"Yes," sez I, "I have read Pollock's Course of Time most through to him, and the biggest heft of 'Paradise Lost,' and I read the last named with deep feelin', I can tell you."
"Didn't it do any good?"
"Not a mite," sez I. "He would choke me off in the soarinest passages to boast about some crazy side-show at his Exposition."
Tirzah Ann sithed and sez, "I don't know what can be done."
Thomas J. is more practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? Or in the house?"
"Id'no," sez I. "He can't plow or reap in February or pick gooseberries or wash sheep. But I know what ort to be done in the house, I tried my best to git him at it in the fall, I do want a furnace and hot water pipes put in to heat the house. We most freeze these cold days, and it is too much for your pa when Ury is away to tend to the fires."
"That's just the thing!" sez Thomas J., "get him interested in that and he will forgit all about the Allen Exposition by the time it is done."
But I sez in a discouraged way, "If I couldn't git him at it in the fall
Id'no how I'm goin' to now."
"But it is worth tryin'," sez Thomas J., "for his scheme must be broke up, and if you git your furnace in now it will be all ready for another fall."
"Well," sez I, "I can try." And so I begun that very night on a new tact, or ruther the old tact in a new way, I told him how sot Thomas J. wuz on our havin' a furnace and hot water pipes put in.