{"id":"01KG8AM4QPSN48FZMZSPV9F40K","cid":"bafkreibua6lcqnsbjsnfb2euwtjhbqizs6bocz6q6o6k2etwtpqocawu5m","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6063,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":5997,"text":"‘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 fertilising\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 eggs\r\nare 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","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQ8D7NW8GVW8QE4DYG9","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM4QJRV4JG64P4K565N5C","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM4QP0HWM395XA8BRMPVM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:27.382Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.224Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}