warm weather. 'F I remember right, I’d got 'bout ’s fur
south 's Alabamma, ’nd was asettin’ by the kitchen stove
ter git real good 'nd warm. 'Twas awful hot thet day, ’nd
after a spell I got up ter take off my coat. After another
spell I thought I'd take off my collar ’nd necktie—the’ bein'
no ladies present—but the consumed things stuck ’nd I
commenced ayankin’, ’nd ahaulin’ on the pesky things, ’nd
thrashin’ raound like all persessed, when I knocked a kittle
uv hot, bilin’ water onter me.
“With thet I made a jump, ’nd thet jump woke me up, ’nd
I warn’t daown in Alabamma, not by a darn sight, but
daown in Maine with the bed-clothes all aburnin’ uparaound
me. Naow I warn’t ready ter begin the ‘everlastin’ burnin’ ’
at jest thet minit, ’nd I lit aout uv thet bed pretty lively ye’d
belive.
“Waal, we got the fire aout after a time, but bein’ some
what excited ’nd het up over it, jest dressed me, ’nd set
daown dost by the kitchen stove ’nd waited fertile fust train
back ter Bostin’, ’nd ye’d better believe I aiut goin’ ter no
such cold place agin. ”
“Burn ye much?” queried a sympathetic listener.
“Naw,” drawled Mr. Green, “’nd thet’s the funniest part
uv th’ hull thing. Fire up above me, ’nd below me, 'nd all
around me, ’nd never teched me.”
“Sort uv a mirac’lous escape, ivctrn’l it, Mr. Green?”
queried the same man.
“Waal, Id’ know’s I'd say that," was the reply, and from
the light in Mr. Green’s eye we knew that his victim had
“bit.” “I d’kno'w's I’d say that, egzactly. Ye see,” said he
adopting a confidential tone and leaning toward his ques
tioner, “Ye see I sort ov fig'gered it aout that it must ’a ben
because I was tew Green tew .burn. ”
And the sympathetic listener sneaked quietly out am id the
“Haw Haw’s” of the rest of the company, while Abner set
tled back again to his cud-chewing without so much as a