{"id":"01KG8AKCKM3PFKV0ZXG6E7F7QD","cid":"bafkreicwrq5ewkd7uzdkibfe6jnk6533pobf2h5ruhonvw5crv3a6efury","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5976,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":5902,"text":"together.\r\n\r\n\"William loves me this day as on the wedding-day, sir. Some hasty\r\nwords, but never a harsh one. I wish I were better and stronger for\r\nhis sake. And, oh! sir, both for his sake and mine\" (and the soft,\r\nblue, beautiful eyes turned into two well-springs), \"how I wish little\r\nWilliam and Martha lived--it is so lonely-like now. William named after\r\nhim, and Martha for me.\"\r\n\r\nWhen a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to\r\ndo nothing. I sat looking down on my as yet untasted pudding.\r\n\r\n\"You should have seen little William, sir. Such a bright, manly boy,\r\nonly six years old--cold, cold now!\"\r\n\r\nPlunging my spoon into the pudding, I forced some into my mouth to stop\r\nit.\r\n\r\n\"And little Martha--Oh! sir, she was the beauty! Bitter, bitter! but\r\nneeds must be borne!\"\r\n\r\nThe mouthful of pudding now touched my palate, and touched it with a\r\nmouldy, briny taste. The rice, I knew, was of that damaged sort sold\r\ncheap; and the salt from the last year's pork barrel.\r\n\r\n\"Ah, sir, if those little ones yet to enter the world were the same\r\nlittle ones which so sadly have left it; returning friends, not\r\nstrangers, strangers, always strangers! Yet does a mother soon learn\r\nto love them; for certain, sir, they come from where the others have\r\ngone. Don't you believe that, sir? Yes, I know all good people must.\r\nBut, still, still--and I fear it is wicked, and very black-hearted,\r\ntoo--still, strive how I may to cheer me with thinking of little\r\nWilliam and Martha in heaven, and with reading Dr. Doddridge\r\nthere--still, still does dark grief leak in, just like the rain through\r\nour roof. I am left so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long,\r\ndear William is gone; and all the damp day long grief drizzles and\r\ndrizzles down on my soul. But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and\r\nfor the rest, manage it as well as I may.\"\r\n\r\nBitter and mouldy is the \"Poor Man's Pudding,\" groaned I to myself,\r\nhalf choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go\r\ndown.\r\n\r\nI could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest\r\nsympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to\r\nwhich there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a\r\npersuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less\r\nto mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could\r\nhave dispelled, I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and\r\nhonorable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have\r\nbeen more than declined; charity resented.\r\n\r\nThe native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence,\r\nthough unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper,\r\nthey yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the\r\nworld. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our peculiar\r\npolitical principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a\r\nprosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the\r\nunfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little\r\nrandom relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with\r\nthe keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their\r\nideal of universal equality and their grindstone experience of the\r\npractical misery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is,\r\never has been, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England,\r\nand America.\r\n\r\nUnder pretense that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the\r\ndame good-by; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue,\r\nresigned eye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was,\r\nand damp, damp, damp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts\r\nof incipiencies--I yet became conscious by the suddenness of the\r\ncontrast, that the house air I had quitted was laden down with that\r\npeculiar deleterious quality, the height of which--insufferable to some\r\nvisitants--will be found in a poorhouse ward.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJZVNHJ252YX52GVGD86G","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKEX67JCBNGC9AQ8P3Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKMNCDCKHNAQA8QJGWB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.676Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.162Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}