the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured
under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick
buildings. And be it the moral of my story that, as this wasted and
long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues
of cold water--too little valued since your fathers' days--be
recognized by all.

Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence and
spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this
teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or
somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than
the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on
the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened
with a gallon or two apiece and they can afford time to breathe it in
with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around
the brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. An ox is your true toper.

But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the
remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of
modesty if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own
multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you
think of me, the better men and women you will find yourselves. I
shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days, though on
that account alone I might call myself the household god of a hundred
families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at
the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to
keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight
bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the
town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and
ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth