wuz glad enough to see that Rosy agreed with him.

But I wuz naterally made more megum, and thought, any port in a storm, and a hour won't be much anyway. If we've stood all this dirt and confusion for five weeks we could stand it a hour longer.

"Well," sez Josiah, "I shall go into the woods for a jag of maple, I won't see him, I dassent, for I should fall on him and destroy him if I did."

So he went after a load of maple wood and Jabez come and tinkered and hammered and pounded and then sayin' with some of his pride returned into his port:

"It will go now like clock work."

He filled the tank and lit the fire agin with Ury's help. But I wuz glad enough that Josiah wuz absent, for this time the noise wuz so skairful that when Ury ketched Philury round the waist and absconded with her, he didn't stop till they had ploughed through the snow clear past the old hen house.

I, too, ketched Rosy by the arm and run and stumbled along most to the barn before I remembered myself and regained my faculties, so to speak, it wuz so turrible this time the loud, angry, roarin', hissin' noise.

Karen nobly stood by Jabez, who I must say stood by his job in that respect, but I guess they went out into the hall, I thought I ketched a glimpse of 'em, as I havin' regained my faculty, run in. We got in jest after the deluge poured out agin, higher, louder and more steaminer than ever, and when what few scraps of plaster remained on the settin' room had fell victims to the bilin' flood. Well, we let the fire go down agin and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to bed. That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm. We cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively comfortable for three days. The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha? Who ever heard of thunder at this time of year? Or is it a earthquake?"

But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez, "Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room. Even as I spoke Rosy come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep, but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a fearful time!" sez she.

And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a star shinin' out over a wild western tornado. But before I could reply Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip him within an inch of his life!"

It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp light. Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so it would be entirely right. Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used by that dum fool to try his experiments on? Let him take it out or I will take it out and throw it at him!"

But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try it."

"For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her? It is all her fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as frogs, and our house a wreck!"

But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.

Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet smiles and cordial words.

She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a coldness between 'em and they don't speak.

Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too voylent wrath upon his nerve.

Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home, Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their weddin' tower.

And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth as glass.

Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.

And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the children and I