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I hurried away to the town, and it was not long before several carpenters and masons were on the spot. After a thorough examination, they assured Mrs. Carson that there was no danger, that my house would do no farther damage to her premises, but, to make things certain, they would bring some heavy beams and brace the front of my house against her cellar wall. When that should be done it would be impossible for it to move any farther.

“But I don’t want it braced!” cried Mrs. Carson.”I want it taken away. I want it out of my back yard!”

The master carpenter was a man of imagination and expedients. “That is quite another thing, ma’am,” said he.”We’ll fix this gentleman’s house so that you needn’t be afraid of it, and then, when the time comes to move it, there’s several ways of doing that. We might rig up a powerful windlass at the top of the hill, and perhaps get a steam-engine to turn it, and we could fasten cables to the house and haul her back to where she belongs.”

“And can you take your oaths,” cried Mrs. Carson, “that those ropes won’t break, and when that house gets half-way up the hill it won’t come sliding down ten times faster than it did, and crash into me and mine and everything I own on earth?No, sir! I’ll have no house hauled up a hill back of me!”

“Of course,” said the carpenter, “it would be a great deal easier to move it on this ground, which is almost level–“

“And cut down my trees to do it!No, sir!”

“Well, then,” said he, “there is no way to do but to take it apart and haul it off.”

“Which would make an awful time at the back of my house while you were doing it!” exclaimed Mrs. Carson.

I now put in a word.”There’s only one thing to do that I can see!” I exclaimed.”I will sell it to a match factory. It is almost all wood, and it can be cut up in sections about two inches thick, and then split into matches.”

Kitty smiled.”I should like to see them,” she said, “taking away the little sticks in wheelbarrows!”

“There is no need of trifling on the subject,” said Mrs. Carson.”I have had a great deal to bear, and I must bear it no longer than is necessary. I have just found out that in order to get water out of my own well, I must go to the back porch of a stranger. Such things cannot be endured. If my son George were here, he would tell me what I ought to do. I shall write to him, and see what he advises. I do not mind waiting a little bit, now that I know that you can fix Mr. Warren’s house so that it won’t move any farther.”

Thus the matter was left. My house was braced that afternoon, and toward evening I started to go to a hotel in the town to spend the night.

“No, sir!” said Mrs. Carson.”Do you suppose that I am going to stay here all night with a great empty house jammed up against me, and everybody knowing that it is empty?It will be the same as having thieves in my own house to have them in yours. You have come down here in your property, and you can stay in it and take care of it!”

“I don’t object to that in the least,” I said.”My two women are here, and I can tell them to attend to my meals. I haven’t any chimney, but I suppose they can make a fire some way or other.”