a hen coop."

"Oh, but they will be successful, they will."

"I hope so, but I feel it my duty to tell you that I feel dubersome
about it, dretful dubersome."

"But," sez she, "the New Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank is goin' to
make us independently rich. He's takin' the plans now of Luman Heath's
kitchen stove and riggin' up the machinery; Luman is to pay him
lavishly, you know Luman's wife is my own cousin."

I see how it wuz, Karen's friends, to please her, wuz willin' to offer
up their sure comforts and solid foundations as a sacrifice on the altar
of friendship and the thought come over me, mebby I'd ort to. But it did
seem as if I couldn't.

Sez Karen, "If it is a success at cousin Luman's, as it is dead sure to
be, Jabez is goin' to take it to the St. Louis Exposition."

"He thinks the foreign powers will want to treat with him for it. But I
told him I would ruther he would let our Government have it. But
'tennyrate he won't let the Powers git the better of him in the contract
and control it and enrich themselves at his expense. He will get his
onparelled idees patented before he takes it to St. Louis, it wouldn't
be safe not to. I spoze the papers will be full of it."

Such talk didn't seem to move me a mite, but it impressed Josiah
dretfully and he sez, "I shall have this new invention stand next to my
hen coop at the Exposition of St. Josiah."