o the cellar. Mr. Close is a fat man, but he ran like a jack-rabbit
to that water main, and shut it off. Then without daring to
face--Mary, he started to town for a plumber.

He had not been gone half an hour when the water-back blew up.
Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time, but the cleaning
woman turned from black to a dirty gray with fright, and without
further ado went home. I can't say that I blamed her. Aubrey was busy
putting out the furnace fire and bailing out the cellar, so he did not
know of that defection.

However, a culmination of such calamities, instead of smiting me to the
earth, aroused every drop of fighting blood in my whole body.

I went out on the porch to think it over, and as I thought I began to
laugh. I laughed until Aubrey heard me and thought I was crying. He
came hurrying out, with a face full of anxiety, saying, before he saw
me:

"Never mind, dear! I know this is hard on you, but--"

"Well, I'll be--!"

Both of those remarks were Aubrey's. He was much relieved, however, to
discover that I was not cast down by all these disasters. In fact, our
moving partook more of the delights of camping out than orthodox
housekeeping, and I soon discovered expedients.

The only fire which did not bid fair to blow our heads off was one in
the grate in the hall. On this we boiled water and made tea, and for
that first luncheon we satisfied ourselves with sardines and devilled
ham sandwiches. But as we were obliged to cook on that grate for six
days, I may as well record now that we grew into expert cooks,
attempting eggs in all forms, batter-cakes, hoe cakes, fried mush,
bacon, ham, chops, toast, and fried potatoes,--in fact, no woman knows
how much she can cook on a common little hard coal grate until three
hungry people are dependent on it for three meals a day.

We supplemented this by the chafing-dish. Aubrey says that I should
say the grate fire supplemented the chafing-dish, for nobody knows what
can be done with one--in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as
ours, until one has tried. It makes a perfect double boiler, and as
for a _bain Marie_, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and
when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I
used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato
part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot. Did you ever
try that?

The kitchen range was discovered to be ruined, t