I told Josiah I didn’t believe that. Sez I, “I believe the waters are good, very good, and the air is healthy here in the extreme, but I don’t believe that.”
But he said it wuz a fact, and the feller said he could prove it. “Why,” Josiah sez, “with the minerals there is in that spring, if you only take enough of it, I don’t see how anybody can die.” And sez Josiah, “I am a goin’ to jest live on that water while I am here.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you must do as you are a mind to, with fear and tremblin’.”
I thought mebby quotin’ Scripture to him would kinder quell him down, for he wuz fearfully agitated and wrought up about the Everlastin’ spring. And he begun at once to calculate on it, on how much he could drink of it, if he begun early in the mornin’ and drinked late at night.
But I kep’ on megum. I drinked the waters that seemed to help me and made me feel better, but wuz megum in it, and didn’t get over excited about any on ’em. But oh! oh! the quantities of that water that Josiah Allen took! Why, it seemed as if he would make a perfect shipwreck of his own body, and wash himself away, till one day he came in fearful excited agin, and sez he, in agitated axents, “I made a mistake, Samantha. The Immortal spring is the one for me.”
“Why?” sez I.
“Oh, I have jest seen a feller that has been a tellin’ me about it.”
“What did he say?” sez I, in calm axents.
“Wall, I’ll tell you. It has acted on my feelin’s dretful.” Says he, “I have shed some tears.” (I see Josiah Allen had been a cryin’ when he came in.)
And I sez agin, “What is it?”