The daily gazette., 1879-09-23
rh.. Dreadful Heater.

There are some things about city
houses, otherwise pleasant, that are so
that the family wishes they
had never come home from the country,
and the heater or furnace is one Of them.
In most residences 10 town 1t Is the only
source of warmth, and as the sun goes
down upon the family's first day in town
and an occasional cold wave passes down
the associated spinal columns In the SIT
ting room or parior q servant is told to
kindle just little blaze In the furnace.
The servant obeys orders; the more jli-
diciOus members Of the family make
some inconspicuous excuse TO get close
to the hot air register, and within few
momenis-welI, the inalignity, the in
genuity, the versatility in tormenting
ways OF which the Illuminate North
American heater Is capable dawns upon
the family as suddenly and unexpecl ed
ly as it did last year, the year before
that, aud perhaps on several occasions.
In the first place the heater smokes
readfully-though what business smoke
has to intrude upon the hot air chambers
of furnace is something which the fam
lily "give up" as promptly as II it were
the question as to how John Kelly's bolt
Is going to help the democratic party on
election day. Perhaps some blasting has
been done in the neighborhood and The
foundations of the heater have settled
away from the smoke pipe, pater fami-
las argues, and il he lives in an uptown
ward he probably is right; then, how
ever, there comes up coal gas AS well
we'll as smoke, and the coughing about
that hot air register is as bad as any one
ever heard in country church on fog
gy day. Then, one by one, there ascend
heavenward some odors that are moi
those of coal gas or smoke, and pateI
familias remarks that he will go around
and give that coal dealer piece of hi.
mind, and mater famillas says it seem.
as If meat were burning somew here
while Tommy, the family joy and terror
entirely forgets to say that earlier in tn.
day he dropped through the aperture o
the register a dead mouse that be ha,
found somewhere and finally tired of
Then tue Oldest daughter is sure that sh'
smells burning wool, and insists tba
some ones clothing IS atire. As all tn
sweepings of the winter have settled II
the hot air pipes and then been shaker
down as the family trunks were takel
out AMI brought in, humping the foo
each time so that the whole house shook
the lint has found its way to the red no
surface of The furnace and is burning in
dustriously. Then there Is waited ur
ward another odor. One Of the children
suggests that it reminds him of chewin
gum-which Is not at all unlikely, con
sidering the habit Of little people TO leav
such property lying about, to be swer
into the first open receptacle that
brooln reaches. Finally every one retire
in very bad humor, and very early mex
morning the landlord or the plumber ri
ceives curt but urgent note some me
come and hammer at the heater, particu
larry while the elder daughter is prat
tising upon the piano or there is COLI
pany in the parlor; cold evening Q
two ensues, while during the day mt
tallic reverberation excites sentiment
more warming than caloric ever is. F
nally that heater is in the conditi0
which it should have been before an
one came to towh-if any one had onl
thought Of it.