you know that lightning may strike at any
time and demolish everything within the
sound of my voice? Don't you know you
are criminally negligent? Why, my dear
sir, I am astonished to think that a man of
your jedgment and good common sense
should allow yourself to----" Wall, about
that time I'd got my breath and wits at the
same time, and I sed, "Now hold on, gosh
durn ye, what hav ye got to sell anyhow?"
Wall, he told me he had some lightnin' rods,
and he brought out a little masheen and told
me to take hold of the handles and he'd
show me what a powerful thing 'lectricity
wuz. Wall, I took hold of them handles and
he turned on a crank, and that durned masheen
jist made me dance all over the porch,
and it wouldn't let go. Gee whiz, I felt as
though I'd fell in a yeller jacket's nest, and
about four thousand of 'em wuz a stingin'
me all to onct. Wall, I told him I guessed
he could put up a lightning rod or two, seein'
as how I didn't hav any. Wall, he went
to work and I went over to Ezra Hoskins',
and when I got back home my place wuz a
sight to behold; it looked like a harrer
turned upside down. Thar wuz seven
lightning rods on the barn, one on the hen
house, one on the corn crib, one on the
smoke house, two on the granery, three on