But before I could reply Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip him within an inch of his life!" It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp light.

Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so it would be entirely right.

Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used by that dum fool to try his experiments on?
Let him take it out or I will take it out and throw it at him!" But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try it." "For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her?
It is all _her_ fault.

What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe?
She is to the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as frogs, and our house a wreck!" But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched.

At last he gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall on him and demolish him in his anger.