"
More than once--unbeknown to grandmother Ruth--I followed Addison in the
tub without changing the water. He had appreciably warmed it up. One
night Halstead twitted me about it at the supper table, and I recollect
that the lack of proper sensibility that I had shown scandalized the
entire family.
"Oh, Joseph!" grandmother often exclaimed to the old Squire. "We must
have some better way for these children to bathe. They are getting older
and larger, and I certainly cannot manage it much longer."
Things went on in that way for the first two years of our sojourn at the
old place--until after the old Squire had installed a hydraulic ram down
at the brook, which forced plenty of water up to the house and the
barns. Then, in October of the third year, the old gentleman bestirred
himself.
He had been as anxious as any one to improve our bathing facilities, but
it is not an easy job to add a bathroom to a farmhouse. He walked about
at the back of the house for hours, and made several excursions to a
hollow at a distance in the rear of the place, and also climbed to the
attic, all the while whistling softly:
"Roll on, Silver Moon,
Guide the traveler on his way.
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