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.