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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition, by
+Marietta Holley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
+
+Author: Marietta Holley
+
+Release Date: May 19, 2004  [eBook #12386]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS
+EXPOSITION***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION
+
+BY
+
+JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE (MARIETTA HOLLEY)
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY CH. GRUNWALD
+
+1904
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+[Transcriber's note: These are the captioned halftone illustrations.
+There are several other uncaptioned line drawings.]
+
+He showed 'em in a careless way as much as fifteen dollars in cash
+
+Josiah's good nater returnin' with every mouthful he took
+
+It is the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and
+to
+
+"I hain't Theodore. I'm President of a Gas Company."
+
+She laid her pretty head in my lap, sobbin' out, "What shall I do? What
+shall I do?"
+
+Good land! I couldn't sort 'em out and describe them that passed by in
+an hour. _Frontispiece_
+
+
+
+
+
+SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+I had noticed for some time that Josiah Allen had acted queer. He would
+seem lost in thought anon or oftener, and then seemin'ly roust himself
+up and try to act natural.
+
+And anon he would drag his old tin chest out from under the back
+stairway and pour over musty old deeds and papers, drawed up by his
+great-grandpa mebby.
+
+He did this last act so often that I said to him one day, "What under
+the sun do you find in them yeller old papers to attract you so,
+Josiah?"
+
+But he looked queer at me, queer as a dog, as if he wuz lookin' through
+me to some distant view that interested him dretfully, and answered
+evasive, and mebby he wouldn't answer at all.
+
+And then I'd see him and Uncle Sime Bentley, his particular chum, with
+their heads clost together, seemin'ly plottin' sunthin' or ruther,
+though what it wuz I couldn't imagine.
+
+And then they would bend their heads eagerly over the daily papers, and
+more'n once Josiah got down our old Olney's Atlas and he and Uncle Sime
+would pour over it and whisper, though what it wuz about I couldn't
+imagine. And if I'd had the curosity of some wimmen it would drove me
+into a caniption fit.
+
+And more'n a dozen times I see him and Uncle Sime down by the back
+paster on the creek pacin' to and fro as if they wuz measurin' land. And
+most of all they seemed to be measurin' off solemn like and important
+the lane from the creek lot up to the house and takin' measurements, as
+queer lookin' sights as I ever see, and then they would consult the
+papers and atlas agin, and whisper and act.
+
+And about this time he begun to talk to me about the St. Louis
+Exposition. He opened the subject one day by remarkin' that he spozed I
+had never hearn of the Louisana Purchase. He said that the minds of
+females in their leisure hours bein' took up by more frivolous things,
+such as tattin' and crazy bed-quilts, he spozed that I, bein' a female
+woman, had never hearn on't.
+
+And my mind bein' at that time took up in startin' the seams in a blue
+and white sock I wuz knittin' for him, didn't reply, and he went on and
+talked and talked about it.
+
+But good land! I knowed all about the Louisana Purchase; I knowed it
+come into our hands in 1803, that immense tract of land, settlin'
+forever in our favor the war for supremacy on this continent between
+ourselves and England, and givin' us the broad highway of the
+Mississippi to sail to and fro on which had been denied us, besides the
+enormous future increase in our wealth and population.
+
+I knowed that between 1700 and 1800 this tract wuz tossted back and
+forth between France and Spain and England some as if it wuz a immense
+atlas containing pictured earth and sea instead of the real land and
+water.
+
+It passed backwards and forwards through the century till 1803 when it
+bein' at the time in the hands of France, we bought it of Napoleon
+Bonaparte who had got possession of it a few years before, and Heaven
+only knows what ambitious dreams of foundin' a new empire in a new
+France filled that powerful brain, under that queer three-cornered hat
+of hisen when he got it of Spain.
+
+But 'tennyrate he sold it in 1803 to our country, the writin's bein'
+drawed up by Thomas Jefferson, namesake of our own Thomas Jefferson,
+Josiah's child by his first wife. Napoleon, or I spoze it would sound
+more respectful to call him Mr. Bonaparte, he wanted money bad, and he
+didn't want England to git ahead, and so he sold it to us.
+
+He acted some as Miss Bobbett did when she sot up her niece, Mahala Hen,
+in dressmakin' for fear Miss Henzy's girl would git all the custom and
+git rich. She'd had words with Miss Henzy and wanted to bring down her
+pride. And we bein' some like Miss Hen in sperit (she had had trouble
+with Miss Henzy herself, and wuz dretful glad to have Mahala sot up), we
+wuz more'n willin' to buy it of Mr. Bonaparte. You know he didn't like
+England, he had had words with her, and almost come to hands and blows,
+and it did come to that twelve years afterwards.
+
+But poor creeter! I never felt like makin' light of his reverses, for do
+not we, poor mortals! have to face our Waterloo some time durin' our
+lives, when we have fought the battle and lost, when the ground is
+covered with slain Hopes, Ambition, Happiness, when the music is
+stilled, the stringed instruments and drums broken to pieces, or givin'
+out only wailin' accompaniments to the groans and cries of the dyin'
+layin' low in the dust.
+
+We marched onward in the mornin' mebby with flyin' colors towards
+Victory, with gaily flutterin' banners and glorious music. Then come the
+Inevitable to crush us, and though we might not be doomed to a desert
+island in body, yet our souls dwell there for quite a spell.
+
+Till mebby we learn to pick up what is left of value on the lost field,
+try to mend the old instruments that never sound as they did before. Sew
+with tremblin' fingers the rents in the old tattered banners which Hope
+never carries agin with so high a head, and fall into the ranks and
+march forward with slower, more weary steps and our sad eyes bent toward
+the settin' sun.
+
+But to stop eppisodin' and resoom. I had hearn all about how it wuz
+bought and how like every new discovery, or man or woman worth while,
+the Purchase had to meet opposition and ridicule, though some prophetic
+souls, like Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Livingstone and others, seemed to look
+forward through the mists of the future and see fertile fields and
+stately cities filled with crowds of prosperous citizens, where wuz then
+almost impassable swamps and forests inhabited by whoopin' savages.
+
+And Mr. Bonaparte himself, let us not forgit in this proud year of
+fulfilled hopes and achievement and progress how he always seemed to set
+store by us and his words wuz prophetic of our nation's glorious
+destiny.
+
+I had knowed all about this but Josiah seemed to delight to instruct me
+as carefully as a mother would guide a prattlin' child jest beginnin' to
+walk on its little feet. And some times I would resent it, and some
+times when I wuz real good natured, for every human bein' no matter how
+high principled, has ebbs and flows in their moral temperatures, some
+times I would let him instruct me and take it meekly like a child
+learnin' its A-B abs.
+
+But to resoom. Day by day Josiah's strange actions continued, and at
+intervals growin' still more and more frequent and continuous he acted,
+till at last the truth oozed out of him like water out of a tub that has
+been filled too full, it wuz after an extra good meal that he confided
+in me.
+
+He said the big celebration of the Louisana Purchase had set him to
+thinkin' and he'd investigated his own private affairs and had
+discovered important facts that had made him feel that he too must make
+a celebration of the Purchase of the Allen Homestead.
+
+"On which we are now dwellin', Samantha," sez he. "Seventy-four acres
+more or less runnin' up to a stake and back agin, to wit, as the paper
+sez."
+
+Sez I, "You needn't talk like a lawyer to me, Josiah Allen, but tell me
+plain as a man and a deacon what you mean."
+
+"Well, I'm tellin' you, hain't I, fast as I can? I've found out by my
+own deep research (the tin trunk wuzn't more'n a foot deep but I didn't
+throw the trunk in his face), I've discovered this remarkable fact that
+this farm the very year of the Louisana Purchase came into the Allen
+family by purchase. My great-great-grandfather, Hatevil Allen, bought it
+of Ohbejoyful Gowdey, and the papers wuz signed the very day the other
+momentous purchase wuz made.
+
+"There wuz fourteen children in the family of old Hatevil, jest as many
+as there is States in the purchase they are celebratin' to St. Louis.
+
+"And another wonderful fact old Hatevil Allen paid jest the same amount
+for this farm that our Government paid for the Louisiana Purchase."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Josiah, that Hatevil Allen paid fifteen
+millions for this farm. Will you tell me that? You, a member of the
+meetin' house and a deacon?"
+
+"Well, what you might call the same, it is the same figgers with the six
+orts left out. Great-granther Allen paid fifteen dollars for this piece
+of land, it wuz all woods then."
+
+"Another of these most remarkable series of incidents that have ever
+took place on this continent, Thomas Jefferson wuz a main actor in the
+Louisana Purchase. He has left this spear some years ago, and who, who
+is the father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"
+
+I didn't say nothin', for I wuz engrossed in my knittin', I wuz jest
+turnin' the heel of his sock and needed my hull mind.
+
+"And," sez he, smitin' his breast agin, "I ask you, Samantha, who is the
+father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"
+
+I had by this time turned the heel and I sez, "Why, I spoze he's got the
+same father now he always had, children don't change their fathers very
+often as a general thing."
+
+"Well, you needn't be so grumpy about it. Don't you see that these
+wonderful coincidences are enough to apall a light-minded person. Why,
+I, even I with my cast iron strength of mind, have almost felt my brain
+stagger and reel as I onraveled the momentous affair.
+
+"And I am plannin' a celebration, Samantha, that will hist up the name
+of Allen where it ort to be onto the very top of Fame's towerin' pillow,
+and keep it in everlastin' remembrance.
+
+"And I, Samantha," and here he smote himself agin in the breast, "I,
+Josiah Allen, havin' exposed these circumstances, the most remarkable in
+American history, I lay out to name my show the Exposition of Josiah
+Allen. And I've thought some times that in order to mate mine with the
+St. Louis show, as you may say, I'd mebby ort to call myself St.
+Josiah."
+
+"Saint Josiah!" sez I, and my axent wuz that icy cold that he shivered
+imperceptibly and added hastily, "Well, we will leave that to the future
+to decide."
+
+"But," sez he firmly, spruntin' up agin, "if the nation calls on me to
+name myself thus I shall respond, and expose myself at my Exposition as
+Saint Josiah."
+
+Sez I anxiously, "I wouldn't expose myself too much, Josiah. You
+remember the pa that took his weak-minded child to the ball, and told
+him to set still and not speak or they would find him out.
+
+"And they asked him question after question and he didn't say a word,
+and finally they begun to scoff at him and told him he wuz a fool, and
+he called out, 'Father, father, they've found me out.'"
+
+Josiah sez snappishly, "What you mean by bringin' that old chestnut up I
+cant see."
+
+"Well," sez I, "I shan't sew the moral on any tighter." But he kep' on
+ignorin' my sarcastick allusion.
+
+"To keep up the train of almost miraclous incidents marchin' along
+through the past connecting the St. Louis and the Allen Purchase like
+historical twins, I'm goin' to spend on the Exposition of Josiah Allen
+jest the amount paid for the other original purchase, and I may, for
+there is no tellin' what a Allen may do when his blood is rousted up, I
+may swing right out and pay jest the same amount St. Louis is payin' for
+her Exposition."
+
+"Fifty millions!" sez I with emotions of or--or to think I had a pardner
+that would tell such a gigantic falsehood, and instinctively I thought
+of a story I'd hearn Thomas Jefferson tell the evenin' before.
+
+He said three commercial travelers wuz talkin' before an old man from
+the country whose loose fittin' clothes were gently scattered with
+hay-seed. The first one told with minute particulars of a Western
+cyclone that had lifted a house and sot it down in a neighborin'
+township. The next one said that he wuz knowin' to the circumstances and
+how the cyclone swep back and brought the suller and sot it down under
+the house. And the third one remembered vividly how the cyclone went
+back the second time and brought the hole the suller left and
+distributed it round under the new site.
+
+The old man listened with deep interest, and said he wuz glad he'd had
+the privelige of hearin' 'em, for their talk had cleared up a Bible
+verse he'd long pondered over.
+
+They wuz astounded to think their talk had awakened religious
+meditations. But the old gentleman said their conversation had cleared
+up that passage where it said:
+
+"Annanias come forth."
+
+He said it wuz now plain to him that it meant that these three drummers
+should stand before Annanias, the Prince of Liars, he takin' his place
+behind 'em, the fourth in the rank of liars.
+
+But this is neither here or there I only mention it as comin' into my
+mind instinctively and onbeknown to myself as I hearn Josiah Allen's
+remark, it came and went, as thoughts will, like a lightning flash, even
+as I wuz repeatin' the words agin in wonderment and horrow.
+
+"Fifty million dollars!"
+
+"No, I said to you, Samantha, that in our conversation we would leave
+out the orts, fifty dollars wuz what I meant. But as I said this is what
+I've thought when my brain wuz fired with ambition and glory of histin'
+the name of Allen up where it ort to be and will be. But when my blood
+has quieted down and I took a dispassionate view of the affair I have
+thought it would be more in keepin' with the old traditions of the Allen
+family, to spend jest fifteen, I can do a noble job with Uncle Sime's
+help and Ury's, with exactly the same sum that wuz paid for these
+purchases."
