{"id":"01KG6G84AMX5PDVY9P759XPZJ5","cid":"bafkreihvkawkkk7tmzzdrcdaofr5l5a2z6fkgpfzjpn7tyj3ywodpcen7i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6081,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":6008,"text":"are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs may be\r\nhad in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a cup of\r\ncold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a “Poor Man’s Egg.”\r\nAnd many rich men’s housekeepers sometimes use it.’\r\n\r\n‘But only when they are out of hen’s eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour.\r\nBut your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on.’\r\n\r\n‘Then there’s “Poor Man’s Plaster” for wounds and other bodily harms; an\r\nalleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and so,\r\nbeing very cheap, is accessible to the poorest of sufferers. Rich men\r\noften use “Poor Man’s Plaster.”’\r\n\r\n‘But not without the judicious advice of a fee’d physician, dear\r\nBlandmour.’\r\n\r\n‘Doubtless, they first consult the physician; but that may be an\r\nunnecessary precaution.’\r\n\r\n‘Perhaps so. I do not gainsay it. Go on.’\r\n\r\n‘Well, then, did you ever eat of a “Poor Man’s Pudding”?’\r\n\r\n‘I never so much as heard of it before.’\r\n\r\n‘Indeed! Well, now you shall eat of one; and you shall eat it, too, as\r\nmade, unprompted, by a poor man’s wife, and you shall eat it at a poor\r\nman’s table, and in a poor man’s house. Come now, and if after this\r\neating, you do not say that a “Poor Man’s Pudding” is as relishable as a\r\nrich man’s, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is: that,\r\nthrough kind Nature, the poor, out of their very poverty, extract\r\ncomfort.’\r\n\r\nNot to narrate any more of our conversations upon this subject (for we\r\nhad several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the country,\r\nfor the benefit of my health), suffice it that, acting upon Blandmour’s\r\nhint, I introduced myself into Coulter’s house on a wet Monday noon (for\r\nthe snow had thawed), under the innocent pretence of craving a\r\npedestrian’s rest and refreshment for an hour or two.\r\n\r\nI was greeted, not without much embarrassment--owing, I suppose, to my\r\ndress--but still with unaffected and honest kindness. Dame Coulter was\r\njust leaving the wash-tub to get ready her one o’clock meal against her\r\ngood man’s return from a deep wood about a mile distant among the hills,\r\nwhere he was chopping by day’s-work--seventy-five cents per day and\r\nfound himself. The washing being done outside the main building, under\r\nan infirm-looking old shed, the dame stood upon a half-rotten, soaked\r\nboard to protect her feet, as well as might be, from the penetrating\r\ndamp of the bare ground; hence she looked pale and chill. But her\r\npaleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness of a\r\nmother-to-be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched beneath\r\nthe mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But she smiled\r\nupon me, as apologising for the unavoidable disorder of a Monday and a\r\nwashing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me down in the\r\nbest seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled constitution.\r\n\r\nI thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low fire,\r\nand--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the room,\r\nwhile the good woman, throwing on more sticks, said she was sorry the\r\nroom was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly,\r\nhowever--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire\r\nTeamster’s forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the\r\nliving tree for the Squire’s fires. It needed not her remark, whatever\r\nit was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some being\r\nquite mossy and toad-stooled with long lying bedded among the\r\naccumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and\r\nvain spluttering enough.\r\n\r\n‘You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least,’ said the dame;\r\n‘what I have you are heartily welcome to.’\r\n\r\nI thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the\r\nleast, but go on with her usual affairs.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6Q5Y5Q2MTRK1KS8VAV8N","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G84APJK4Z04FS3QY90ZEY","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G84ATBPJ52ZYDBC5PS78H","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.340Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:28.200Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}