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 wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up.  But, alas! in this world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain’t.

And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought—­I like Karen and felt to rejoice with her.  It seemed that Luman Heath, not havin’ heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the very next day after he finished here.  And the Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind’s inventive ambition, and alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath’s beloved ones, the hull family circle on ’em.

He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn and heat up.  And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin’ acrost the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted right up into the air bilin’ hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser there in their kitchen.  Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the face.

They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they never thought of havin’ such doin’s in their house, but the bilin’ crater pourin’ down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto ’em that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot on the floor readin’ Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”  And Luman, bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin’ to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin’ room, he wuz hit on top by the bilin’ torrent and blistered right on his bare head as big as your hand.

He laid his wife down half faintin’, told the screamin’ children to look out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum.  He bein’ a good man who wouldn’t swear, or rare round kep in his feelin’s more.  The children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way.  But he wuz bed sick for weeks holdin’ onto his wrath and bein’ too good to jaw and kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.

But to resoom backwards.  The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of ’em, she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and havin’ to use both hands, and bein’ smart and quick witted, she put the coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin’ water onto the flower beds and acrost ’em into the road, scaldin’ passers by, and bein’ a perfect horrow and mystery to ’em.  It wuz big and powerful, there hain’t no doubt of that.