.

Oh, there! I started to tell you this and I might's well get it over.
"This evenin' when I came home from the store I see somethin' was extry wrong soon's I struck the settin' room.

Emeline was there, and Bennie D., and I give you my word, I felt like turnin' up my coat collar, 'twas so frosty.

'Twas hotter'n a steamer's stoke-hole outside, but that room was forty below zero.
"Nobody SAID nothin', you know--that was the worst of it; but I'd have been glad if they had.

Finally, I said it myself.