I certainly lived a great
deal better than when I was depending upon my old negro cook.
Miss Kitty seemed to be satisfied with things as they were, and
so, in some respects, did her mother. But the latter never
ceased to give me extracts from some of her son George's letters,
and this was always annoying and worrying to me. Evidently he
was not pleased with me as such a close neighbor to his mother,
and it was astonishing how many expedients he proposed in order
to rid her of my undesirable proximity.
"My son George," said Mrs. Carson, one morning, "has been
writing to me about jack-screws. He says that the greatest
improvements have been made in jack-screws."
"What do you do with them, mother?" asked Miss Kitty.
"You lift houses with them," said she. "He says that in
large cities they lift whole blocks of houses with them and build
stories underneath. He thinks that we can get rid of our trouble
here if we use jack-screws."
"But how does he propose to use them?" I asked.
"Oh, he has a good many plans," answered Mrs. Carson. "He
said that he should not wonder if jack-screws could be made large
enough to lift your house entirely over mine and set it out in
the road, where it could be carried away without interfering with
anything, except, of course, vehicles which might be coming
along. But he has another plan--that is, to lift my house up and
carry it out into the field on the other side of the road, and
then your house might be carried along right over the cellar
until it got to the road.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270