Samantha at Saratoga [32]
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 5 cents. 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. But I took him by the vest and whispered to him, sez I, "Josiah Allen, do you want to die, because you can die cheap? Why," sez I, "it will kill you to drink so much." "But think of the cheapness on't Samantha! The chance I have of getting the worth of my money." But I whispered back to him in anxus axents and told him, that I guessed if funeral expenses wuz added to that 5 cents it wouldn't come so cheap,