[Samantha at the World’s Fair by Marietta Holley]@TWC D-Link book
Samantha at the World’s Fair

CHAPTER XVIII
7/14

The phonograph don't care; it will bring to 'em anything they call for.
Then, when they have got ready for dinner, a button is touched; the dinner comes down from the kitchen in the attic, where it wuz all cooked by electricity, baked, roasted, or biled, whatever it is.
When the vittles are put on the table, they are kept warm by electric warmin' furnaces.
They start up a rousin' fire in the open fireplace by pressin' a button, and if they git kinder warm, electric fans cool the air agin, though there hain't much chance of gittin' too warm, for electric thermostats regulate the atmosphere.

But in the summer the fans come handy.
When dinner is over the dishes mount upstairs agin, and are washed by a electric automatic dish washer, and dried by a electric dish drier.
The ice for dinner is made by a miniature ammonia ice plant, which keeps the hull house cool in hot days and nights.
On washin' days the woman of the house throws the dirty clothes and a piece of soap into a tub, and electricity heats the water, rubs and cleanses the clothes, shoves 'em along and rings 'em through an electric ringer, and dries 'em in a electric dryin' oven, and then irons 'em by an electric ironin' machine.
If the female of the house wants to sew a little, she don't have to wear out her own vital powers a-runnin' that sewin' machine--no; electricity jest runs it for her smooth as a dollar.
If she wants to sweep her floor, does she have to wear out her own elbows?
No, indeed; electricity jest sweeps it for her clean as a pin.
Oh, what a house! what a house! Josiah of course wuz rampant with idees of havin' our house run jest like it.
He thought mebby he could run it by horse power or by wind.
"But," I sez, "I guess the old mair has enough on her hands without washin' dishes and cookin'." He see it wuzn't feasible.
"But," sez he, "I believe I could run it by wind.

Don't you know what wind storms we have in Jonesville ?" And I sez, "You won't catch me a-sewin' by it, a-blowin' me away one minute, and then stoppin' stun-still the next;" and sez I, "How could we be elevated by it?
blow us half way upstairs, and then go down, and drop us.

We shouldn't live through it a week, even if you could git the machinery a-runnin'." "Wall," sez he, with a wise, shrewd look, "as fur as the elevator is concerned, I believe I could fix that on a endless chain--keep it a-runnin' all the time, sunthin' like perpetual motion." "How could we git on it ?" sez I coldly.
"Catch on," sez he; "it would be worth everything to both on us to make us spry and limber-jinted." "Oh, shaw!" sez I; "your idees are luny--luny as can be; it has got to go by electricity." "Wall," sez he, "I never see any sharper lightnin' than we have to Jonesville.

I believe I could git the machinery all rigged up, and catch lightnin' enough to run it.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books