+
+I see he wuz jest bound to ignore the millions. But I knowed it wouldn't
+do any good to keep twittin' him of it. And then he went on to describe
+more fully the Exposition of Josiah Allen that he'd been plottin' for
+weeks and weeks. He said that he and uncle Sime had used up two hull
+pads of writin' paper at a cost of five cents each, plannin' and
+figurin'. But he didn't begrech the outlay, he said. He wuz layin' out
+to have the lower paster used as a tentin' ground for the hull Allen
+race, and the Gowdeys if he decided they wuz worthy to jine in, he
+hadn't settled on that yet. The cow paster wuz to be used for
+Equinomical and Agricultural displays and also Peaceful Industries and
+Inventions, and the lane leadin' up to the barn from the lower paster he
+laid out to use as a Pike for all sorts of amusements, pitchin' quaits,
+bull-in-the-barnyard, turnin' hand-springs and summer sets, etc., etc.
+
+Sez I coldly, "It would draw quite a crowd to see you and Deacon Gowdey
+standin' on your two old bald heads turnin' a summer set."
+
+"Oh, I laid out to have younger people in such thrillin' seens, Ury and
+others." And then he went on to describe at length his Peaceful Industry
+Show.
+
+I couldn't sot still to hear it only I felt I wanted to know the worst
+and cope with it as a surgeon probes to the quick in order to cure.
+
+He thought he could git Aunt Huldy Wood, who wove carpets, to set up her
+loom for a few days under the big but-nut tree, and be weavin' there
+before the crowds. He said she wuz a peaceful old critter and would show
+off well in it. And Bildad Shoecraft, another good-natured creeter, he
+could bring his shoe-making bench and be tappin' boots. He could not
+only show off but make money at the same time, for he spozed that many a
+boot would be wore down to the quick walkin' round viewin' the
+attractions. And Blandina Teeter he spozed she could run my sewin'
+machine under the sugar maple. And he thought mebby I would set out
+under the slippery ellum makin' ginger cookies or fryin' nut-cakes, in
+either capacity he said I wuz a study for an artist and would draw
+crowds.
+
+"The wife of Josiah Allen fryin' nut-cakes, what a sound it would have
+through the world."
+
+"No, Josiah," sez I, "I shan't try to fry nut-cakes in a open lot
+without ingregients or fire."
+
+"Well, mebby you'd ruther be one of the attractions of the Pike,
+Samantha. I hain't goin' to limit you to one thing. As the pardner of
+the originator of this stupengous scheme you are entitled to respect.
+There is where Napoleon, the other great actor in these twin dramas,
+missed it, he didn't use his wife as he ort to. But jest see the
+wonderful similarity in these cases. He had two step-children; the wife
+of Josiah had two; I am smaller in statute than my wife; so wuz
+Napoleon."
+
+"You spoke of your Peaceful Inventions, Josiah," sez I, wantin' to git
+his mind off, for truly I begun to fairly feel sick to the stomach to
+hear his talk about himself and the Great Conqueror.
+
+"Oh, yes, Samantha, that in itself will be worth double the price of
+admission."
+
+"Then you expect to ask pay, Josiah?"
+
+"Certainly, why not? Do they not ask pay at the twin celebration?
+
+"But you spoke of inventions; I shall let the rest of the Allens show
+off. Lots of 'em have invented things, but of course my inventions will
+rank number one. There is my button on the suller door I cut it out of
+an old boot leg. Who ever hearn of a leather button before, and it works
+well if you don't want to fasten the door tight. Then there is that self
+actin' hen-coop of mine that lets a stick fall down and shuts the door
+when the hen walks up the ladder."
+
+"But no hen has ever clim the ladder yet, Josiah."
+
+"No, perhaps they hain't yet, but I'm expectin' to see 'em every day,
+'tennyrate paint that coop a bright red and yaller and it will attract a
+crowd.
+
+"And then there is that travelin' rat trap of brother Henzy's, you know
+his grandmother wuz an Allen, I shall mayhap let him appear. And then
+there is all my farmin' implements and the rest of the Allen's I lay out
+to be just to all, and let 'em all come and show off in my Agricultural
+show.
+
+"But of course there has got to be a head to it; Napoleon wuz the head
+of the other Purchase, and I'm the head of this. In short, Samantha, I
+am _It_."
+
+Oh, how full of pride and vain glory he wuz, and I knowed such feelin's
+would have to be brung down for his spiritual good. I realized it as he
+went on,
+
+"I tell you, Napoleon and I would have made a span, Samantha, if he
+could been spared till now."
+
+Oh how shamed I wuz to hear such talk, but I sot demute for reasons
+named, and he sez agin, "I thought mebby you would want to be one of the
+attractions of the Pike, Samantha; I lay out to have livin' statutes
+adornin' the side of the lane leadin' up from the beaver medder to the
+horse trough."
+
+"Livin' statutes!" sez I, coldly, "I don't know what you mean by them."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Why, I thought for a few cents I could git a lot of children and old
+folks to be white-washed for a day or two and pose as statutes. It would
+be a new thing and a crackin' good idee, for livin' statutes that can
+wink, and bow, and talk, and walk round some, I don't believe wuz ever
+hearn on before."
+
+"No indeed," sez I, "but I can tell you, Josiah Allen, I've played many
+strange parts in the role of life at your request, but I tell you once
+for all I shall never, _never_ be whitewashed and set up for a statute,
+you can set your mind to rest on that to once."
+
+"Mebby you'd ruther be a Historical Tabloo, Samantha; I lay out to have
+beautiful ones, and I thought I wouldn't confine myself to the States,
+but would branch out and have the foreign nations represented
+figuratively.
+
+"A naval battle between Russia and Japan would draw; if I could fix some
+floats on the creek my stun boat could represent Russia, and Deacon
+Huffer's Japan, I jest as lives mine would be blowed up and sunk as not,
+'tain't good for much. And if I did have that I would have the Russian
+Bear set on the shore growlin', and the Powers furder back lookin'
+pleasantly on. You might be a Power, Samantha, if you wuzn't a female."
+
+"No, thank you, Josiah, I don't hanker after the responsibility for good
+or evil that ort to hang onto a Power."
+
+"I'd be the Russian Bear myself, Samantha, with our old buffalo robe,
+only I've got everything else to do; I could grasp holt of things and
+squeeze 'em tight and growl and paw first rate."
+
+"I wouldn't try to take that Russian Bear's job of graspin' and growlin'
+and pawin' onto me, Josiah, if I wuz in your place; it would tucker
+anybody out."
+
+"The Eagle of France," sez he dreamily, "could be represented in reduced
+form, as artists say, by Solomon Bobbett's old Bramy rooster with some
+claws tied on. And Scotland, the land knows there is thistles enough
+along the cow path to represent her if they're handled right. And for
+Ireland I might have two fellers fightin' with shelalays, Ury could make
+the shelalays if he had a pattern."
+
+I knit away with a look of cold mockery on my face that I spose worried
+him, for he sez, "I wish I could git you interested in my show,
+Samantha. Mebby you'd want to represent Britanny scourin' the blue seas,
+you always thought so much of the Widder Albert. You could enact it in
+the creek where the water is shaller. You've got a long scrubbin' brush,
+I always thought you looked some like Britanny, and you do scrub and
+scour so beautiful, Samantha."
+
+"No, Josiah, you'll never git me into that scrape, not but what Britanny
+may need help with her scrubbin' brush. But I shan't catch my death cold
+makin' a fool of myself by tacklin' that job."
+
+"Oh, you could wear my rubber boots. But I shall not urge the matter, I
+only thought we two countries are such clost friends and I wanted you to
+have the foremost character, but I can probable git someone else to
+enact it. But the strain is fearful on me, Samantha, to have everything
+go on as it should."
+
+His looks wuz strange. I could see that he wuz all nerved up, and his
+mind (what he had) wuz all wrought up to its highest tension; I knowed
+what happened when the tension to my sewin' machine wuz drawed too
+tight--it broke. And my machine wuz strong in comparison to some other
+things I won't mention out of respect to my pardner. I felt that I must
+be cautious and tread carefully if I would influence him for his good,
+so I brought forth the argument that seldom failed with him, and sez I:
+
+"If I hadn't no other reason for jinin' in these doin's, cookin' has got
+to be done and how can a statute or a Historical Tabloo bile potatoes
+and brile steak and make yeast emptin's bread perked up on a pedestal or
+posin' in the creek, and you know, Josiah, that no matter how fur
+ambition or vain glory may lead a man, his appetite has got to be
+squenched, and vittles has got to be cooked else how can he squench it."
+
+And to this old trustworthy weepon I held in all his different plans to
+inviggle me into his preposterous idees and found it answered better
+than reason or ridicule. But even this failed to break up his crazy
+plan. His hull mind (what he had) wuz sot on it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+I felt dretful and how I wuz goin' to break it up and git his mind off I
+couldn't tell; I talked it over with the children. They wuz goin' to be
+mortified to death by the idee if carried out and they told me in
+confidence and the woodhouse kitchen, "It must be stopped!"
+
+And I sez, "How is it goin' to be stopped? I've handled every weepon I
+know how to lay holt on. I've pompied him, cooked the very best of
+vittles, argued with him, eppisoded, but all to no use, he's as sot as a
+hen turkey on a brick bat, and I've got to the end of my chain."
+
+Sez Tirzah Ann, "Have you tried readin' historical novels to him?"
+
+"No," sez I, "I don't dast to be _too_ hash with him, your pa's health
+hain't what it wuz, I dassent take too hash measures."
+
+Sez she, "Have you tried readin' poetry?"
+
+"Yes," sez I, "I have read Pollock's Course of Time most through to him,
+and the biggest heft of 'Paradise Lost,' and I read the last named with
+deep feelin', I can tell you."
+
+"Didn't it do any good?"
+
+"Not a mite," sez I. "He would choke me off in the soarinest passages to
+boast about some crazy side-show at his Exposition."
+
+Tirzah Ann sithed and sez, "I don't know what can be done."
+
+Thomas J. is more practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some
+work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? Or in
+the house?"
+
+"Id'no," sez I. "He can't plow or reap in February or pick gooseberries
+or wash sheep. But I know what ort to be done in the house, I tried my
+best to git him at it in the fall, I do want a furnace and hot water
+pipes put in to heat the house. We most freeze these cold days, and it
+is too much for your pa when Ury is away to tend to the fires."
+
+"That's just the thing!" sez Thomas J., "get him interested in that and
+he will forgit all about the Allen Exposition by the time it is done."
+
+But I sez in a discouraged way, "If I couldn't git him at it in the fall
+Id'no how I'm goin' to now."
+
+"But it is worth tryin'," sez Thomas J., "for his scheme must be broke
+up, and if you git your furnace in now it will be all ready for another
+fall."
+
+"Well," sez I, "I can try." And so I begun that very night on a new
+tact, or ruther the old tact in a new way, I told him how sot Thomas J.
+wuz on our havin' a furnace and hot water pipes put in.
+
+Josiah thinks his eyes of his only son, and I see it kinder moved him,
+but he wouldn't give his consent, and sez:
+
+"What do you want hot water pipes and a furnace for in the summer?"
+
+Sez I pintin' to the snowy fields, "Do you call this summer, Josiah? And
+Thomas J. sez it will be so nice to have it all ready in the fall. And I
+do wish, Josiah, you would hear to me."
+
+"Well, well, I am hearin' you, hain't I, and been hearin' for a year
+back, I hain't deef as an adder!" And he jammed his hat down over his
+ears and went to the barn. But there wuz a sort of a waverin' expression
+to his linement that made me have hopes.
+
+Well, when I had, with the children's help and an enormous expenditure
+of good vittles and eloquence, brought him round to the idee, I found I
+had another trial worse than the first to contend with. Instead of
+hirin' a first rate workman who knew his bizness, he wuz bound, on
+account of cheapness, to hire a conceited creeter who thought he could
+do anything better than anyone else could.
+
+He knew how to milk, Jabez Wind did, and how to clean stables, and
+plough and hoe corn. But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them
+who had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on
+hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it
+than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music
+lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to
+invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him
+because he wuz so much cheaper.
+
+And I sez, "You'll sup sorrow yet, Josiah Allen, with your tendency to
+save and scrimp. Jabez Wind don't know nothin' about such work; he
+hain't got any shop or tools and I don't want him meddlin' round my
+house. We want the rooms warmed good and we don't want a big noise and
+racket, as I've hearn they make sometimes, I couldn't stand it with such
+noise and cracklin' goin' on day and night."
+
+"Oh," sez Josiah, "that's one great beauty of Jabezeses invention, it is
+perfectly noiseless, not a murmur or gurgle from one year's end to the
+other, and so easy to tend. Jest twice a year, he sez, to put a pail of
+water in the upper tank, two pails of water a year to insure summer
+warmth, no dirt, no noise, not much like luggin' in wood from mornin'
+till night, breakin' your back cuttin' and splittin' it and litterin' up
+the house."
+
+The idee of the perfect stillness did tempt me, I so love comfort and
+quiet, and also not havin' to sweep up after chips and kindlin' wood.
+But yet how did we know these things wuz so? And agin I sez, "How do you
+know he can do all this? He hain't got any tools."
+
+Sez Josiah, "He's got idees if he hain't got tools. A man can borry
+tools, but he can't dicker for such idees as Jabez has got. See the
+things he's undertook."
+
+Sez I, "Anybody can undertake things; his idees hain't made him rich or
+famous. That air ship of hisen he wuz goin' to sail to Europe on, rared
+up and spilt him in his uncle's back yard. And his automobile, when he
+sot off on it and headed it for the road it backed up and took him down
+that steep hill back of the barn into the creek, where it kep on
+ploughin' up dirt and slate stuns till his uncle stopped it by main
+force and lifted Jabez out from under it drippin' like a water rat. And
+his machine for perpetual motion, his ma uses it now for clothes bars,"
+sez I. "What has he ever done to merit your encomiums?"
