Robert Strong and Dorothy enjoyed Carlsbad the best that ever wuz. I don't think they sot so much store by the water as they did the long mountain walks. Everybody here becomes a mountain climber. The doctors here agree that this exercise is a great means of cure, and they make the climbing easy and delightful. There are over thirty miles of good roads over the mountains and around Carlsbad, and as you climb upwards anon or even oftener you come to pretty little pavilions where you can rest and look off onto the delightful scenery, and every little while you'll come to a place where you can git good refreshments to refresh you. The Sprudel, or Bubbling Well, bubbles over in a stream of almost boiling hot water five or six inches in diameter. It is so hot that you can't handle the mugs it is served in with your naked hand, you hold it by a napkin 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.