaky, and my pen fails me to tell the looks of them back door steps, they wuz very high here, for the land sloped off sudden, but suffice it to say that I wouldn’t trust even one foot on ’em for a dollar bill. There wuz a great long concern that looked like a huge wooden arm that come out of the settin’ room winder on that side and seemed to reach down to the water, and sez I, “What, for the land’s sake! is that?”
“That,” sez he proudly, “is the crownin’ work of my life! that will make me famous and 321 enormously rich when it becomes known to the world. That is a attachment to hitch onto the sewin’ machine, the churn, the coffee mill or any domestic article where foot or hand power is used, and is to be used in pumpin’ water.”
“Pumpin’ water!” sez I coldly, “what for?”
“Oh, for drinkin’, for irrigatin’, or for any use that water is used for, puttin’ out fires, or anything.”
Sez I coldly, “Do you spoze that Tirzah Ann with her health, is goin’ to set at her sewin’ machine and do fine sewin’, and at the same time pump water from hour to hour?”
“Yes,” sez he, “and hain’t it a beautiful thought, how it will add to her sweet content and happiness as she sets sewin’ on Whitfield’s shirts, and thinkin’ at the same time she is benefittin’ the world at large, quietly and unostentatiously sewin’ on gussets, and makin’ the desert blossom like a rosy all round her; how happy she will be,” sez he.
Sez I, “It is a crazy idee! crazy as a loon! What under the sun would she want to pump hundreds and hundreds of barrels of water for? Half a barrel would last ’em a day for all their work.”