And so in pursuance of his plan and to keep up his dignity he wouldn’t take a napkin with his mug of water, but took holt on’t with his naked hand and took a big swaller right down scaldin’ hot.
He sot the mug down sudden and put his bandanna to his mouth, and I believe spit out the most on’t. He looked as if he wuz sufferin’ the most excruciating agony, and I sez:
“Open your mouth, Josiah, and I will fan it.”
“Fan your grandmother!” sez he. “I didn’t like the taste on’t, Samantha; it most sickened me.”
But I sez: “Josiah Allen, do you want some liniment on your hand and your tongue? I know they pain you dretfully.”
Sez he, smilin’ a dretful wapeish smile: “It is sickish tastin’ stuff.” And he wouldn’t give in any further and 418 didn’t, though I knew for days his mouth wuz tender, and he flinched when he took anything hot into it.
As I would look dreamily into the Bubblin’ Well I would methink how I do wish I knowed how and where you come to be so hot, and I’d think how much it could tell if it would bubble up and speak so’s we could understand it. Mebby it wuz het in a big reservoir of solid gold and run some of the way through sluice ways of shinin’ silver and anon over beds of diamonds and rubies. How could I tell! but it kep’ silent and has been mindin’ its own bizness and runnin’ stiddy for over six hundred years that we know on and can’t tell how much longer.
Exceptin’ in the great earthquake at Lisbon about a hundred and fifty years ago, it stopped most still for a number of days, mebby through fright, but afer a few days it recovered itself and has kep’ on flowin’ stiddy ever since. It wuz named for Charles IV., who they say discovered it, Charle’s Bath or Carlsbad. His statute stands in the market-place and looks quite well. Carlsbad has a population of twenty or thirty thousand, and over fifty thousand people visit Carlsbad every summer to drink of the waters. Drinking and walking is what the doctors prescribe and I d’no but what the walking in the invigorating mountain air does as much good as the water. The doctor generally makes you drink a glass about seven in the morning, then take a little walk, then drink another glass, and another little walk and so on until about eight, when you can go to the Swiss bakery and get the zwiebach or twice baked bread, which is handed you in a paper bag, and then you can go to some cafay on the sidewalk and get coffee or tea and boiled eggs and make out your breakfast. No butter is given you unless the doctor orders it. That madded Josiah and he said they kep’ it back because they wuz clost and wanted to save. He is a great case for butter.
And then after resting for an hour, you go for a walk up the mountains, or if you are too weak to walk, you can 419 get a cart and a donkey, the driver walking alongside; up the shady paths you will go, resting anon or oftener at some pleasant summer house or cafay. At one you have your dinner, you can get it anywhere along your way or go back to your tarven for it; Josiah and I generally went back and got our dinner at the tarven and rested for a while. After dinner, folks generally go for another walk, but Josiah and I and Tommy used often to go to the Sprudel Corridor and listen to first-rate music or to a garden concert nigh by.
It wuz a sight to set in the Sprudel Corridor and see the crowds of people go by, each one bearin’ a little mug in their hands or strapped over their shoulders. All sorts of lookin’ folks, handsome and humbly, tall and short, thick and thin, thousands and thousands of ’em a-goin’ every morning for their drink and walk, drink and walk. There are six or eight little girls at each of these springs who hand the water to the guests and they have to work spry to keep ’em all supplied.