It seemed, indeed, that we were never to be done with these consequences.
Separated from my house by a stretch of weedy lawn was a shambling structure built years before by one Azariah Prouse, who believed among other strange matters that the earth is flat and that houses are built higher than one story only at great peril, because of the earth's proneness to tip if overbalanced.

Prouse had compromised with this belief, however, and made his house a story and a half high, in what I conceive to have been a dare-devil spirit.

The reckless upper rooms were thus cut off untimely by ceilings of sudden slope, and might not be walked in uprightly save by persons of an inconsiderable stature.
In a fulness of years Azariah had died and been chested, like Joseph of old, his soul to be gathered, as he believed, to another horizontal plane, exalted far above this, as would befit an abode for spirits of the departed good.
His earthly home, now long vacant, had been rented by Clem for a monthly sum not particularly cheap in view of its surprising limitations above stairs.

It was of this new home that he chiefly talked to me, of the persistence required to have it newly painted by the inheriting Prouse, and repairs made to doors, windows, and the blinds that hung awry from them.
"An' Ah been cleanin'-- yes, seh, Mahstah Majah--fum celleh to gahet.
Them floahs do shine an' them windows is jes' so clean they look lahk they ain't theah at all.

Miss Cahline an' Little Miss, they reside on th' lowah floah, an' Ah tek mahse'f up to that theh gahet.