kin and have to take it a little sip at a time if you
don't want to be scalded.

Josiah had disputed with me about the waters being so hot. He said it
didn't look reasonable to him that bilin' hot water would flow out of
the cold ground, and he knowed they had told stories about it. "Why,"
sez he, "if it wuz hot when it started it would git cooled off goin'
through the cold earth."

But I sez: "They say so, Josiah--them that have been there."

"Well," sez he, "you can hear anything. I don't believe a word on't."

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 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