There was a thermometer on top of the furnace in the basement, and beside it a round thing to tell how much water we were catapulting into the radiators. When there is too much water it overflows from a tank upstairs; when there isn't enough you turn some in downstairs. So I started a march up and down stairs, first turning some on and then scooting skyward to listen to the overflow, and after making this trip about ten times I had an appetite like a typhoid convalescent.
There are church bells and wedding bells, bells that cry the joy of a new birth or toll the sorrow of the huddled family, bells that ring victory in war and bells that scream the hilarity of la fiesta! But for the bell that speaks the common language of all men, I name the dinner bell! The first biscuits were piping hot on the plate.
"Are they as good as your mother used to make?" asked my wife.
"My mother," I said, "was a piker at biscuit making!"
And she beamed with pleasure when I slandered my honored mother!
After the dinner we went out on the porch--the big, wide porch for which we had planned a swing on chains, and sat rocking and digesting, digesting and rocking, in a perfect picture of resident domesticity. In the house across the street there were lights. The people had just moved in--that is, they had moved in several days before and were just beginning to find the trouble with things and why the gas company could afford to pay considerable dividends on wind. I say, we were sitting there as cumfy as possible, when my wife caught my hand in a convulsive grip.
With the other hand she pointed across the street to the second parlor blind. I followed her, and felt like a Peeping Tom. There on the blind was a great picture in silhouette--a picture of two figures standing, and the tall, masculine figure was holding both shoulders of the other and looking square into her eyes.
"It's the daughter!" my wife almost whispered. "I know her by her hair ribbon; it's too young for the mother! Look, look, they are going to ki----"
She finished the word with a little gurgle, for they had done it! Not only that, but the kiss was followed by an embrace, and another, and then the lights went out.
A confounded belt had slipped at the powerhouse, I learned afterward.