The Magic Egg and Other Stories Part 27

"You don't seem to be a bit astonished at what has happened," said I.

She was rather a pretty girl, of a cheerful disposition, I should say, for several times she had smiled as she spoke.

"Oh, I am astonished," she answered; "or, at least, I was. But I have had time enough to get over some of it. It was at least an hour ago when I was awakened by hearing something crack in the yard. I went to a window and looked out, and could just barely see that something like a big building had grown up during the night. Then I watched it, and watched it, until I made out it was a whole house; and after that it was not long before I guessed what had happened. It seemed a simpler thing to me, you know, than it did to you, because I had often thought about it, and probably you never had."

"You are right there," said I, earnestly. "It would have been impossible for me to imagine such a thing."

"At first I thought there was n.o.body in the house," said she, "but when I heard some one moving about, I came down to tell whoever had arrived not to make a noise. I see," she added, with another of her smiles, "that you think I am a very strange person not to be more flurried by what has happened. But really I cannot think of anything else just now, except what mother will say and do when she comes down and finds you and your house here at the back door. I am very sure she will not like it."

"Like it!" I exclaimed. "Who on earth could like it?"

"Please speak more gently," she said. "Mother is always a little irritable when her night's rest has been broken, and I would not like to have her wakened up suddenly now. But really, Mr. Warren, I haven't the least idea in the world how she will take this thing. I must go in and be with her when she wakes, so that I can explain just what has happened."

"One moment," I said. "You know my name."

"Of course I know your name," she answered. "Could that house be up there on the hillside for more than a year without my knowing who lived in it?" With this she went indoors.

I could not help smiling when I thought of the young lady regretting that there was no man in the house who might help me do something.

What could anybody do in a case like this? I turned and went into my house. I entered the various rooms on the lower floor, and saw no signs of any particular damage, except that everything movable in each room was jumbled together against the front wall. But when I looked out of the back door I found that the porch there was a good deal wrecked, which I had not noticed before.

I went up-stairs, and found everything very much as it was below.

Nothing seemed to have been injured except the chimney and the porches.

I thanked my stars that I had used hard wood instead of mortar for the ceilings of my rooms.

I was about to go into my bedroom, when I heard a woman scream, and of course I hurried to the front. There on the back porch of her house stood Mrs. Carson. She was a woman of middle age, and, as I glanced at her, I saw where her daughter got her good looks. But the placidity and cheerfulness of the younger face were entirely wanting in the mother. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were red, her mouth was partly opened, and it seemed to me that I could almost see that her breath was hot.

"Is this your house?" she cried, the moment her eyes fell upon me.

"And what is it doing here?" I did not immediately answer, I looked at the angry woman, and behind her I saw, through the open door, the daughter crossing the hallway. It was plain that she had decided to let me have it out with her mother without interference. As briefly and as clearly as I could, I explained what had happened.

"What is all that to me?" she screamed. "It doesn't matter to me how your house got here. There have been storms ever since the beginning of the world, and I never heard of any of them taking a house into a person's back yard. You ought not to have built your house where any such thing could happen. But all this is nothing to me. I don't understand now how your house did get here, and I don't want to understand it. All I want is for you to take it away."

"I will do that, madam, just as soon as I can. You may be very sure I will do that. But--"

"Can you do it now?" she asked. "Can you do it to-day? I don't want a minute lost. I have not been outside to see what damage has been done, but the first thing to do is to take your house away."

"I am going to the town now, madam, to summon a.s.sistance."

Mrs. Carson made no answer, but she turned and walked to the end of her porch. There she suddenly gave a scream which quickly brought her daughter from the house. "Kitty! Kitty!" cried her mother. "Do you know what he has done? He has gone right over my round flower-garden.

His house is sitting on it this minute!"

"But he could not help it, mother," said Kitty.

"Help it!" exclaimed Mrs. Carson. "I didn't expect him to help it.

What I want--" Suddenly she stopped. Her eyes flashed brighter, her mouth opened wider, and she became more and more excited as she noticed the absence of the sheds, fences, or vegetable-beds which had found themselves in the course of my all-destroying dwelling.

