“Henry, I know what I need.”
“A glass of water, Dear?” He began
to sit up.
“I need an automaton.”
“An automaton?” said Henry. “Why ever
would you—”
“I am too indisposed to keep up
with the housework, Henry. One of M. Tuttle’s Home Help Automatons is quite
what I need.”
“Dear,” said Henry. “You’ve seen
the types of people that come out of that shop with automatons. Gentlemen and
bankers. Solicitors. Not people like us. Not common folk. Why…I can’t begin to
imagine the cost of an automaton.”
“Of course. Of course.”
Henry rolled over and went back to
sleep, and Ruth did, too.
However, the next day, when Ruth
felt well enough to arise, yet unwell enough to attend to any of the household
chores, she put her mind to it and managed to get dressed and walk across the
street. She paused in front of M. Tuttle’s Home Help Automaton shop, eye-to-eye
with the display automaton on the sidewalk. It was an ugly thing, indeed, with
its dull, metal waistcoat and its rusted metal boots, its single, central eye
and its metal hook hands. If one could call them hands. She began to have
reservations about moving such a thing into their household, until she
remembered the coal dust on the carpets and the cobwebs in the corners. Ruth
turned away from the automaton, and pushed open the door.
She found herself alone in the
small shop, alone—amongst piles of cast-off tea kettles, carriage wheels,
trumpets and buckets, shovels and pick axes. On one side of the shop, there was
a tremendously long curio cabinet that stretched from near the front window of
the shop to very near the back wall. She peered through the glass and saw
several flutes, dozens of mouth organs, and a wondrous array of jewelry. The
piercing shrill of a steam jet caused Ruth to jerk her head around to find its
source, and she watched as a person in a long leather apron emerged from a door
on the back wall.
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