“And did you lay out,” sez I in frigid axents, “to have me stan’ there a-pumpin’ all day to supply your waterfall?”
His mean begun to fall a little—it had been triumphant—and he sez kinder meachin’—“You have to throw out your dish-water anyway, and you might’s well throw it on the steps as to throw it in the dreen.”
“Wall,” sez I, “a fountain a-runnin’ dish-water would be a beautiful spectacle, wouldn’t it, Josiah Allen?
“I guess it would astonish the eyes of the Jonesvillians, and their noses, too!”
“I didn’t mean that!” he hollered quite loud.
“What did you mean, then?” sez I.
He agin murmured sunthin’ about the pump, the cistern, and the old mair.
And I sez, “That poor old mair agin!” Sez I, “If I hadn’t broke it up, that mair wouldn’t live three days after we got home, with all you’d put on her, a-apein’ foreign idees, Josiah.”
“I hain’t been a-apein’, and you know it!”
But I went right on—“Even if you could make it work, how could we git into the house if the doorstep wuz turned into a waterfall?”