It was now well on in the morning, and some of the neighbors had become aware of the strange disaster which had happened to me, although if they had heard the news from Mrs. Carson they might have supposed that it was a disaster which had happened only to her. As they gazed at the two houses so closely jammed together, all of them wondered, some of them even laughed, but not one offered a suggestion which afforded satisfaction to Mrs. Carson or myself. The general opinion was that, now my house was there, it would have to stay there, for there were not enough horses in the State to pull it back up that mountainside. To be sure, it might possibly be drawn off sidewise. But whether it was moved one way or the other, a lot of Mrs. Carson's trees would have to be cut down to let it pa.s.s.

"Which shall never happen!" cried that good lady. "If nothing else can be done, it must be taken apart and hauled off in carts. But no matter how it is managed, it must be moved, and that immediately." Miss Carson now prevailed upon her mother to go into the house, and I stayed and talked to the men and a few women who had gathered outside.

When they had said all they had to say, and seen all there was to see, these people went home to their breakfasts. I entered my house, but not by the front door, for to do that I would have been obliged to trespa.s.s upon Mrs. Carson's back porch. I got my hat, and was about to start for the town, when I heard my name called. Turning into the hall, I saw Miss Carson, who was standing at my front door.

"Mr. Warren," said she, "you haven't any way of getting breakfast, have you?"

"Oh, no," said I. "My servants are up there in their cabin, and I suppose they are too much scared to come down. But I am going to town to see what can be done about my house, and will get my breakfast there."

"It's a long way to go without anything to eat," she said, "and we can give you some breakfast. But I want to ask you something. I am in a good deal of perplexity. Our two servants are out at the front of the house, but they positively refuse to come in; they are afraid that your house may begin sliding again and crush them all, so, I shall have to get breakfast. But what bothers me is trying to find our well. I have been outside, and can see no signs of it."

"Where was your well?" I gasped.

"It ought to be somewhere near the back of your house," she said. "May I go through your hall and look out?"

"Of course you may," I cried, and I preceded her to my back door.

"Now, it seems to me," she said, after surveying the scene of desolation immediately before, and looking from side to side toward objects which had remained untouched, "that your house has pa.s.sed directly over our well, and must have carried away the little shed and the pump and everything above ground. I should not wonder a bit," she continued slowly, "if it is under your porch."

I jumped to the ground, for the steps were shattered, and began to search for the well, and it was not long before I discovered its round dark opening, which was, as Miss Carson had imagined, under one end of my porch.

"What can we do?" she asked. "We can't have breakfast or get along at all without water." It was a terribly depressing thing to me to think that I, or rather my house, had given these people so much trouble.

But I speedily, a.s.sured Miss Carson that if she could find a bucket and a rope which I could lower into the well, I would provide her with water.

She went into her house to see what she could find, and I tore away the broken planks of the porch, so that I could get to the well. And then, when she came with a tin pail and a clothes-line, I went to work to haul up water and carry it to her back door.

"I don't want mother to find out what has happened to the well," she said, "for she has enough on her mind already."

Mrs. Carson was a woman with some good points in her character. After a time she called to me herself, and told me to come in to breakfast.

But during the meal she talked very earnestly to me about the amazing trespa.s.s I had committed, and about the means which should be taken to repair the damages my house had done to her property. I was as optimistic as I could be, and the young lady spoke very cheerfully and hopefully about the affair, so that we were beginning to get along somewhat pleasantly, when, suddenly, Mrs. Carson sprang to her feet.

"Heavens and earth!" she cried, "this house is moving!"

She was not mistaken. I had felt beneath my feet a sudden sharp shock--not severe, but unmistakable. I remembered that both houses stood upon slightly sloping ground. My blood turned cold, my heart stood still; even Miss Carson was pale.

When we had rushed out of doors to see what had happened, or what was going to happen, I soon found that we had been needlessly frightened.

Some of the broken timbers on which my house had been partially resting had given way, and the front part of the building had slightly descended, jarring as it did so the other house against which it rested. I endeavored to prove to Mrs. Carson that the result was encouraging rather than otherwise, for my house was now more firmly settled than it had been. But she did not value the opinion of a man who did not know enough to put his house in a place where it would be likely to stay, and she could eat no more breakfast, and was even afraid to stay under her own roof until experienced mechanics had been summoned to look into the state of affairs.

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 a.s.sured 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 windla.s.s 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.