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."