“this shore has been a toilin’ day fer me,” sighed mrs. wopp, as she opened the oven door and revealed a tempting array of loaves, their brown domes swelling up and over the sides of shining black pans.
“this stove is not drawin’ any too good, an’ what with these pipes an’ the parlor pipes not actin’ christian-like my eyes run warter orl day long. ebenezer wopp, i sees a job ahead fer you. my patience is wore out an’ this very day you’ll git at the pipes and git the soot cleaned out.”
“i reckon it is the biggest half of some time sence those there jints was took apart,” agreed ebenezer, with unerring diplomacy, searching through several slips of paper as though to find memoranda thereon, “i reckon i’d better git to work this very minute.”
“moses!” called husband and wife, simultaneously. mrs. wopp’s voice spanned an interval of about a dozen semi-tones, and as it always grew in volume in direct ratio to the emergency of the duty to be imposed, the last syllable of her son’s name fell on that wretched boy’s ear like a clap of thunder. mr. wopp’s accents remained on nearly all occasions at the same even degree of meekness. nature had not given him the temperament to indulge in crescendos or double fortes.
moses was whistling a dismal discordant air in the backyard when the voice of his mother smote his ears.
“yeh, mar.”
“what yer whistlin’ so mournful like?” queried his mother, “makes me think of funerals an’ sich like; jist come in an’ help yer par with the stove-pipes, mebbe that’ll cheer you up.”
moses’ face became as mournful as his music had been. it was as though he had suddenly realized that life was, after all, more serious than one suspects in one’s idle moments.
the first act of the unwilling recruit was to bring into the house a coal-scuttle and large shovel, clanking them ominously as he walked.
“stop that there ‘dead march of saul,’ an’ go put on yer overalls,” ordered mrs. wopp, “what’s the idear of the gardenin’ tool, go git the littlest shovel to put inter the chimbly, an’ don’t let the grass grow under yer feet, neither.”
by this time mr. wopp was bearing a length of pipe into the yard. the parlor looked like a morgue with its inanimate objects lying bidden under sheets and cloths of varying degrees of past usefulness. through a hole of one sheet could be seen the listless towzled head of hannah, her faded wax countenance betraying the need of a tonic.
the energetic mrs. wopp had accompanied her commands to moses by a wide sweeping of arms, and from these ample arms had billowed yards of sheeting to cover from the ruinous soot her treasured parlor possessions.
an enlarged crayon portrait in a wide gilt frame of moses as a baby in a state of round cherubic innocent nudity, had been added recently to the mural decorations and was especially well covered with cloths.
“wisht that orful pitcher ’d fall inter the swill-pail an’ then turn a somerset in the soot-pile,” murmured the boy as he noticed the care exercised over its safety.
in overalls, the color of which was entirely unrecognizable, moses began to help his father carry through the house sooty lengths of pipe. very carefully and gingerly they stepped as the eagle eye of mrs. wopp was upon them, and they knew that a full battery of reprimands and warnings was at hand.
in the middle of this trying work, moses remembered he had glimpsed a large tempting piece of jelly-roll on the pantry shelf. as soon as an opportune moment arrived he slipped, unnoticed as he thought, into the pantry and immediately life took on a new and brighter interest.
“here you, moses,” shouted his mother from the top of the stairs, “i heerd the pantry door squeakin’, no eatin’ till the job’s done.” she further informed him that stopping to eat “et inter his time too much an’ the work must be done afore dark.”
moses returned to work with jelly and soot mingling in a purple streak on cheek and chin.
“you look like some kind-faced happygo-lucky cow, chewin’ her cud,” teased mrs. wopp, standing at the parlor door and noting the reminiscent moving of her son’s jaws.
“this is excitin’ fun,” moaned moses, as he picked his way carefully with a tin elbow that threatened every moment to capsize with its flaky mass of black dust, “about as excitin’ as playin’ with the ashes in the mornin’.”
all this time mr. wopp had carried and brushed and shaken stove-pipe lengths until his face and bald head resembled a latticework trellis. only one length remained to be operated on before proceeding to the upper storey, where the stove-pipe continued its tortuous way to the chimney, warming sundry rooms on its beneficent course.
ebenezer wopp was the last silent word in patient masculinity, but his face, becoming darker with his work, would lead an onlooker to believe that sinister thoughts were struggling to find expression.
however, the stove-pipe was at last cleaned and ready to put up. moses’ moroseness had by now developed into a complaint, the chief symptoms of which were sniffling and coughing.
“i got an orful cold, goin’ in an’ out so orften,” he complained.
“a dose of senner tea’ll fix that, my boy,” was mrs. wopp’s cheerful rejoinder.
what really ailed moses was the prospect of bolstering up the pipes again.
“here, mose, hoi’ this here jint while i fit the next one inter it.” a tongue-twisting silence ensued.
“now, mose, fer the elbow. stiddy! don’t shove! don’t pull! hole her stiddy!”
“glory be! it’s pulled apart at the other end!” ejaculated the perspiring assistant.
“try agin, mose, now not too hard! easy like! there! jest a leetle bit more! stop! hold on! shucks! everythink’s went wrong! here, we’ll start agin.”
the work went on, each length at the first possible opportunity resuming its state of strict neutrality and refusing to be drawn into negotiations.
finally, ebenezer wopp’s musings, which had been gathering force as he worked, burst into speech. for a quiet man he became almost oratorical. then he fell to soliloquizing audibly.
his mutterings rumbled along, a series of submerged imprecations. he paused for breath and as soon as he had accumulated enough for his dire purpose, he swore what was to him a long and fearful oath.
“by heck!” he thundered.
then moses commenced. he ran up and down a chromatic scale of puffs and groans and sniffles, ending with a cadence that sounded like, “gosh dern!”
involved and intricate variations of “holy smoke!” made the air sulphureous as a swaying piece of wire caught his shoulder and tore a large gash in his shirt.
“moses habakuk ezra wopp an’ ebenezer wopp! you’d orter be shamed of yerselves. you shorely must of fell with lucifer when he come tumblin’ outer the sky. them swear words make every single hair on my head stan’ on edge.”
in answer to his wife’s reproof, mr. wopp almost roared, “where’s the hammer? gone hide an’ hair it is, like everythink else.”
“ebenezer wopp, i’ve tarlked to you till i’m black in the face, but it’s jist wastin’ valyble breath. yer brains is allers wool-gatherin’. the hammer’s in yer hip-pocket.”
“mose, hoi’ this benighted idjit of a jint till i drive a nail in the wall to wire it up,” called mr. wopp, thrusting a nail between his teeth and turning his back on his wife.
“land o’ goshen! ye’ve a peck of nails in the wall orlready. you couldn’t add two an’ two without wrappin’ up yer thumb an’ countin’ what’s left,” remonstrated mrs. wopp.
mr. wopp, goaded to desperation, breathed audibly his opinion regarding pipe-fitting. diogenes in one of his periodical excursions from his tub would have been glad to category that remark as an honest man’s attitude, at least toward certain jobs.
moses’ opinion, repressed, however, in his bursting bosom, was of a like complexion, only much more vivid. he was hesitating between the liquid verge of tears and the lambent verge of profane utterance.
the door opened and betty, who had stayed in school to clean the blackboard for “teacher,” appeared. she came in bringing with her the very essence of outdoor freshness and buoyancy.
“dad an’ mosey don’t look orful happy,” she laughed. “smile at me, mosey.”
“arsk a dorg with a tin pail tied to his ear to smile at yer,” returned moses, sourly.
“them critters has swore more than i ever heerd sence the ketchup bottle fomented an’ bust an’ splashed orl over par’s shirt an’ trickled down his pants.”
here mrs. wopp related for the hundredth time the account of the ketchup disaster.
“when i heerd par swear i run inter the kitchen, an’ there he stood with suthin red orl down his face an’ neck. a ketchup bottle on the shelf above had bust over him an’ i thort it was blood. ‘ebenezer wopp,’ i says, ‘whose been tryin’ to arssarssinate yer?’ all he said was ‘by heck,’ but a forty-horse power gun couldn’t of roared through the kitchen louder ’n them words.”
mrs. wopp was overcome with laughter at the bare memory of the picture her irate husband had presented.
“hurry up, moses,” she called, as soon as her joy had subsided, “git those pipes finished an’ go arfter yor chores.”
“i’m chored from mornin’ till night, an’ arfter i go to sleep i do some more chorin’ jist to keep my hand in.” moses was in a distinctly peevish mood.
“can i hev a piece of jelly-roll, mar?” coaxed betty, stemming the tide of her brother’s complaints.
“there’s nary a piece left, that greedy boy et it orl up.”
“i b’lieve moses’ll eat jelly-roll some day till he rolls up hisself. i’m orful hungry, can i hev some fresh bread?”
“what! bread jist outer the oving! there aint a sinner this minute but what begun his vile career on a slice of fresh bread. indisgestion shore fills jails an’ ’sylums more nor drink. you carn’t hev one slice till to-morrcr.”
“o, mar, jist a teeny-weeny brown crust, it carn’t hurt me.”
“orl right, you rascalashus coaxer, an’ go make some tea an’ fetch some crackers an’ cheese an’ we’ll orl hev a bite.”
mr. wopp and moses, who had hurried to the upper storey to escape the recital of the ketchup episode, now came heavily down the stairs, their task at last finished.
“light the stove, mose, an’ git the house het up. mis’ williams must of been froze to a cinder yesterday when she was here. that stove did nothin’ but smoke till our eyes leaked. i expected every minute to see her turn into an iced berg. do you know, ebenezer, mis’ williams told me that mrs. frame’s sister married the oldest son of mr. frame an’ his first wife.”
“well, well, you don’t say!”
“shore nuff, what relationship do you s’pose they are all to each other now?”
“ain’t she her own aunt?” hazarded mr. wopp, abstractedly thrusting his hammer into his boot top and scratching his bald head with a pair of pincers.
betty, not interested in intricate relationships, tiptoed into the parlor and uncovering the organ, played with one finger “home sweet home.” the wool-embroidered motto on the wall almost wept.
“kettle’s a-bilin’, glory girl, an’ par an’ mose’d like a cup of tea; but ’fore you leave the organ, play ‘greenland icy mountains,’ it’s been runnin’ in my head orl day.”
“don’t nobody start ‘greenland icy mountings’ round here,” objected moses. “i got orl the cool drarfts i need comin’ through this here hole in my shirt.”
having disposed of the song, dear to her mother’s heart, in spite of the protestations of moses, betty went to the kitchen and in a few moments returned with a steaming pot of tea.
“warsh yer ban’s, mosey, an’ par, an’ come on, mar, here’s yer tea an’ crackers. wisht i hed a piece of jelly-roll.”
“fer the love of mike, what’s that noise?” moses’ eyes seemed to almost dart from his head. the others looked up as a distinct rustling was heard in the parlor. moses was on his feet first. the noise came from the stove.
“the house is haunted, ebenezer. it’s them swear words has brung evil speerits. moses run fer the ax an’ come back an’ open the stove door, lucky the fire wasn’t started yit.”
as the stove door opened for the intrepid moses, out flew tillie the white bantam hen now as black as a crow with soot. she fluttered into the face of moses who was kneeling before the stove.
“how in the name of orl the aporstles did that hen git in there?” questioned mrs. wopp.
“must of warlked in when i left a jint outside fer a minute. she shore is a dark complected bird now.” as moses spoke he stretched out his arm for the sooty tillie, but with an indignant cackle the hen tore through the dining-room into the kitchen with moses and betty in hot pursuit.
“that ole bantam has shore got some speeditood,” reflected moses, in gasps, as he made several futile plunges for tillie.
the pursuit lasted longer than was anticipated and was most disastrous to the clean kitchen floor. betty and moses themselves got soot on their shoes and their footprints wrought havoc in the spotless kitchen.
as that long-suffering mrs. wopp wiped up the last traces of the chase she observed, “moses’ footprints is twict as big as betty’s, but hern is twict as many. they’ll shore git inter jist as much mischief, but praise be! they’re both toein’ in the right d’rection.”
