{"id":"01KG6YH4FXC3P2EQ0HKHNQ5CRT","cid":"bafkreidyyjdleatvrkhmvva6ubuwon642er4ebaadgghttbzl6jjby3gqm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5743,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 14","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":5674,"text":"answering two ends--ends so very distinct.\"\r\n\r\n\"Very distinct, indeed.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have\r\nbeen talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year\r\nround--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilizing\r\nquality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did\r\nyou ever hear of a 'Poor Man's Egg'?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never. What is that, now?\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where\r\neggs are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs\r\nmay be had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a\r\ncup of cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a 'Poor Man's\r\nEgg.' And 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;\r\nan alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and\r\nso, being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest 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\r\na rich man's, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is:\r\nthat, through 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\r\nwe had several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the\r\ncountry, for the benefit of my health), suffice it that acting upon\r\nBlandmour's hint, I introduced myself into Coulter's house on a wet\r\nMonday noon (for the snow had thawed), under the innocent pretense of\r\ncraving a pedestrian'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\r\nher good man's return from a deep wood about a mile distant among the\r\nhills, where he was chopping by day's work--seventy-five cents per day\r\nand found himself. The washing being done outside the main building,\r\nunder an infirm-looking old shed, the dame stood upon a half-rotten\r\nsoaked board to protect her feet, as well as might be, from the\r\npenetrating damp of the bare ground; hence she looked pale and chill.\r\nBut her paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness\r\nof a mother to be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched\r\nbeneath the mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But\r\nshe smiled upon me, as apologizing for the unavoidable disorder of a\r\nMonday and a washing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me\r\ndown in the best seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled\r\nconstitution.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 14"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGKG15EQNWSZXFWPM05","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH3QH7WBHG2KYWDNKJAF5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH4FS11GH2C0ZDZD1JJF3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:51.485Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.951Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}