+
+"Well," sez he, "he's bound to succeed this time. His idees are some
+like the hardware man's at Jonesville only Jabez'es are more deep and
+not nigh so expensive." I never liked Jabez Wind and shouldn't if I'd
+seen him settin' swingin' his legs off the very top of Fame's pillow. He
+wuz oncongenial to me, made so from the beginin'. I never knew any
+particular hurt of him, but he seemed so much like his own sir name, so
+puffed up and onsubstantial. He wuz middlin' well off to start with, or
+his ma wuz, but he had used up all her property in his different
+enterprises.
+
+Now I dote on inventors, they wear a halo in my partial eyes. They're
+the greatest men of our day, and I mentally kneel at their feet, but
+gold always has counterfeits. The real inventor, made by the Deity to
+carry out his plans, is modest, silent, broodin' over his great secrets,
+away from the multitude where angels minister to him. But Jabez wuz
+loud, boastin', arrogant, his pert impudent face proclaimin' the great
+things he wuz goin' to do, but never did. He wuz in love, too, or what
+he called love, with a girl that wuz a prime favorite of mine, sweet
+little Rosamond Nickleson, she and I wuz such great friends she often
+used to come and stay a week at a time with me.
+
+When Jabez Wind came to Jonesville, Rosy wuz about the same as engaged
+to a good sensible young farmer, Royal Nelson, who lived three milds
+above Jonesville on the old stage road. He wuz a stiddy, likely young
+man, who owned a nice farm well stocked, wuz good lookin', good
+appearin', but ruther bashful and retirin', which made him some times in
+company a little awkwud in his manners, and most offish where he wanted
+to please most. But he had a good mind, and his heart wuz pure gold, and
+he loved Rosy with the deep earnest love, such undemonstrative men often
+cherish for the one woman in the world for them. His calm gray eyes
+would light up with the pure light of deathless love when they rested on
+the sweet face of little Rosy. And he wuz always tryin' to help her in
+some way, lookin' out for her interest, he seemed to love to protect and
+wait on her in a way that argued well for the future, but mebby it wuz
+this constant and almost slavish devotion that made her slight him, she
+had got so used to his stiddy love that she didn't appreciate it as
+she'd ort to.
+
+He had paid attention to Rosy for most three years. I thought mebby he
+wuz such a manly chap he didn't want to hurry her, she wuz so young, but
+everybody spozed they wuz as good as engaged when Jabez Wind come to
+Jonesville to live with his uncle, old Kellup Wind. He lost his wife,
+and Miss Wind, his brother's widder, come to keep house for him and
+brung Jabez with her. I hurn it wuz the bargain she wuz to have two
+dollars a week and Jabez'es board. That showed me what he wuz, a young
+man twenty-five years old hangin' on to his mother's apron strings to
+support him, or ruther hangin' onto her hard workin' fingers, she wuz a
+good housekeeper.
+
+Well, Jabez made such a splurge in the social pool of Jonesville
+society, he made such florid eloquent boasts of the wonderful things he
+wuz goin' to do in the near future; his clothes wuz so showy, and his
+looks so showy (shaller I called it), with beady shiny black eyes, red
+cheeks, mustache and whiskers naturally red like his hair, but dyed
+black, and he played the fiddle so sweet, the girls said, and he sung
+comic songs so bea-eu-ti-ful, and he danced so light that he become a
+general favorite in Jonesville society and the girls all seemed to seek
+after him. But from the first he singled out Rosy as the object of his
+special patronizin' affection. She wuz well off, her pa left her a good
+property in money besides bein' so pretty and good herself.
+
+And she, girls are so queer, the best of 'em, from the very fact that
+his affection wuz so patronizin' and down stoopin' to her, and kinder
+oncertain, for onlike Royal he would have spells of slightin' her and
+waitin' on other girls, why mebby for this very reason she seemed to be
+carried some distance away with him, and believed all his grand idees
+and looked forward to the realization of his stupendious schemes, high
+soundin' schemes, which had took him no furder than the middle of the
+creek and his uncle's back yard.
+
+His uncle didn't believe in him no more than I did, but stood it with
+him on account of Karen, bein' a man that loved domestic comfort, and
+havin' lived in dirt, on pan-cakes and canned meats durin' different
+rains of incompetence materialized in hired girl form, before Karen
+come. But Karen worshipped Jabez, his highest mounts of future eminence
+seemed too low for his footstool in her adorin' eyes, somehow the very
+loftiness of his airs to her, his own mother who supported him and
+bought his clothes, seemed to render him more precious in her eyes.
+Wimmen are queer, queer as dogs.
+
+Well, Jabez knew I wuz onwillin' to have him tackle the job of warmin'
+our house with his new water pipe invention, because I had spoke my mind
+about it when he and Karen had been over to spend the evenin', and Karen
+come over the next mornin' ostensibly to borry a cup of molasses, she
+wuz lookin' wore out, she'd worked so hard the day before, doin' a big
+washin' and bringin' the water from the creek, and I sez, "Why didn't
+Jabez bring it for you?"
+
+"Oh, he wuz so busy with his inventions I couldn't bear to disturb him,"
+sez she, holdin' her hand to her achin' side, "my son is the greatest
+genius in the world and folks will admit it yet, he's a young man of a
+thousand."
+
+Sez I, "I should think more on him, Karen, if he should go to work and
+take care of you instead of you at your age workin' so hard to take care
+of him."
+
+She married when she wuz quite well along in years and wuz gittin' old
+now and hadn't ort to work so hard. But her pale face lit up, "Oh, he
+will take care of me luxuriously when he's completed some of his
+inventions."
+
+"But," sez I pityin'ly, "you know they hain't worked yet, any on 'em.
+You hung your washin' yesterday on the remains of his Perpetual Motion,
+and his motor carriage bein' dug up from the creek, his uncle uses it as
+a hen coop."
+
+"Oh, but they will be successful, they will."
+
+"I hope so, but I feel it my duty to tell you that I feel dubersome
+about it, dretful dubersome."
+
+"But," sez she, "the New Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank is goin' to
+make us independently rich. He's takin' the plans now of Luman Heath's
+kitchen stove and riggin' up the machinery; Luman is to pay him
+lavishly, you know Luman's wife is my own cousin."
+
+I see how it wuz, Karen's friends, to please her, wuz willin' to offer
+up their sure comforts and solid foundations as a sacrifice on the altar
+of friendship and the thought come over me, mebby I'd ort to. But it did
+seem as if I couldn't.
+
+Sez Karen, "If it is a success at cousin Luman's, as it is dead sure to
+be, Jabez is goin' to take it to the St. Louis Exposition."
+
+"He thinks the foreign powers will want to treat with him for it. But I
+told him I would ruther he would let our Government have it. But
+'tennyrate he won't let the Powers git the better of him in the contract
+and control it and enrich themselves at his expense. He will get his
+onparelled idees patented before he takes it to St. Louis, it wouldn't
+be safe not to. I spoze the papers will be full of it."
+
+Such talk didn't seem to move me a mite, but it impressed Josiah
+dretfully and he sez, "I shall have this new invention stand next to my
+hen coop at the Exposition of St. Josiah."
+
+I shuddered and turned the subject round quick as I could. Well, Karen
+labored with me over two hours, dwellin' in particular on the perfect
+stillness of the heatin' apparatus, and agin as before that thought
+tempted me awfully, for I'd hearn the cracklin' snappin' sounds that
+sometimes comes from steam heat and dreaded to have it reproduced in my
+home, and seein' my looks Karen amplified on the idee, How sweet it
+would be in December to set down in a rockin' chair in the still warmth
+of a day in July and go through the winter in that luxurious lovely way.
+She talked till she had to go home almost on the run, for she said
+Jabez'es mind worked so hard it exhausted his body completely so she had
+to have the most nourishin' food ready for him at the very minute or he
+would break right down. But to the last she praised up Jabez'es work.
+But I wouldn't say a encouragin' word furder than this, "I feel
+dubersome about it, Karen, dretful dubersome."
+
+That afternoon Rosy come over to stay all night, and she too tackled me
+on the subject. He had asked her to, always hangin' onto some woman for
+help. But with her too I used the same tick-tacks I had with Karen, I
+said mildly after each modest plea for his great genius, and how well he
+would do the work, "I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."
+
+Then she, too, sweetly spoke of the summer warmth, and the entire
+absence of noise, and agin that thought tempted me, but I sez, "How do
+you know, Rosy, that it will be entirely noiseless?"
+
+"Oh, I know it will, Jabez sez so. He is sure to succeed, and it will
+help him so to have your influence, he expects to publish a book of the
+greater eulogies from noted people on this new invention, and he intends
+to have your name head the list. When you say this perfectly noiseless
+machine heats your house too warm in the coldest weather, what a help it
+will be to him, and your name will be first," she repeated agin.
+
+"He'd better have the President and Cabinet come first," sez I dryly,
+dry as a chip in dog days.
+
+"No, he spoke about that, but thought he would have them come next to
+yours, and I approved of it," sez she affectionately, "and so did his
+ma.
+
+"He will git out the book as soon as he comes home from the St. Louis
+Exposition with all the big eulogies he gits there on his inventions."
+
+I groaned to myself and got up quick and went into the buttery and took
+a drink of cold water, I felt so kinder sickish. Well at modest
+intervals she would politely and gently tackle me about it, at the table
+and while she wuz washin' dishes, but I held firm, though very
+considerate and tender to her. I mogulated my axent low and gentle and
+looked mild at her over my specs, as I washed and she wiped, but my
+words wuz ever the same.
+
+"I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."
+
+At last Josiah's temper riz up and he vowed he wouldn't dally any
+longer, sez he, "I earned this money by the sweat of my brow and I'm
+goin' to use it as I'm a minter, and I'm a minter have these water pipes
+put in by Jabez Wind." (He got the money by sellin' a colt, Id'no as
+there wuz any great sweat about it).
+
+But he wuz bound to have it done, and he did. And for reasons named I
+dassent cross him too fur and put my foot right down on the plan. And
+the children sez, "Better anything, mother, than his celebration. If he
+don't tear the house down over your head let him go on." (_Let him_! I
+guess I _had_ to let him.)
+
+Jabez come on with all his riggin'. He'd borrowed tools of the hardware
+man at Zoar, another of Karen's cousins, and obtained the furnace and
+pipes on credit, I spozed.
+
+I made all the preparations I could in case of disaster. Took up the
+carpets in that part of the house, took down the curtains and moved the
+furniture, used all the precautions I could to escape with life and limb
+if possible, and insure the safety of my dear but misguided pardner, and
+then I sot down in the parlor bedroom, the furthest I could git without
+goin' upstairs, and let the tide of events sweep by me or sweep me away,
+and I didn't know which it would be. I had to be downstairs anyway, for
+(though Philury helped), I had to stand with my hand on the hellum, so
+to speak, and see to everything. What made it worse, too, it come on the
+coldest snap we'd had all winter.
+
+Well, one of the main arguments by Jabez and Josiah wuz the speed with
+which this work wuz to be accomplished. The hull thing wuz to be done
+and we settin' down fannin' ourselves inside of three days, but for over
+four weeks our house wuz a perfect pandemonium of noise and confusion.
+
+Iron pipes lay round in every direction, screws and vises, nuts and
+hammers, wrenches and irons of all shapes and descriptions strewed the
+house from top to bottom, and ashes, dirt and dust wuz rampant, and
+Jabez rennin' up and down stairs, to and fro, talkin' loud about what a
+success he wuz makin' of it and how everything wuz workin' jest as he
+wanted it to, and boasted in particular every time he come acrost me,
+ashakin' with the cold, how perfectly still and noiseless it wuz goin'
+to be, and how luxurious and almost enervatin' would be the warmth. And
+I sez, rubbin' my cold hands and pullin' my heavy woolen shawl closter
+round me, "It would be a little different than it is now if it wuz
+still, or if it wuz warm." And agin I shivered in the frigid air and
+sez:
+
+"You guaranteed we wouldn't be torn up here over three days, and it wuz
+four weeks yesterday."
+
+"That is because I have took such extra precautions to have it perfectly
+noiseless. Never," sez he impressively, "from one year's end to the
+other will you ever hear a sound from that apparatus, not the least
+murmur or echo of a sound."
+
+"Well, I hope not," sez I, "and I hope to gracious it will be finished
+some time, for I'm most freezin' and Josiah is takin' cold, as I can
+see."
+
+"No I hain't nuther," sez Josiah, his voice soundin' real wheezy and
+husky out from under his heavy wool comforter.
+
+Sez I, "You be cold, Josiah Allen, your nose is blue this minute."
+
+"Well, what if it is! I always liked that color anyway, I'd ruther have
+it blue that red as madder," sez he glancin' at my most prominent
+feature.
+
+Sez I, "It is the bitter cold that has turned our noses, Josiah Allen,
+and when is it goin' to end?"
+
+"It is going to end to-morrow mornin', at seven A.M. we start the fire,
+and then," sez he proudly, "I will set down in perfect summer heat, calm
+and happy, and you, too." For I spoze my oncomplainin' misery appealed
+to his latent manhood; and it had been latent in him for some time. But
+he wuz driv most beyend his strength, and the cold wuz almost Klondikey,
+I could make allowance for him. Well, the next day passed, and the next
+and the next, and finally, jest four weeks and four days after he had
+guaranteed to have it finished, Jabez hautily announced, and Josiah
+proudly proclaimed, a fire could be started. Karen wanted to be with us
+in the first trial of the heat, so she appeared on the seen, so
+triumphant and overjoyed it fairly made her worn haggard face look
+considerable brighter.
