第25章 SEEING THE DIFFERENT SPRINGS(1)

Immegeatly after dinner (a good one) Josiah Allen, Ardelia Tutt and me sot out to view and look at the different springs and to partake of the same.We hadn't drinked a drop of it as yet.

Ardelia had come over to go with us.She had on a kind of a yellowish drab dress and a hat made of the same, with some drab and blue bows of ribbon and some pink holly-hawks in it, and she had some mits on (her hands prespired dretfully, and she sweat easy).As I have said, she is a good lookin' girl but soft.And most any dress she puts on kinder falls into the same looks.It may be quite a hard lookin' dress before she puts it on, but before she has wore it half a hour it will kinder crease down into the softest lookin, thing you ever see.And so with her bonnets, and mantillys, and everything.

The down onto a goslin's breast never looked softer than every rag she had on this very afternoon, and no tender goslin' itself wuz ever softer than she wuz on the inside on't.But that didn't hinder my likin' her.

Wall, anon, or a little before, we came to that long, long buildin', beautiful and dretful ornimental, but I could see plain by daylight what I had mistrusted before, that it wuzn't built for warmth.It must be dretful cold in the winter, and I don't see how the wimmen folks of the home could stand it, unless they hang up bed quilts and blankets round the side, and then, I should think they would freeze.They couldn't keep their house plants over winter any way - and I see they had sights of 'em - unless they kep' 'em down suller.

But howsumever, that is none of my lookout.If they want to be so fashionable, as to try to live out doors and in the house too, that is none of my business.And of course it looked dretful ornimental and pretty.But I will say this, it haint bein' mejum.

I should rather live either out doors, or in the house, one of the 2.But I am a eppisodin'.And to resoom.

Josiah Allen paid the money demanded of him and we went in and advanced onwards to where a boy wuz a pullin' up the water and handin' of it round.

It looked dretful bubblin' and sparklin'.Why sunthin' seemed to be a sparklin' up all the time in the water and I thought to myself mebby it wuz water thoughts, mebby it wanted to tell sunthin', mebby it has all through these years been a tryin' to bubble up and sparkle out in wisdom but haint found any one yet who could understand its liquid language.Who knows now?

I took my glass and looked close - sparkle, sparkle, up came the tiny thought sparks! But I wuzn't wise enough to read the glitterin' language.No I wuzn't deep enough.It would take a deep mind, mebby thousands of feet deep, to understand the great glowin' secret that it has been a tryin' to reveal and couldn't.

Mebby it has been a tryin' to tell of big diamond mines that it has passed through - great cliffs and crags of gold sot deep with the crystalized dew of diamonds.

But no, I didn't believe that wuz it.That wouldn't help the world, only to make it happier, and these seemed to me to be dretful inspirin', upliftin' thoughts.No, mebby it is a tryin'

to tell a cold world about a way to heat it.Mebby it has been a runnin' over and is sparklin' with bright thoughts about how deep underneath the earth lay a big fireplace, that all the cold beggars of mortality could set round and warm their frozen fingers by, - a tryin' to tell how the heat of that fire that escapes now up the chimbleys of volcanoes, and sometimes in sudden drafts blows out sideways into earthquakes, etc., could be utilized by conveyin' it up on top of the ground, and have it carried into the houses like Croton water.Who knows now? Mebby that is it!

Oh! I felt that it would be a happy hour for Samantha when she could bile her potatoes by the heat of that large noble fire-place.

And more than that, far more wuz the thought that heat might become, in the future, as cheap as cold.That the little cold hands that freeze every winter in the big cities, could be stretched out before the big generous warmth of that noble fire-place.And who built that fire in the first place? Who laid the first sticks on the handirons, and put the match to it? Who wuz it that did it, and how did he look, and when wuz he born, and why, and where?

These, and many other thoughts of similar size and shape, filled my brane almost full enough to lift up the bunnet, that reposed gracefully on my foretop, as I stood and held the sparklin' glass in my hands.

Sparkle! sparkle! sparkle! what wuz it, it wuz a tryin' to say to me and couldn't? Good land! I couldn't tell, and Josiah couldn't, I knew instinctively he couldn't, though I didn't ask him.

No, I turned and looked at that beloved man, for truly I had for the time bein' been by the side of myself, and I see that he wuz a drinkin' lavishly of the noble water.I see that he wuz a drinkin' more than wuz for his good, his linement showed it, and sez I, for he wuz a liftin' another tumbler full onto his lips, sez I, "Pause, Josiah Allen, and don't imbibe too much.""Why," he whispered, "you can drink all you are a mind to for 5cents.I am bound for once, Samantha Allen, to get the worth of my money."And he drinked the tumbler full down at one swoller almost, and turned to the weary boy for another.He looked bad, and eager, and sez I, "How many have you drinked?"Sez he, in a eager, animated whisper, "9." And he whispered in the same axents, "5 times 9 is 45 ; if it had been to a fair, or Fourth of July, or anything, it would have cost me 45 cents, and if it had been to a church social - lemme see - 9 times 10 is 90.

It would have cost me a dollar bill! And here I am a havin' it all for 5 cents.Why," sez he, "I never see the beat on't in my life."And ag'in he drinked a tumbler full down, and motioned to the frightened boy for another.