The Coconino weekly sun., 1893-12-21

and secured the other pourchair., They were still attached. to- the poles, but that was rather an inconvenience. I put the poles across under my head, and thus slightly increased the af- fective length of the cot. g >.a. ,
 "A little after two arose again and secured a fur rug. It was a tigers skin with the head of the beast on one 5corner of it. There seemed to be some warmth in that tigers ,skin,a for se- cured little sleep almost immediate ly after spreading it over me. I had left the lamp burning because thought it might warm the room lit- tie. We'll, sir, as I say, slept few minutes-just long enough to dream that I was one of the early Christian martyrs in the arena-and then I woke to find this tigers head, with it's gleaming glass eyes, staring me in the face. Say, what dc you think 1 did? l yelled so loud that the concussion put the light out. My wife and her sister thought there were burglars in the house. What did they do about it2 I don't know, but my opinion is that they crawled into pile of carpets and rugs in the middle of their room and hid there till morning.
 "As for me, the shock of my fright made'me shiver. And when got over being frightened 1 couldn't stop shiv- ering. How could be cold with all those things over me, couldn't under stand, but it was true. I arose and se- cured the stair carpet. It went up and down me five times, I remember. but it didn't raise my temperature ono degree. '...r
 'Then made the important discov' cry that it didn't make any difference how much I had over me, so long as l had only one layer of canvas under me- And the wind still whistled up ! through the bare boards. I decided to put the tigers skin over the cot and lie down on it. Then new inspiration came over me. Why not go down and sleep in the kitchen? Good idea. picked up the cot, the pourchairs, the fur rug and the stair carpet and started for the kitchen. At the head of the back stairs stepped on the fringe of one of the pourchairs. Ien~ deavored to step off it, but there were | five apertures in the fringe, and each aone of them had secured one of my toes Therefore, just calmly fell oyer forwards, and slid downstairs with the cot for a toboggan!' '@ .s'''~ : 'I reached the kitchen in this easy and unconventional manner; and dis covered almost immediately thaS the fire had gone out. This was not what had fallen downstairs for. The kitchen was perhaps shade warmer than my room, but it was cooling rapidly; and kitchen in the morning with no fire in it is the coldest room in the house, as. every married man knows. .a...
 "There wasn't any fuel at hand, but between you and me, just had to have some. There were two or three con- venient pieces of light woodwork which belonged to my late landlord and not to me. With these I kindled q fire and then I broke up two of our kitchen chairs, and piled, them in, a handy spot. My cot l placed close by the stove, so that could feed the fire without getting out of bed, There l lay and kept her agoing with selee- tions from my furniture, till by'an by I got real warm and snug, and then i went to sleep. The last things re. member putting in were the pour chair poles.
 "These brass balls are the orna- mental knobs from the ends of those poles. They wouldn't burn, of course, and didn't dare to put them inthe stove Cor fear my wife would find them and suspect me. So I simply un- screwed them as I lay there, with the intention of throwing them away at my leisure. fFe
 Have you followed my story? Have you got an idea of how much walking around dld in my robe der nooit, as the French say, on that interesting oc- casion2 It was enough to okill man. But she says-hold on, are you a mar ried man?"
 II am."
 Then maybe you'll believe my story. She says got this cold playing billiards with the boys two weeks ago" HOWARD FlELDING..