+
+Rosy had come to spend the day and stay all night, invited by Karen to
+witness her son's triumph. But I onbeknown to anybody, feelin' I needed
+a strong arm and cool brain to depend on, had beset Royal Nelson to come
+and stand by me that day and night, I didn't say Rosy wuz to be there
+for fear he wouldn't come, for I could see by his white cheeks and sad,
+yet cool lookin' eyes, that he'd about gin her up. He said to once that
+he would come, and his sad eyes kinder laughed as he added, "I will
+stand by you in your affliction."
+
+Well, Jabez, with his face gay and joyous and his tongue waggin',
+weighted down with big, boastful words, headed the procession down
+suller; Josiah and Ury filled up the furnace and built the fire, Jabez
+seemin'ly willin' they should do the work, he's so lazy. Rosy, Karen and
+I remained upstairs, Philury and I tryin' to mop and sweep up some of
+the dirt, and before long I hearn a buggy drive up, and see it wuz Royal
+Nelson, and in a few minutes he come in lookin' solid and reliable as
+ever.
+
+Well, the upper tank had been filled, and at the welcome news the fire
+wuz beginnin' to burn bright we all went upstairs watchin' to see the
+grateful heat come up, and some of our hands wuz on the pipes every
+minute, when a low hollow rumblin' wuz hearn down in the suller, growin'
+louder and louder every minute till it got to be perfectly terrific, and
+Jabez run down there, his coat tails almost layin' level in his haste,
+and Josiah most fallin' over him, and Royal follerin' on more tranquil
+lookin' but excited all through I could see.
+
+Ury stayed by us a spell, but as the deep hollow noise strengthened to a
+loud roar, accompanied by a strange rushin', gurglin' sound, comin'
+nearer and nearer, he seized Philury by the arm and rushed her outdoors
+through the snow, not stoppin' till they got to the barn, then he leggo
+of her and stood in the barn door to reconnoiter. It wuz a awful and
+skairful seen. I couldn't blame Ury, but like Sara of old, I felt that I
+must stay by my stuff, and Rosy and Karen hung to each other, and both
+hung onto me, all on us tremblin' like three popple leaves.
+
+Finally, jest as the three men come hurryin' back into the room to
+rescue or die with us I spoze, the boilin' water gin a louder, angrier
+roar, and riz up out of the tank three feet into the air and poured and
+steamed and deluged all over the floor. Well wuz it I took up the
+carpet. But Josiah Allen, to prove he feared no danger, had insisted on
+leavin' the dressin' gown he worshipped hangin' up in the clothes press
+where the tank wuz. Alas! alas! as he brung it out drippin' and steamin'
+from the fiery bath, where wuz the once gay colors? Them tossels and red
+palm leaves on yeller ground that had so lately been the light of his
+eyes and desire of his heart? Who could tell which wuz palm leaves and
+which wuz yeller ground? And as for the red tossels, their glory had
+departed forever. Josiah groaned aloud as he bore it out leavin' a
+watery wake of red and yeller all the way to the kitchen, where I
+follered him and told him, so strong is woman's love in the hour of
+trouble, "Dear Josiah, I am sorry for you, but I told you jest how it
+would be."
+
+He dashed it onto the floor and hollered out, "You didn't tell me
+nothin' about it! you never said the word dressin' gown! and I'd like to
+know what you're sorry about, it is nothin', only a valve has bust or
+sunthin'."
+
+"Yes," sez I sadly, "I guess it is a sunthin'." Here he kicked aginst
+the suller door so hard one of the panels has been shaky to this day,
+and run down there, Jabez follerin' him, while I seized a dipper and a
+twelve quart pail and hurried up to the flooded deestrick, which we
+commenced to bail out like a sinkin' boat, Royal, Karen and Rosy helpin'
+me, and Ury havin' his first fears squenched by the overflow of water
+(which he expected he said would blow off the hull ruff and top story of
+the house), he and Philury laid to and helped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Well, Jabez said it wuz the sudden change from cold to hot water that
+had caused the overflow, so we put the biler on the kitchen stove and
+the caldron kettle in the woodhouse, and het water bilin' hot and filled
+the empty tank, Josiah groanin' loud as he lugged it up and sayin' when
+he thought I didn't hear him, "Oh, gracious Heavens! is this two pails a
+year?"
+
+Then we all gathered in the front chamber agin watchin' events to come,
+Jabez boastin' louder than ever how like a charm it would work, and
+Karen opholdin' him. But Josiah looked anxious as I could see. When agin
+that loud angry roar begun in the suller, and agin Ury ketched Philury
+round the waist, for she wanted to stand her ground, but he yanked her
+down stairs and half way acrost the back yard. He loves her dearly and
+thinks it a man's place to protect his pardner. He didn't go so fur this
+time, but had almost onbeknown to himself sought safety for his dear
+Philury in flight.
+
+Agin Jabez and Josiah and Royal rushed down suller. The dretful roar
+ended in a higher more steaminer volume of water than before, agin we
+laid to and bailed it out, our ranks bein' reinforced anon by the
+returnin' Ury and Philury, and anon furder by Josiah, Royal, and Jabez.
+Jabez didn't boast quite so loud now, and I wuz glad to see that Rosy
+kinder cuddled up closter to Royal as she wielded the dipper, as if she
+thought him a refuge in time of storm.
+
+Well, from that time, about three in the afternoon, till ten P.M. the
+programmy wuz stidy over and over. Fillin' the tank, low snortin' and
+rushin' of the waters up and down, chasin' along the pipes in every
+room, hammerin', kickin', shootin', like enraged artillery, at last
+thundering like the most skairful clap of thunder and then with a
+fearful roar the volume of water would mount up and pour into the spare
+room and drizzle down into the settin' room below, takin' off the
+plasterin' in spite of our very best efforts to bail it out. Over and
+over agin wuz the wearisome and soul tuckerin' job carried out, varied
+every time by Ury ketchin' Philury and fleein' with her, but the
+distance shortened every time, till at last he fled with her no furder
+than the top of the kitchen stairs. Karen's horrow struck, mortified
+looks, Jabez'es entire absence of boastin', which in itself wuz dog
+queer, and Rosy's instinctive turning to Royal for protection, which wuz
+gladly granted.
+
+Over and over the seen wuz enacted, Jabez every time turnin' some screw
+or valve or sunthin' and prophesyin' every time it would go right the
+next time, but said it with feathers droopin', so to speak, more humble
+like and doubtful. My poor pardner as he lugged up two heavy pails of
+water at half-past nine P.M., I hearn him say:
+
+"Oh, gracious, Peter! is this two pails a year? This makes more'n a
+hundred pails I've carried up to-night myself besides Ury's and
+Jabezs'es." It wuzn't so, he hadn't carried up more'n thirty or forty
+twelve quart pails. But yet I pitied him. Well, that also thundered and
+deluged and guyzered out onto the floor accompanied by the drips and
+drizzles into the settin' room, Ury's flight with Philury, Karen's
+mourns, and Josiah's groans, for he had lost his pride and openly
+groaned and jawed at Jabez and sez to him:
+
+"You dum fool you! you don't know beans from a broom stick! I wouldn't
+trust you to make splinters to do up a dog's leg!" And Jabez jawed back
+again, and Josiah sez, "I'll make you pay heavy damages for this job,
+and I've as good a mind as I ever had to eat, to give you a good
+floggin' with a rawhide." And as he grew madder and madder he went on:
+
+"This is your perfectly noiseless apparatus is it?" sez he pintin' down
+towards the thunderin' roar, "this is your summer heat, hain't it?"
+pintin' to the shiverin' crowd. "This is your freedom from
+labor-two-pails-a-year job! one hundred pails of water have I lugged
+upstairs to-night if I have a pint! Now," sez he, makin' towards him,
+"do you start out of this house before I fall on you and rend you."
+Karen screamed and rushed between 'em and fell onto Jabez and dragged
+him off with her, he seemin' glad to go.
+
+Well, we let the fire go down as low as we could without goin' out, and
+went to bed shiverin' and half froze, but with soap stuns and hot-water
+bags we made out to git through the night. In the mornin' a sorry seen
+greeted us, coldness, discomfort, broken plasterin' and dirt, and no
+prospect to all appearance of havin' any better times. The only gleam of
+light I could see in the hull prospect wuz that Josiah in his excitement
+and wretchedness had seemin'ly forgot that he'd ever mentioned the
+Exposition of St. Josiah.
+
+Well, right after breakfast Karen come over lookin' as if she hadn't
+slep' a wink and sez she, "Jabez lay awake all night studyin' on it and
+he knows now where he made the mistake, he pinted one small lead pipe up
+where it ort to been pinted down, he can make it all right in an hour."
+
+Well, Josiah, so sure it is that the hottest love soonest cools, vowed
+that Jabez should never step his foot into the house agin. And I wuz
+glad enough to see that Rosy agreed with him.
+
+But I wuz naterally made more megum, and thought, any port in a storm,
+and a hour won't be much anyway. If we've stood all this dirt and
+confusion for five weeks we could stand it a hour longer.
+
+"Well," sez Josiah, "I shall go into the woods for a jag of maple, I
+won't see him, I dassent, for I should fall on him and destroy him if I
+did."
+
+So he went after a load of maple wood and Jabez come and tinkered and
+hammered and pounded and then sayin' with some of his pride returned
+into his port:
+
+"It will go now like clock work."
+
+He filled the tank and lit the fire agin with Ury's help. But I wuz glad
+enough that Josiah wuz absent, for this time the noise wuz so skairful
+that when Ury ketched Philury round the waist and absconded with her, he
+didn't stop till they had ploughed through the snow clear past the old
+hen house.
+
+I, too, ketched Rosy by the arm and run and stumbled along most to the
+barn before I remembered myself and regained my faculties, so to speak,
+it wuz so turrible this time the loud, angry, roarin', hissin' noise.
+
+Karen nobly stood by Jabez, who I must say stood by his job in that
+respect, but I guess they went out into the hall, I thought I ketched a
+glimpse of 'em, as I havin' regained my faculty, run in. We got in jest
+after the deluge poured out agin, higher, louder and more steaminer than
+ever, and when what few scraps of plaster remained on the settin' room
+had fell victims to the bilin' flood. Well, we let the fire go down agin
+and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to
+bed. That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the
+furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm. We
+cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively
+comfortable for three days. The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz
+up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up
+by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a
+loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and
+sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha? Who ever heard of thunder at this
+time of year? Or is it a earthquake?"
+
+But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez,
+"Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we
+hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and
+drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room. Even as I spoke Rosy
+come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep,
+but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a
+fearful time!" sez she.
+
+And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the
+midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words
+sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a
+star shinin' out over a wild western tornado. But before I could reply
+Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he
+wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and
+bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that
+invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip
+him within an inch of his life!"
+
+It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp
+light. Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of
+the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what
+ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz
+set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so
+it would be entirely right. Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used
+by that dum fool to try his experiments on? Let him take it out or I
+will take it out and throw it at him!"
+
+But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the
+meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this
+note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try
+it."
+
+"For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her? It is all
+_her_ fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to
+the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we
+shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as
+frogs, and our house a wreck!"
+
+But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he
+gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all
+day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall
+on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work
+made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more
+tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by
+my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home
+cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his
+righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.
+
+Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window
+and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive
+into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet
+face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the
+horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable
+brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet
+smiles and cordial words.
+
+She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love
+and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for
+Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their
+happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us
+wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The
+first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the
+furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to
+Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to
+put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to
+come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled
+with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a
+coldness between 'em and they don't speak.
+
+Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good
+workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull
+job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost
+like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and
+plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down
+the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and
+quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too
+voylent wrath upon his nerve.
+
+Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy
+with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home,
+Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome
+gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be
+married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their
+weddin' tower.
+
+And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the
+bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through
+darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself
+to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new
+plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz
+lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth
+as glass.
+
+Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the
+troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.
+
+And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the
+Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the
+children and I wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up. But, alas! in this
+world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain't.
+
+And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought--I
+like Karen and felt to rejoice with her. It seemed that Luman Heath, not
+havin' heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the
+very next day after he finished here. And the Perpetually Gushing Hot
+Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind's inventive ambition, and
+alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath's beloved ones, the
+hull family circle on 'em.
+
+He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn
+and heat up. And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin' acrost
+the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted
+right up into the air bilin' hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser
+there in their kitchen. Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the
+face.
+
+They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they
+never thought of havin' such doin's in their house, but the bilin'
+crater pourin' down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto 'em
+that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot
+on the floor readin' Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Luman,
+bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin'
+to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin' room, he
+wuz hit on top by the bilin' torrent and blistered right on his bare
+head as big as your hand.
+
+He laid his wife down half faintin', told the screamin' children to look
+out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to
+go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum. He bein' a good
+man who wouldn't swear, or rare round kep in his feelin's more. The
+children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they
+screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way. But he wuz
+bed sick for weeks holdin' onto his wrath and bein' too good to jaw and
+kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.
