She was awful deef--she's dead, now.
Aint she, father!" All the children chimed in, now, with one general Babel of information about deceased--nobody offering to read the riot act or seeming to discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way--but the head twin drowned all the turmoil and held his own against the field: "It's our clock, now--and it's got wheels inside of it, and a thing that flutters every time she strikes--don't it, father! Great-grandmother died before hardly any of us was born--she was an Old-School Baptist and had warts all over her--you ask father if she didn't.

She had an uncle once that was bald-headed and used to have fits; he wasn't our uncle, I don't know what he was to us--some kin or another I reckon--father's seen him a thousand times--hain't you, father! We used to have a calf that et apples and just chawed up dishrags like nothing, and if you stay here you'll see lots of funerals--won't he, Sis! Did you ever see a house afire?
I have! Once me and Jim Terry----" But Sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased.

He began to tell about an enormous speculation he was thinking of embarking some capital in--a speculation which some London bankers had been over to consult with him about--and soon he was building glittering pyramids of coin, and Washington was presently growing opulent under the magic of his eloquence.

But at the same time Washington was not able to ignore the cold entirely.

He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, and yet he could not persuade himself, that he felt the slightest heat, notwithstanding the isinglass' door was still gently and serenely glowing.