Well, we let the fire go down agin and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to bed.

That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm.

We cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively comfortable for three days.

The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha?
Who ever heard of thunder at this time of year?
Or is it a earthquake ?" But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez, "Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room.

Even as I spoke Rosy come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep, but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a fearful time!" sez she.
And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a star shinin' out over a wild western tornado.