+
+But to resoom backwards. The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of 'em,
+she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to
+turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and
+havin' to use both hands, and bein' smart and quick witted, she put the
+coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some
+scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen
+winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin' water onto
+the flower beds and acrost 'em into the road, scaldin' passers by, and
+bein' a perfect horrow and mystery to 'em. It wuz big and powerful,
+there hain't no doubt of that.
+
+Well, owin' to the hired girl's courage, by the time the doctor got
+there the tank wuz emptied, and the torrent had subsided into a drizzle.
+Luman Heath didn't prosecute Jabez, bein' such a good man, and how I
+honor him for it, how I honor him for not actin' and swearin'. The
+doctor may say what he wants to, he wuz noble to bear it as he did. I
+have seen kickin' and actin' in times of trial, and how I honor a man
+who can refrain, and he got well as quick, I believe, as though he had
+acted.
+
+But as I wuz sayin' the greatest relief that come to the community from
+our trials wuz as follers. Take it with his doin's at our house and
+Luman Heath's, Jabez Wind had evidently had enough of inventions. He
+hired out for a year the very next day after the eppisode, to work for
+twenty dollars a month on a farm, house rent, wood, and cow furnished.
+Kellup Wind is goin' to live with a daughter, and Karen is blissful at
+thought of keepin' house for Jabez. Good creeter! I hope she will have a
+little rest now. I said I meant to go and see her jest as soon as she
+wuz settled.
+
+Well, for two days my feelin's of joy and thankfulness wuz onclouded.
+But alas, poor mortals! that plant the flowers of their happiness on
+earthly sile, they must see 'em wither before their face and eyes anon
+or oftener like Jonah's gourd.
+
+The third day, whilst I wuz settin' happy and calm in my frame in my
+warm peaceful settin' room often liftin' my eyes contentedly to the
+satin smooth ceilin'.
+
+What wuz my emotions of grief and horrow to see Josiah rise up, haul out
+his tin trunk where he'd carefuly stored away the plans of the St.
+Josiah Exposition, and go to studyin' 'em agin with renewed vigor,
+sayin':
+
+"I hope to gracious I can have my mind clear now to go on and plan my
+Exposition; this dum work has set me back turribly."
+
+I let my work fall into my lap and gin vent to some sithes, so deep they
+wuz almost groans, whilst the bitter waters of disappintment trickled
+over my hopes and drownded 'em out. Had I got to go through another
+siege of argument and persuasion and extra vittles? Could my too hard
+worked oratory hold out, and also my provisions?
+
+I see the children next day and told 'em how it wuz, that their Pa
+seemed more sot on his plan than ever, and talked more excited and
+earnest about it than I had ever seen him. For it did seem as if his
+deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke
+loose into a wider, deeper current than ever. He talked incessantly
+about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new
+ones.
+
+The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all
+hazards!"
+
+And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped?"
+
+Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly
+ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder
+thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his
+mind soothed by one."
+
+"Accordeon!" sez I. "You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you
+gin him one of the golden harps we read about."
+
+Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and
+it would probable kill her with mortification."
+
+Thomas J. sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will
+try one thing more."
+
+I never knew exactly how Thomas J. worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I
+know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked
+Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so
+with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors. He never could stood it with
+his closeness.
+
+Thomas J. didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones,
+so I spoze. When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ
+it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall. And of course I
+stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and
+the very best of vittles. Neither on 'em could carried the day alone,
+but all together conquered. He gin in. The plan tottered over and fell
+onto him, and my pardner, to continue the metafor, lay under the ruins
+as squshed and mute as if he wuz never goin' to git up agin.
+
+But when his wild emotions of ambition and vanity and display wuz all
+broke up a settled melancholy hovered down onto him and draped him like
+a black mantilly. He seemed all onstrung, and all my efforts to string
+him up agin seemed vain.
+
+I strove to hide my apprehensions under a holler veil of calmness and
+even hilarity; I give him catnip with a smile on my lip but deep
+forebodin' in my mind, and the same with thoroughwert. But catnip didn't
+nip his ambition and thoroughwort wuzn't thorough enough to restore his
+cheerfulness.
+
+I encouraged him to go to the lake fishin' with Deacon Henzy, though I'd
+suffered more than I had ever told from similar occasions. Deacon Henzy
+loves hard cider and keeps a kag on tap durin' the summer, he sez it is
+for his liver, but liver or no liver it hain't right.
+
+I hain't goin' to make no insinuations about their doin's though sister
+Henzy has approached me on the subject time and agin, she hain't so
+clost mouthed as I am. But I will merely say that when they got back
+their two breaths didn't smell as two deacon's breaths ort to smell. But
+I didn't say nothin' about it outside and shan't, I use tack. I spoke
+on't to Josiah at the time, yes indeed I hearn the call of Duty and
+obeyed.
+
+But as I wuz sayin', though it trompled on all my feelin's and
+forebodin's I urged 'em to go agin and they went. And I shan't tell how
+their breaths smelt when they got back--it hain't best, only simply
+sayin' that Josiah took an empty pint fruit can with him that mornin'
+when he went over to the Deacon's to start, and I never inquired what he
+took it for, so fur will a female let even her principles be outraged
+when the life of her beloved companion is at the stake--I tried to think
+he wuz goin' to take milk in it.
+
+But the small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep
+waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me,
+only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack
+mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! the
+very idee on't!
+
+But I kep' mum and dressed the fish myself and fried 'em in butter, only
+hopin' I wouldn't lose 'em in the fryin' pan, but Josiah didn't seem to
+relish 'em no better than he would side pork, and agin I felt baffled,
+and rememberin' the fruit can, a element of guilt also mingled with the
+baffle. Biled vittles with a bag puddin' which he loved almost to
+idolatry I put before him in vain; I petted him; I called him "dear
+Josiah" repeatedly; I fairly pompeyed him, but no change could I see, I
+felt turrible.
+
+He still kep' a runnin' down and I didn't know when he would stop
+runnin' and I shuddered to think where he might run to. At last in spite
+of Josiah's onwillingness I sent for Doctor Bombus. He come and took his
+wrist in hisen and Josiah sez kinder mad actin': "What do you want to
+feel of my polt for? My polt beats all right!"
+
+He looked at his tongue, Josiah stickin' it out as if he wuz makin' a
+face at him. He inquired about symptoms, all of which Josiah answered
+snappishly, the examination over, the doctor walked the floor back and
+forth with one hand under his coat tail and the other in his breast in
+deep thought and then said:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"My diagnosis denotes no diametrical and insurmountable difficulties but
+I would recommend a temporary transition or in other words a change of
+climate."
+
+"Change of climate!" muttered Josiah, "I guess anybody that lives in
+this state gits changes enough, from torrid to zero in twenty-four hours
+lots of times--I'd like to know where you wintered!"
+
+"Nevertheless and notwithstanding," sez Doctor Bombus, blandly ignoring
+Josiah's muttering impatience, "I can but recapitulate my former
+prescription, a temporary translation from surrounding environment."
+
+And he gathered up his saddle bags and went out, bagoning me out into
+the hall as he did so. And then he advised me to take him to the St.
+Louis Exposition.
+
+But I sez, "I dassent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he
+knowed all the circumstances that had caused his sickness." But he wuz a
+Homeopath and believed in takin' the same kind of medicine backward and
+forward as it were, sunthin' as the poem runs:
+
+Tobacco hic when you're well will make you sick,
+Tobacco hic will make you well when you're sick.
+
+I told him I thought it wuz a hazardous undertakin', and I hardly dast,
+but he informed me in words more'n two inches long that he could do
+nothing more for him, and if I didn't foller his advice it would be at
+my own peril.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this
+enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses
+to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal
+with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that
+mind.
+
+Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a assault of
+such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I
+venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor
+Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.
+
+But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in
+the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense
+place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than
+lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.
+
+I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his
+relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my
+responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin,
+they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I
+proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well
+off and a willin' creeter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Josiah didn't seem to care either way, but languidly remarked that if he
+did go he wanted a sky blue neck-tie. That wuz the first sign of
+interest he had took in anything, and I hailed it as a good omen but got
+the tie as dark a blue as I dast.
+
+Blandina Teeter, formerly Allen, is a widder with a tall spindlin'
+figger pale complected, with big light blue eyes that ruther stand out
+of her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down
+smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good
+natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and
+though folks don't philosophize on it you can be too good to be
+comfortable.
+
+She is a natural lover of mankind, nothin' light in it, jest a deep
+meetin' house love. She wuz born that way onbeknown to her I spoze, and
+so I d'no as I ort to blame her for her soft ways. I hadn't seen her for
+some years and had kinder forgot how soft and squshy she wuz in her
+nater, and I declare for't when I got her and Josiah both together, had
+marshaled my forces, as you may say before my mind's review, I didn't
+know how I wuz goin' to git 'em to St. Louis and back agin hull. It did
+seem to me that if I got through all right with Josiah, she wuz that
+soft and meller she would spile on my hands anyway.
+
+But she wuz the only one on his side available in the position of second
+chaperone to Josiah and so I took my chances.
+
+She had been a widder some years; Teeter had used her shameful, spent
+her property and throwed her round considerable, but still she kep' up
+her perennial love and passionate adoration of man. And thinkses I it
+will work well anyway with her Uncle Josiah, for lovin' all mankind as
+she did from infancy to age, I knowed that bein' the only male in the
+party she would keep her eye on him.
+
+Blandina wuz more than willin' when I explained matters to her. She said
+she felt that men wuz such precious creeters that too much care could
+not be took of 'em, and that it would give her the greatest pleasure to
+surround her Uncle Josiah with all the care that a most devoted
+affection could dictate.
+
+She's an awful clever critter, it hain't good nater that she lacks. But
+there is sunthin' wantin' in her, I believe it is common sense.
+
+But we sot out, I with considerable misgivin' at heart, but calm and
+cool on the outside, clad as I wuz in dignity and a gray braize delaine
+dress and a bunnet of the same color, I also wore my costly cameo pin
+fastened in my linen collar. Some gray lisle thread gloves and a rich
+Paisley shawl completed my _toot a sembly_.
+
+Blandina had on a soft yellerish dress, I guess it wuz lawn it looked
+most as soft as she did, and a hat that kinder drooped 'round her face
+trimmed with crushed strawberry roses. She also wore some open-work
+mitts, and a lace long shawl that had been her ma's.
+
+Josiah had on his pepper and salt costoom, and in my partial eyes he wuz
+beautiful, but, oh, so sad, so deprested. Would the gloom ever be lifted
+from his beloved liniment? So my heart questioned itself as we helped
+ourselves out of the Democrat, Ury tendin' to the trunks.
+
+It wuz a Monday mornin', for I felt that I wanted to tackle this job
+jest as I would a three weeks' washin', the first day of the week. Ury
+shook our hands firmly but sadly, promisin' to the last to see to things
+and not let the cows into the garden, and keep the buttery door shet up
+nights, for though the cat is not a habitual snooper, yet she will
+sometimes snoop.
+
+The car wuz crowded, mebby folks had hearn of our goin' and wanted to
+ride a spell with us. 'Tennyrate Josiah and I had to be separated at the
+outset of our journey, he settin' with a man acrost the aisle; Blandina
+got a seat with an aged gentleman while I sot down with a pale
+complected woman in deep mournin'. Or at least what mournin' she had wuz
+deep. She wore a thick crape veil and black cotton gloves. But her dress
+wuz chocklate delaine. The mournin' wuz borryed, she told me most as
+soon as I sot down.
+
+She wuz on the way to the funeral of her father. He had lived with her,
+but died while he wuz on a visit to her sister. She wuz feelin' dretful
+and said she didn't know what she would do without him; she took on real
+bad, and I sez, "Yes, losin' a pa is an awful loss."
+
+"Yes," sez she, "pa wuz a dretful good man. I don't see what we're goin'
+to do without him; we shall miss him so makin' line fences. He knew all
+about where they ort to stand."
+
+I wuz kinder took back. But then come to think it over I see it wuz
+better to be missed in line fences than not at all. She got out at the
+next station, and my own pardner took the vacant seat by my side, and on
+and on we wuz whirled from the peaceful shores of Jonesville to the
+pleasures and dangers of the great city.
+
+As I said, I wanted to get to St. Louis the first of the week, but
+Josiah took it into his head that he wanted to visit his nephew, Orange
+Allen, who lives in the Ohio, and under the circumstances it wuz not for
+me to cross him in anything that wuz more or less reasonable. So we
+stopped there and had a good visit. He keeps a dairy farm and owns forty
+cows besides a wife and three young children; he is doing well. His pa
+havin' a horticultural and floral turn of mind, named his two boys Lemon
+and Orange. His girls are Lily, Rose and Violet. Lily is dark complected
+and so fat that she looks like a pillar with a string tied in the
+middle, and Rose and Violet are as humbly as they make but respectable.
+Folks ort to be more cautious in namin' children, but they're all
+married quite well, and we had a good visit with 'em, stayin' most of
+the time at Orange's.
+
+And I see with joy that the shadder on my pardner's face lifted quite a
+little durin' our stay there, but of course this belated us and we
+didn't git to St. Louis till Saturday late in the afternoon. St. Louis
+is a big sizeable place. Mr. Laclede cut the tree for the first
+log-house in the forest where St. Louis now stands in 1764. America had
+several cities all started at that time, but St. Louis jest put in and
+growed, and now it is the fourth city in the United States. It's an
+awful worker, why it produces more in its factories than is produced by
+the hull of thirty-seven States, jest think on't! And it has thirty-two
+million folks to buy the things it produces. Twenty-seven railways run
+into it; the city rules itself and leads the world in many manufactures.
