“Perhaps so,” said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the damp flakes from my chest. “It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of ‘Poor Man’s Manure’ off poor Coulter’s two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder on rich Squire Teamster’s twenty-acre field?”
“Ah! to be sure—yes—well; Coulter’s field, I suppose is sufficiently moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you know.”
“Yes,” replied I, “of this sort of damp fare,” shaking another shower of the damp flakes from my person. “But tell me, this warm spring snow may answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of the long, long winters here?”
“Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?—‘The Lord giveth snow like wool’; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but warm, too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among its fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field when covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it several degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter’s snow itself is beneficent; under the pretense of frost—a sort of gruff philanthropist—actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be fertilizingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March.”
“I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your benevolent heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this ‘Poor Man’s Manure.’”
“But that is not all,” said Blandmour, eagerly. “Did you never hear of the ‘Poor Man’s Eye-water’?”
“Never.”
“Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind provision is that!”
“Then ‘Poor Man’s Manure’ is ‘Poor Man’s Eye-water’ too?”
“Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing answering two ends—ends so very distinct.”