Читать книгу New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor - Arthur George Crandall - Страница 13

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Not far from the scenes of the above comedy, there lived on a little farm, an elderly man of very thrifty habits. He took great pride in the maple sugar he produced. Deciding to have the family supply all in one large receptacle, he had a can made by a local tinsmith to contain two or three hundred pounds of the finest maple sugar. This was filled at the proper season and stored in an attic at the head of a long flight of stairs. Several people of the vicinity were invited to inspect that new sugar tub and its contents.

One day a great misfortune came to the farm. The house caught on fire. There was very little water available with which to fight it and it made rapid headway. It was soon evident that there was no hope of saving the building, so sympathetic neighbors helped to remove such of the contents of the house as could be carried out before it was too late. The old man was naturally much broken up and while they were looking upon the ruins, expressed his regret that he had lost that tub of sugar. Someone said:

“I thought you were up there in the attic. Why didn’t you roll it down stairs?”

The old man turned a rueful countenance and said:

“I thought of doing that, but I was afraid it would jam the tub up to let it bump down those stairs.”