+They say it is the richest community in the world, and I couldn't
+dispute it, for they seemed jest rollin' in riches all the while I wuz
+there; wuzn't put to it for a thing so fur as I could see.
+
+It is noted for its charities; it has the biggest Sunday-school in the
+world, two thousand three hundred and forty-four children in one
+school--jest think on't! Its Union railroad station is the finest in the
+Universe, so they say, and jest the buildin' covers twenty acres. And it
+has the greatest bridge over the greatest river in the world.
+
+But everything has its drawbacks, the water there hain't like Jonesville
+water; I don't say it to twit 'em, but it is a solemn truth, the water
+is riley, they can't dispute it. I'd love to hand 'em out a pailful now
+and then from our well, and would if I had the chance--how they would
+enjoy it.
+
+Blandina and I wanted to go to once to Miss Huff's, a woman we used to
+know in Jonesville who keeps a small boardin' house.
+
+But Josiah, who had seen pictures on't, wanted to go to the Inside Inn.
+He said they'd advertised cheap rooms, it would have a stylish sound to
+tell on't in Jonesville and it would be so handy and equinomical for we
+wouldn't have to pay entrance fees. So to please him, which wuz the main
+effort of us two chaperones, we went there. We wuz tired to death that
+night anyway, and wanted a quiet haven and wanted it to once, for truly
+when Josiah pinted out the elegant buildin's that we passed I looked
+coldly on 'em, and said that there wuzn't one that looked so good to me
+as a goose feather piller would. And I had made up my mind that I
+wouldn't take a note or act as a Observer at all till Monday mornin'. So
+I faced the crowd and the Fair ground as not seein' 'em as it were,
+carryin' out my firm idee to begin' the job as Observer and Delineator
+the first day of the week.
+
+The Inside Inn we found wuz a buildin' as big as the hull of our
+neighborhood and I d'no but part of Loontown and Zoar, it wuz immense.
+And everywhere you'd look you would see this sign pasted up:
+
+"Pay In Advance! Pay In Advance!"
+
+Josiah acted real puggicky about it, he said he believed they had hearn
+we wuz comin' and got them signs printed for fear we would cheat 'em out
+of their pay or wuzn't able to pay. And he sez, "I'll let 'em know I am
+a solid man and have got money!" And he took out his little leather bag
+where he keeps the most of his money and showed 'em in a careless way,
+as much as fifteen dollars in cash.
+
+I told him it wuz venturesome to show off so much money, but he said he
+wuzn't goin' to have 'em insinuatin' in this mean underhanded way that
+we couldn't pay our bills.
+
+Blandina would pay her own bills, but then she's got plenty and Josiah
+said, "Let her pay for herself if she wants to." And I said:
+
+"Well, I spoze it will make her feel better to pay her way."
+
+"Yes," he sez, "and it makes me feel better too."
+
+A young chap took our satchel bags and went to show us our room, and we
+went through one long hall after another, and walked and walked and
+walked, till I thought we should drop down. And finally Josiah stopped
+in his tracks and faced the feller, and sez he:
+
+"Look here, young man, what do you take us for? We hain't runnin' for
+mail carriers, and we hain't niggers trainin' for a cake walk. We'd love
+to git a room and set down some time to-day!"
+
+"Yes, sir," sez the man, "we are most to your rooms." And he turned and
+begun to go down stairs, and we follered him down two flights and
+started for a third one, and then Josiah faced him agin:
+
+"What in Tunket ails you, anyway? Because we come from the country we
+don't propose to be put down suller amongst your cabbages and turnips! I
+want you to take us to some good rooms; I've paid in advance, dum you!
+and I'm goin' to stand for my rights."
+
+"Yes, sir," sez the man, "they're good rooms."
+
+And I knowin' we wuz three to one and if he wuz leadin' us off into a
+trap to git Josiah's money we could overpower him, I wunked for Josiah
+to keep still, but he wouldn't, but kep' on mutterin' whilst the man led
+us down two more flights, and into some quite good rooms, only if you'll
+believe it there wuz a tree growin' right up through our room as big as
+Josiah's waist.
+
+And that made Josiah as mad as a hen agin, and he told the man, "We've
+been imposed upon ever since we entered this house. You knew we lived on
+the outskirts of Jonesville, and you've took liberties with us that you
+wouldn't if we had come from the heart of the village. But I'll let you
+know we're knowed and respected, and Jonesville will resent it to think
+you've put us in with trees, tryin' to make out we're green, I spoze."
+
+But the man wuz up two flights of stairs by this time. And I quelled
+Josiah down by sayin' we would try to make the best on't. The hotel is
+built on a side hill, that's why we had to come down stairs; there are
+four stories more in the back than in front, and they wouldn't let 'em
+cut down all the trees so they had to build right round 'em.
+
+But I ruther enjoyed it, and hung my mantilly up on it, there wuz some
+nails that somebody had left in it, and the tabs hung down noble. And as
+I told Josiah, "Trees are kinder sociable things anyway."
+
+"Sociable!" he groaned. "We don't need trees in order to be sociable."
+And sure enough, on both sides on us wuz goin' on private conversations
+that we could hear every word on. It wuz a very friendly place.
+
+Well, I het up my little alcohol lamp and made a cup of tea and we had
+lots left in our lunch basket. So I called Blandina, her room wuz only
+jest a little ways from ourn, and we had a good lunch and felt
+recooperated.
+
+We slep' as well as we could considerin' the size and hardness of the
+mattress and pillows, and the confidences that wuz bein' poured into us
+onbeknown from both sides.
+
+The house is built dretful shammy. Why I hearn that a man weighin' most
+three hundred took a room there, and comin' in one evenin' dretful tired
+from the day's tramp on the Fair ground leaned up heavy aginst the wall
+to pull off his boots, and broke right through into the next room.
+
+And that room wuz occupied by a young married couple. You know it wuz
+dretful fashionable to marry and go to St. Louis on your tower. So
+they'd follered Fashion and the star of Love and wuz havin' a first rate
+time.
+
+They had been there several days, and this evenin', he thinkin' his eyes
+of her, and feelin' very sentimental as wuz nateral, wuz readin' poetry
+to her, she settin' the picture of happiness and contentment with her
+feet on a foot-stool, her pretty hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes
+lookin' up adorin'ly into hisen as he read:
+
+"Oh, beautious love, sweet realm of joy,
+No wild alarm shall ere thy sweet calm break."
+
+When crash! bang! down come the partition with a half dressed man on
+top, brandishin' aloft a boot and screamin' like a painter, as wuz only
+natural. He broke right into Love's Sweet Realm and skairt 'em into
+fits.
+
+She fell to once into highstericks, and he, when he recovered
+conscientiousness threatened to lick the man, and everybody in St.
+Louis, and made the air blue with conversation that the Realm of Love
+never ort to hearn on, and wouldn't probable for years and years if it
+hadn't been for this _contrary temps_.
+
+I hearn this, but don't say it is so; you can hear most anything and it
+held us in all right.
+
+The next day, bein' Sunday, Josiah thought it would be our duty to stay
+on the Fair ground and see the Pike, etc. But I sez: "Josiah, we will
+begin this hefty job right, we will go to meetin'."
+
+So we went out into the city and hunted up a M.E. meetin' house and
+hearn a good sermon and went into class meetin' and gin testimonies both
+on us. And Blandina bein' asked to by a man went forward for prayers and
+sot for a spell on the sinners' bench. She's been a member for years,
+but she's such a clever creeter she wants to obleege everybody.
+
+Well, havin' done our three duties we went back peaceful and pious in
+frame and went to walk in of course to our own temporary home. But what
+do you think! that misuble, cheatin' man at the gate asked us to pay to
+git in. We hearn afterward that this wuz a dishonest man and wuz sent
+off.
+
+"Pay!" sez Josiah. "Pay to come home from meetin'? Did you want us to
+hang round the meetin' house all day and sleep on the steps? Or what did
+you want?"
+
+The man kep' that stuny look onto him and sez, "Fifty cents each."
+
+Josiah fairly trembled with rage as he handed out the money, and sez he
+in a threatenin' way, "You hain't hearn the last of this, young man.
+Square Baker of Jonesville will git onto your tracks, and you'd better
+have a tiger after you than have him when he's rousted up. Pay for
+comin' home from meetin', it is a disgrace to the nation! Call this a
+land of liberty when you have to pay for comin' home from meetin'!"
+
+And sez he, as he took his change back, "Do you know what you're doin'?
+You're drivin' Samantha and me away from this place, and Blandina." And
+sez he, with an air of shootin' his sharpest arrer, "We shall go to Miss
+Huff's to-morry."
+
+And so we did. Blandina and I wanted to go there in the first place, so
+we felt well about it. We had fulfilled our duties as chaperones to the
+fullest extent, and had also got our own two ways in the end, which is
+always comfortin' to a woman.
+
+We found Miss Huff settled in a pleasant street in a good comfortable
+home, not so very fur away from the Fair ground. She's a widder with one
+son, young and good lookin', jest home from school; and a aged parent,
+toothless and no more hair on his head than on the cover of my glass
+butter dish. And I'll be hanged if I knowed which one on 'em Blandina
+paid the most devoted attention to whilst we wuz there, but nothin'
+light and triflin'.
+
+She is likely, her morals mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort
+o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could
+bend round considerable without breakin'.
+
+And Miss Huff had also a little grand-niece, Dorothy Evans, whose mother
+had passed away, and Miss Huff bein' next of kin had took into her
+family to take care of. Dretful clever I thought it wuz of Miss Huff.
+Dorothy's mother, I guess, didn't have much faculty and spent everything
+as she went along; she had an annuity that died with her, but she had
+been well enough off so she could hire a nurse for the child, an elderly
+colored woman, Aunt Tryphena by name, who out of love for the little one
+had offered to come to Miss Huff's just to be near the little girl.
+
+And Dotie, as they well called her, for everyone doted on her, wuz as
+sweet a little fairy as I ever see, her pretty golden head carried
+sunshine wherever it went. And her big blue eyes, full of mischief
+sometimes, wuz also full of the solemn sweetness of them "Who do always
+behold the face of the Father."
+
+I took to her from the very first, and so did Josiah and Blandina. The
+hull family loved and petted her from Miss Huff and her old father down
+to Billy, who alternately petted and teased her.
+
+To Aunt Tryphena she wuz an object of perfect adoration. And Aunt
+Tryphena wuz a character uneek and standin' alone. When she wuz made the
+mould wuz throwed away and never used afterwards. She follered Dorothy
+round like her shadow and helped make the beds and keep the rooms tidy,
+a sort of chamber-maid, or ruther chamber-woman, for she wuz sixty if
+she wuz a day.
+
+Besides Aunt Tryphena Miss Huff had two more girls to cook and clean.
+She had good help and sot a good table, and Aunt Feeny as they called
+her wuz a source of constant amusement and interest; but of her more
+anon.
+
+We got to Miss Huff's in the afternoon and rested the rest of that day
+and had a good night's sleep.
+
+In the mornin' Josiah, who went out at my request before breakfast to
+buy a little peppermint essence, come in burnin' with indignation, his
+morals are like iron (most of the time).
+
+He said a man had been advisin' him to take the Immoral Railway as the
+best way of seein' the Fair grounds as a hull before we branched out to
+see things more minutely one by one.
+
+"Immoral Railway!" he snorted out agin.
+
+"I hope you didn't fall in with any such idee, Josiah Allen." And I
+sithed as I thought how many took that kind of railway and wuz whirled
+into ruin on't.
+
+"Fall in with it! I guess the man that spoke to me about it thought I
+didn't fall in with it. I gin that feller a piece of my mind."
+
+"I hope you didn't give him too big a piece," sez I anxiously; "you know
+you hain't got a bit to spare, specially at this time."
+
+Oh, how I watched over that man day by day! I wanted the peppermint more
+for him than for me. I laid out if he seemed likely to break down to
+give him a peppermint sling.
+
+Not that I am one of them who when fur away from home dash out into
+forbidden paths and dissipation, but I didn't consider peppermint sling
+wrong anyway, there hain't much stimulant to it.
+
+Well, we started out for the Fair in pretty good season in the mornin',
+Billy Huff offered to go and put us on the right car, so he walked ahead
+with Blandina, Josiah and I follerin' clost in their rears. Blandina
+looked up at him and follered his remarks as clost and stiddy as a
+sunflower follers the sun. She had told me that mornin' whilst I wuz
+gittin' ready to start that he wuz the loveliest young man she had ever
+met, and a woman would be happy indeed who won him for her consort. And
+I said, as I pinned my collar on more firmly with my cameo pin, that I
+presoomed that he would make a good man and pardner when he growed up.
+
+And she said, "Difference in age don't count anything when there is true
+love." Sez she, "Look at Aaron Burr and Lord Baconsfield," and she brung
+up a number more for me to look at mentally, whilst I wuz drapin' my
+mantilly round my frame in graceful folds.
+
+But I told her I didn't seem to want to spend my time on them old ghosts
+that mornin', havin' such a big job on my hands to tackle that day as
+first chaperone to Josiah, and I got her mind off for the time bein', by
+the time I had fastened on my mantilly so the tabs hung as I wanted 'em
+to hang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Josiah wuz for goin' into the show by the entrance nighest to Miss
+Huff's, but I said, "No, that may do for other times, but when I first
+enter this Fair ground as a Observer" (for in our visit to the Inside Inn
+we wuz only weary wayfarers, too tired to observe, and the Sabbath we
+felt wuz no time to jot down impressions). No, this day I felt wuz in
+reality our _dayboo_, and I sez impressively, "I will not go sneakin' in
+by any side door or winder, I'm goin' to enter by the main gateway."
