Sez he, “It would be fur from me, Samantha, to muddle up a woman’s brains any more than they be muddled naturally, tryin’ to inform her how this is done. I only say there will be a mullin’ winder in the house.”
Sez I, “Hain’t you goin’ to have a bay winder?”
“That depends on whether there will be room for the bay. But as to the ventilation, on that pint my plans are made. I believe a house should be ventilated to the bottom instead of the top. Air goes up instead of down, a house should be ventilated from the mop boards, I think some of havin’ em open like a trap door to let the air through. Sime Bentley sez have a row of holes bored right through the sides of the house to let in the air, and when you didn’t want to use ’em plug ’em up, when you want a little air take out one stopple, when you want a good deal take out a hull row of plugs. That’s a good idee,” sez Josiah, “but I convinced him that it lacked one important thing, the air 209 didn’t come up from the bottom as I consider it necessary for health and perfect ventilation.”
Sez I dryly, “You might have the holes bored through into the suller!” My tone wuz as irony as a iron tea-kettle, but he didn’t perceive it.
“That is a woman’s idee,” sez he, “rip up a breadth of carpet every time you want a little air, keep a man down on his knee jints the hull of the time tackin’ down carpets and ontackin’ ’em. Nothin’ ever made a woman so happy as to see a man down on his marrer bones tackin’ down a carpet, unless it is seein’ him takin’ it up and luggin’ it outdoors, histin’ it up on a line and beatin’ it. No, my idee is the only right one, ventilate from the mop boards.”
Well, true to his hauty resolution to not share his grand success and triumph with anybody he went the next day and hired a man by the name of Penstock. He had been a good carpenter in his day, but his brain had kinder softened, yet he could work quite fast, and sez Josiah:
“He’s jest the man for me. He won’t be jealous, he will carry out my views and not steal my plans or my credit. There is a lumber dealer out to the Cape owin’ me for a horse, and I propose to buy of him and have the things 210 landed at Shadow Island.” Sez he, “I am a solid influential man, and they will send the boards and charge ’em to me, or send ’em C. O. W.”
“C. O. W.?” sez I. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh,” sez he, “that’s a bizness phrase wimmen don’t understand, we men use it often.”
“But what duz it mean? Most things mean sunthin’, at least they do in wimmen’s bizness.”