+
+Josiah kinder hummed:
+
+"Broad is the road that leads to death
+And thousands walk together there."
+
+But when he found we could go in there at the same price he didn't
+parley further, and Billy took us to the car that would leave us where I
+wanted to be.
+
+The main entrance is in itself a noble sight worth goin' milds and milds
+to see, a long handsome buildin' curvin' round gracefully some in shape
+like a mammoth U only bendin' round more at the ends, and endin' with
+handsome buildin's, and tall pillars decorate the hull length and flags
+wave out nobly all along on top.
+
+Mebby it wuz meant for a U and meant Union, a name good enough for
+entrance into anything or anywhere. And if it wuz I approved on't, and
+would encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so if they'd asked me beforehand.
+Union! a name commandin' world-wide respect, writ in blue and gray on
+millions of hearts, sealed with precious blood.
+
+The centre of the long buildin' peaks up and arches over you in such a
+lofty and magnificent way that you feel there some as Miss Sheba must
+have felt when she went to visit Mr. and Miss Solomon or the Misses
+Solomon, I spoze I ort to say, he had a variety of wives, though it is
+nothin' I ever approved on, and would told him so if I'd had the chance.
+
+But good land! Mr. Solomon never had any sights to show Miss Sheba
+approachin' this Fair, I wouldn't been afraid to take my oath on't.
+
+We riz the flight of steps which hundreds and hundreds could rise
+similtaneously and abreast, paid our three fares and went in. And when
+you first stand inside of that gate the beauty jest strikes you in your
+face some like a great flash of lightnin', only meller and happifyin'
+instead of blindin'.
+
+And the vastness of it as you look on every side on you impresses you so
+you feel sunthin' as you would if you wuz sot down on the Desert of
+Sara, and Sara wuz turned into vistas of bewilderin' beauty towards
+every pint of her compass.
+
+There wuz broad, smooth paths leadin' out on every side all on 'em full
+of folks from every country in the world, and clad in every costoom you
+ever see or ever didn't see before. Folks in plain American dress side
+by side with dark complected folks wropped up seemin'ly in white sheets,
+jest their black-bearded faces and flashin' eyes gleamin' at you from
+the drapery. Then there would be mebby a pretty young girl with a
+rose-bud face under a lace parasol. Two sweet-faced nuns in sombry black
+with their pure white night caps on under their clost black bunnets and
+veils, and follerin' them some fierce lookin' creeters in red baggy
+trousers embroidered jackets and skull caps with long tossels on 'em;
+Persians mebby, or Arabs.
+
+As Josiah looked at these last I hearn him murmur as if to himself, "Why
+under the sun didn't Samantha put in my dressin' gown with tossels, and
+the smokin' cap Thomas J. gin me, I could showed off some then."
+
+But I pretended not to hear him for my eyes wuz fastened on the passin'
+pageant. Smart lookin' bizness men with handsome well-dressed wives and
+children, then a Injun with striped blanket, beaded moccasins and
+head-dress of high feathers. Then a American widder, mebby a plain one,
+and mebby grass; then some more wimmen. Then some Chinamen with long
+dresses and pig-tails follered by some gawky, awkwud country folks; some
+more smart-lookin' Americans. Some English tourists with field-glasses
+strapped over one shoulder. Some Fillipinos in yellerish costoom. Then a
+kodak fiend ready to aim at anything or nothin' and hit it; then some
+Scotchmen in Tarten dress and follerin' clost some Japans, lots and lots
+of them scattered along. Then some brown children and their mothers, the
+children dressed mostly in a sash and some beads, and some more pretty
+white children dressed elaborate, and some niggers, and some soldiers,
+and some more wimmen, and more folks, and some more, and some more, in a
+stiddy and endless stream.
+
+Good land! I couldn't sort out and describe them that passed by in an
+hour even, no more than I could sort out and describe the slate stuns in
+Jonesville creek, and you well know that wagon loads could be took out
+of one little spot.
+
+Josiah said to me, "Why jest to look at this crowd, Samantha, pays
+anybody for comin' here clear from the Antipathies."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah, you mean the Antipodes."
+
+"I mean what I say!" he snapped out, "and les's be movin' on, no use
+standin' here all day."
+
+He don't love to be corrected. But truly that immense and strangely
+assorted crowd constantly comin', constantly goin' and changin' all the
+time wuz a sight well worth comin' from Jonesville to see, even if we
+didn't see a thing more. But, oh, what didn't we see! what a glorious
+sight as our eyes left the crowd and looked 'round us. Why the wonder
+and beauty on't fairly struck you in the face some like a flash of
+lightnin' only more meller and happifyin'.
+
+There you are in the beautiful Court of St. Louis. And right in the
+centre sets Saint Louis himself on a prancin' horse, holdin' up a cross,
+I wuz glad to see that cross held up as if in benediction over all the
+immense crowd below, it seemed as if it begun the Fair right, jest as it
+begins the week right to go to meetin' Sunday.
+
+I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to
+protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How
+much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in
+lots of things if I'd been 'round.
+
+Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes
+and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain
+and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our
+Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King
+Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went
+on and had his way, as men will.
+
+But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous
+one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in
+such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his
+life for.
+
+He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on,
+shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I
+wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled
+up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood
+on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't
+need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the
+side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the
+splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a
+little.
+
+In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense
+snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last
+one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of
+pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it
+were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood
+the statute of Peace.
+
+My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this
+glorious Exposition, sez to me:
+
+"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin'
+her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right
+by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her
+sky high."
+
+I sithed, but almost onbeknown to myself looked at the Cross, and hoped
+that that divine light would go ahead through the wilderness of world
+warfare makin' a safe path, so Peace could git down from her high
+monument bime-by and walk round some through the world without gittin'
+her head blowed off.
+
+Smilin' and gleamin' jest beyond wuz the bright sunny waters on which
+little boats painted in bright colors with gay awnin's wuz glidin' about
+here and there, and bursts of melodious song come from the gayly attired
+boatmen anon or oftener. And furder on wuz the Grand Basin, a large
+beautiful piece of water, and back on't down a green hill seventy feet
+high leaps and bounds and gurgles and sings three glitterin' cascades,
+each one seemin' to start out from a splendid buildin' up on the hill.
+
+The ones on the side smaller, but the middle one a grand and stately
+palace called Festival Hall, and jinin' these three buildin's together
+are what they call the Collonnade of States. A impressive row of
+snow-white pillows, and on them pillows, settin' up in the place of
+honor, are big statutes of female wimmen, fourteen in number, symbolic
+of the original States of the Louisiana Purchase.
+
+I wanted to go right up to Festival Hall the first minute, it didn't
+seem fur it wuz through such seens of bewilderin' beauty, but a
+bystander standin' by said it wuz half a mild.
+
+But Josiah kinder nudged me and said, "Mebby we'd better take the
+Immoral Railway. With you by my side, Samantha, I feel I can face its
+dangers."
+
+Sez I, "Where has your principle gone that you had this mornin',
+Josiah?"
+
+"I have got it, Samantha, jest the same; I hain't used none this time o'
+day. But I thought I would kinder love to tell the brethren I'd rid on
+it." And before I could parley with him he asked that same bystander, a
+good lookin' iron gray man,
+
+"Where is the Immoral Railway?"
+
+"The Intre Moral Railway starts there," sez he, pintin' to a place quite
+nigh to us.
+
+"Intre Moral," sez I to myself; "that is a good name." And as we wended
+our way to it through the crowds of folks of every name and nation I sez
+to myself, "I'd love to ride on it." For havin' naterally so scientific
+and deep a mind I love to trace back words like little rivulets, to
+their source, and see where they spring from. For meandering through the
+ages they gather lots of foreign stuff and take queer turns.
+
+Intre Moral, I took it that that meant extra moral. I liked the sound
+on't, and we got on and rode quite a spell, and see everything we could,
+and when we went clear 'round on that, we got onto a big ortomobile and
+rid 'round on that so's we could see the hull Fair as it were in one
+picture, before we examined its glories more minutely one by one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And I should have took sights of comfort viewin' the magnificent seens
+spread out and growin' and changin' every minute if I hadn't had to kep'
+one eye onto Josiah Allen all the time, or as you may say two eyes, one
+my own gray orb and the other the eye of my specs. The seen wuz so
+hugely grand, so magnificently stupendous, and the mind that it wuz my
+duty as first chaperone to guard wuz so small I sez to myself, could it
+be bombarded by that immense grandeur and not utterly collapse. But
+Blandina wuz on the other side on him, so I didn't feel as I should had
+the responsibility devolved on me alone.
+
+But he bore it well. He looked off on the seen grander than anything
+Fairy Land ever dremp on or ever will, I believe. And then he looked
+pensively at my silk bag where I'd stored all the cookies and nut-cakes
+it would hold, to keep up his strength between meals.
+
+And so gradually I dropped my agonizing anxiety and let my eyes drink in
+the onequalled beauty of the seen as we went by the tall glorious
+palaces towerin' up in white magnificence. Past sparklin' water spaces
+filled with gay pleasure craft full of happy white-robed voyagers. Past
+the spans of arched bridges leadin' from one seen of glory to another,
+past tall white shafts carryin' up to the listenin' Heavens deeds of
+glory and valor.
+
+Past white statutes more beautiful than poet's dreams, risin' up from
+green velvet lawns or marble terraces. Broad highways would dawn on our
+vision, anon vistas of incomparable beauty way off, way off as fur as we
+could see would open up other views jest as fair. Anon the columned
+walls of some nearby palace would seem to close in the view, and then
+agin the fur vision, and anon the blue waters flowin' on and on. And
+scattered all over the ground roamed the happy people, men, wimmen and
+children of every name and nation, clothed in every garb that folks ever
+wore under the sun, and some, it seemed to me, made up jest for that
+occasion, as Eve started her new fashion of fall dress, only this wuzn't
+made of leaves, no indeed! fur from it.
+
+But I believe the foreign costoom we see most of all wuz the Japan. And
+all through the Fair that nation seemed to show off in the very first
+rank. Well, I wuz willin', I always kinder liked 'em, they're so polite
+and courteous to everybody, and as for makin' storks and folks settin'
+on nothin' and lookin' perfectly comfortable settin' on it, they go fur
+ahead of anybody else, and they have lots of other noble qualities. In
+cleanin' house time, now I have fairly begreched the ease and comfort of
+them Japanese housewives who jest take up their mat and sweep out, move
+their paper walls a little mebby and there it is done.
+
+No heavy, dirt-laden carpets to clean, no papered walls and ceilings to
+break their back over, no trumpery brickaty brack to take care of and
+dust and make life a burden. Kind hearted, reverent to equals and
+superiors--trained to kindness and courtesy and reverence in childhood
+when American mothers are ruled and badgered by short skirted and
+roundabout clad tyrants.
+
+I set store by the Japans and am glad to hear how fast they're pressin'
+forwards in every path civilization has opened; science, art and the
+best education. And wuz glad to see so many of 'em here. They could give
+Uncle Sam a good many lessons if he wuz willin' to take 'em. But good as
+he is he is a heady old creeter, and won't be driv into anything and has
+a powerful good opinion of himself.
+
+But to resoom forwards. After we'd gone the complete 'round of the Intre
+Moral Railway and ortemobile we got out agin on the Plaza not fur from
+where we embarked, and at my request we took a boat. Josiah chose one of
+the handsomest ones with the front end kinder bowin' up and a
+bright-colored awnin' over it; they called it a gondola.
+
+The gondolier had bold flashin' black eyes and a gay suit that struck
+Josiah's fancy, and I knowed by his looks he wuz meditatin' on what
+Might Have Been. I felt that he wuz in fancy rowin' a boat up our creek
+in a red coat and green hat with yeller feathers mebby, carryin' sister
+Submit Tewksbury or sister Gowdey, sailin' towards his own Exposition of
+St. Josiah. There wuz a sad pensive look on his liniment that belonged
+to ruined hopes and blighted emotions.
+
+Blandina whispered to me she thought the gondolier a image of beauty and
+wondered if he had a companion; she said she believed he would be
+devoted to a wife if he had one that looked up to him.
+
+I answered her like one talkin' onbeknown to herself, two of my eyes and
+my spectacles furtively watchin' the liniment of my beloved pardner, and
+my speritual eyes feastin' on the perfect loveliness of the seen. Broad
+smooth waters how beautiful they were, dotted with craft similar to ourn
+and freighted with happy voyagers dartin' here and there, and some of
+the boats wuz the queerest shapes, one on 'em looked jest exactly like a
+big white swan, and there wuz one, if you'll believe it, that looked
+like a sea serpent, I wouldn't have rid in it for a dollar bill, though
+Josiah said he'd love to tell Deacon Henzy that he'd straddled the old
+sea serpent and rid to shore on it.
+
+But I sez, "Good land, Josiah, you don't ride on the outside on it,
+there is a place fixed inside somewhere for passengers."
+
+But most of the boats wuz handsome. Anon the water lay smooth and fair
+about us, and fur off we could see immense fountains risin' right up out
+of the glassy surface, sprayin' up and glitterin' down floods of rainbow
+glory.
+
+Agin we landed on terry firmy I a feelin' as if we wuz roamin' through
+Fancy's fields, for it seemed as if cold Reality never could have
+planned anything approachin' what wuz all round us. For as you draw nigh
+the glittering Cascades you fairly stop bewildered by the beauty, and
+most want to shet your eyes on it, not knowin' what path to choose where
+all are so bagonin' full of allurements and the hull world seemin' to be
+allured there by 'em. On one side the glory of the waters dashing,
+sparkling, bounding along down, with fountains sprayin' up every little
+while, and white statutes smilin' down on us nigher by. On the other
+side green verdure and beyond and on every side the glory of the water,
+and above us the most magnificent buildin' in the world flanked on each
+side with the long Colonnade of States.
+
+And speakin' of statutes, jest think of the sculptured groups we passed
+by that eventful day, more'n I could describe in a month of Sundays.
+Louis and Clark, the very men I'd read about in Gasses Journal, how I
+wished their eyes could see and their ears hear me. How interested and
+proud they would have been to hear me tell how even as a child I loved
+to hear mother Smith read about their journeyin's into the new and
+onexplored country, findin' swamps and stumps and savages, where now wuz
+smilin' gardens and palaces. Then there was Robert Livingstone, and
+Franklin, noble high souled old creeter, I always loved him in a meetin'
+house sense, drawin' down lightnin' and so forth--he wuz the very Pa of
+electricity as you may say.
+
+And James Monroe, and Boone, and Settin' Bull, yes there wuz Settin'
+Bull settin' or ruther standin' right in that great company. And all on
+'em mute and onafraid, onmindful of the presence of a Samantha and
+Josiah, I felt to pity 'em.
+
+But the noblest meanin' statute of all in my eyes wuz right in front of
+the main Cascade. There stood a immense statute of Liberty, raisin' the
+veil of Ignorance and protectin' Truth and Justice. Ignorance don't want
+her eyes oncovered, she'd 'drather keep on blind as a bat. But Liberty
+hain't goin' to mind her, she wuz bound to git the bandages off; I
+wanted to encourage her in it and I waved my hand towards her and smiled
+in lovin' greetin'. Josiah thought I wuz flirtin', and asked me
+anxiously if I'd got sight of any man from Jonesville. I wouldn't dain
+to reply to him--at my age! and with my reputation to carry round! The
+idee!
+
+Well, when we stood on the stun balcony over the spot where the central
+cascade gushes out, what a seen lay spread out before us. You can look
+off two milds one way and most a mild another. And wuz there ever in the
+world milds so crowded full of beauty and each beauty differin' from the
+other as one star differs from another in glory. Eight magnificent
+palaces are in full sight, their walls bathed by the blue waters, and
+beyond 'em, interspersed by green foliage, wuz a perfect wilderness of
+towers, minarets, domes, banners, battlements.
+
+I hain't goin' to describe what I looked down on, for I can't. No, if I
+had a big book of synonyms to the words Grand and Glorious and used
+every one on 'em tryin' to describe that seen I couldn't begin to do
+justice to it, and so what is the use of tryin' with the Jonesville
+vocabulary.
+
+And if I can't describe it, don't for pity sake ask Josiah Allen to, for
+you might know that if I couldn't he wouldn't stand no chance. But I
+hearn him gin a sort of gaspin' sithe as he looked, and Blandina I
+believe forgot for a few minutes her passionate though chaste,
+overrulin' passion.
+
+As magnificent as the hull of St. Louis Exposition is, it naterally has
+one spot handsomer than the rest, a particular beauty spot as you may
+say. Why every house has it. The beauty of my parlor kinder branches
+out, as you may say, from my new rep rocker, a lovely work of art that
+cost over six dollars. I keep it in the sightliest place, where the eye
+of man can fall on it at first. And the central beauty spot of the Fair
+wuz centered in the place I have been talkin' about.
+
+I'd hearn that it wuz some the shape of a fan and we had talked it over
+between us, whether it would look like my best paper fan I carry to
+meetin' Sundays, or my big turkey feather fan. But, good land! they
+dwindled down so in my mind while I stood there that I might be said to
+never have sot my eyes on a turkey's feather, or a turkey or anything.
+It is a spectacle that once seen is never forgot.
+
+The central spot, or handle of the fan (in allegory), is occupied by
+Festival Hall and on either side stretches out the beautiful Collonnade
+of States with its lovely and heroic female wimmen settin' up there as
+if sort o' takin' care of the hull concern. I spoke to Blandina about
+it, how pleased I wuz to see my sect settin' up so high in the place of
+honor, and she sez:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Samantha, I cannot rejoice with you, it rasps my very soul to
+see men slighted! What would the world do without men?"
+
+"Well," sez I, wantin' to please her, "men do come handy lots of times.
+But," sez I reasonably, "the world wouldn't last long if it wuzn't for
+wimmen." But to resoom.
+
+At each end of the Collonnade, peakin' up a little higher, is a sort of
+a round shaped buildin', beautiful in structure, where food can be
+obtained. And knowin' the effect on men of good food I knowed this wuz a
+sensible idea, for no matter how festivious a man may be, and probably
+is in Festival Hall, yet his appetite stretches out on both sides on him
+jest as it wuz depicted here. And female wimmen stand between him and
+starvation most of the time. I considered the hull thing highly
+symbolical and loved to see it.
+
+But jest think of a magnificent picture containin' all that is most
+beautiful in land and water, extendin' in a graceful, curvin' way three
+thousand feet. Why that's as fur as from our house over the Ebenezer
+Bobbettses, and I d'no but furder, and every foot and inch of it
+perfectly beautiful. How much land do you spoze is took up by this
+central spot of beauty? Now if I should ask sister Sylvester Gowdey, who
+always thinks she knows everything worth knowin', if I should say, "How
+much land do you spoze, sister Gowdey, is took up by jest this central
+beauty spot of the Fair?" I'll bet she'd say, "Mebby half an acre."
+
+But I'd say, "Melissy, it occupies six hundred acres."
+
+I d'no as sister Gowdey would believe me, but it's so, the livin' truth.
+Why, the three Cascades are three hundred feet long. Beautiful in the
+daytime as a dream of Paradise! fancy it in the evening when thousands
+and thousands of colored lights lend their glowin' charm to the seen.
+Why you almost cover your eyes from the bewilderin' glory on't. And as I
+said to Josiah, "We shall never see another seen so beautiful till we
+see Jerusalem the Golden descend before our rapt vision." And he bein'
+kinder fraxious, sez:
+
+"I hain't seen that yet, nor you nuther."
+
+"By the eye of Faith I have, Josiah."
+
+"Well, tain't no time or place for preachin', we better be gittin'
+along!"
+
+Right under the main Cascade we went down into a beautiful grotto all
+lighted up, with one hull side of the room made of fallin' water. I
+never expected to step into such a place. I have felt perfectly
+satisfied when I've papered over my dining-room with paper a shillin' a
+roll, and it did look well. But what wuz it to this? Refreshments are
+served down there clost to the sparklin' liquid side of the room, and
+Josiah wantin' to go the hull figure, set down and eat a nut-cake which
+I gin him.
+
+They say stimulants can be obtained down here. And mebby they can, them
+that seek can generally find, there wuz a serpent in Paradise; but _I_
+didn't see any, I spoze the noble look on my face would dant any dealer
+in such pizen from displayin' it to me. And it ain't likely that Josiah
+with two chaperones would set eyes on any.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The two side cascades represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Josiah
+sez in a kinder patronizing way, "They're likely Cascades, but I can't
+see in what way they represent oceans."
+
+And I sez, "It hain't _for_ you to know everything, Josiah, you hain't
+expected to. Such knowledge would be more than you with your small frame
+could stand up under."
+
+"Oh, keep throwin' my size in my face. It's a pity I hain't a giraffe,
+then mebby I'd suit you." And he added snappishly, "I'll bet you can't
+tell yourself how they look like oceans."
+
+And I sez, "I wuz never any hand to tell all I knew, I always thought it
+wuz best to keep one story back."
+
+But to tell the truth I couldn't see how they represented oceans, only
+they wuz both water, but so is a teacupful of water, or a spunful.
+Another way they differed from the ocean, the water hain't there all the
+time, only once in awhile. Josiah, bent on findin' fault, sez:
+
+"Pretty oceans they be! Dry land most all the time."
+
+But I sez, "I've always wished the Atlantic would dry up long enough for
+me to go over afoot or with the old mair, like the Israelites over the
+Red Sea, I'd start to-morry." I'm afraid of deep water. Why half the
+time I'm afraid of our creek and dassent go acrost the foot bridge.
+
+But the water wuz there when we see 'em, and the Cascades wuz beautiful
+as a dream and more beautiful than lots of mine, specially when I'm
+tired out.
+
+As to representin' the two oceans, I spoze it means them beautiful
+golden tinted statutes, the Spirit of the Atlantic and the Spirit of the
+Pacific that stands at the head of the Cascades.
+
+Well, we hung round there a long time, and finally at my request we went
+into Festival Hall and sot down a spell and rested. And I thought as I
+sot there I'd like to ask Sister Gowdey how big she thought this
+buildin' wuz. She would never dream it covered two hull acres, but it
+duz, three or four thousand people can set in it, and its organ is the
+biggest in the world, more than ten thousand pipes in it and each pipe
+as full of music as an egg is of meat.
+
+The two pipes havin' the lowest notes a small horse can walk through or
+two good-sized men standin' side by side. So you can imagine the streams
+of melody that can float through them immense channels. It has one
+hundred and forty stops, every one on 'em that will stop if told to
+quick as a wink.
+
+It took a train of ten cars to bring it from Los Angelus where it wuz
+made. You can imagine how its music fairly shakes the ground and carries
+you off your feet, seemin'ly like the very music of the spears.
+
+Good land! what's Tirzah Ann's organ compared to it? And I thought that
+wuz as good as any they make, the agent said it wuz; we paid over sixty
+dollars for it.
+
+And who do you think dedicated this most beautiful structure that wuz
+ever built, to the music of the biggest organ in the world'? Why, it wuz
+woman, my own female sect. I tell you it made me proud to think on't. It
+wuz told me by one that wuz there that it wuz filled with wimmen on that
+occasion, and as many men as could git in after the wimmen wuz seated.
+
+Jest think on't, oh, my sect! who have been used to sneakin' up back
+stairs to look down on men seated in state at banquet tables, or peak
+from the gallery at the Capitol to see 'em nobly engaged in makin' laws
+to govern her, tellin' her how to spend the money she earned herself,
+and how long to send her to jail, and where and when to hang her, and
+etcetery; while she could only jest peak at 'em. Oh, my soul! wuzn't it
+a agreeable state of affairs the doin's here at Festival Hall? As I said
+to Josiah as we sot there, "Don't it show my sect is lookin' up?"
+
+And he said he never found wimmen backward in lookin' up, he said he
+never see a place that would dant 'em and stop their tongues from
+waggin'. He made light of the great incident and would been glad to had
+men dedicate it; indeed he jest the same as told me he felt the
+Exposition had stood in its own light in not havin' a certain leadin'
+man in Jonesville, who wuz way up in political and moral life, havin'
+held the offices of path-master and deacon. "But," sez he, with some
+bitterness of sperit and speakin' skornfully:
+
+"What if wimmen did dedicate it? They can git up dressed in their silks
+and shiffoniers, and talk, talk, but they can't vote no matter how well
+off they be. They've got to pony up and pay taxes and toe the mark in
+law jest as men tell 'em to."
+
+"Why," sez he, warmin' with his subject, "we men can set on you in
+juries and you can't help yourselves, and hang you and so forth. And you
+W.C.T.U. wimmen would have to let your tax money go to pay for drinkin'
+shacks if we men of Jonesville, and the world, took it into our heads to
+make you. Why," sez he, lookin' more and more big feelin' as he went on,
+as why shouldn't he, as he recounted men's glorious advantages,
+
+"Nate Flanders, who is most a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down
+and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection
+run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had
+been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him and git him
+ready for the pole, he callin' on his wife, Nancy, to put on every
+identical garment and tell where it went, and when they got him to the
+pole he wouldn't vote because Nance wuzn't there to tell him which
+ticket to vote. She'd jest kep' that voter alive for years, and been
+head and hands for him, but she couldn't vote and he could."
+
+Everybody has seen hosses run off the track when they wuz goin' too
+fast; Josiah wuz so engaged in runnin' wimmen's pride down, he didn't
+realize where he wuz gallopin' to. "And there wuz Jane Ellis who lost
+her husband and two boys through drinkin', she had to let her tax money
+be used to help nominate a license man, who opened a liquor saloon right
+under her nose, and the last boy she had took to drinkin' and killed
+himself last week drunk as a fool."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to boast of that, Josiah Allen, I'd be ashamed on't."
+
+"Well," sez he, lookin' kinder meachin', "I didn't say I approved of
+that, I only said it to prove how weak and triflin' a thing woman really
+is in the eyes of the law." And the rubber-like self-esteem of a male,
+havin' sprung back in full force, he went on:
+
+"Why, Miss Corkins, up to Zoar, that pays bigger taxes than any man in
+town, earnt it all herself too in the millionary bizness, why, that
+snub-nosed nigger that drives for her can vote, and she can't. And then
+I'd talk about dedicatin' the biggest buildin' in the world, singin'
+hims on the biggest organ and lettin' a few men into the back door--I
+wouldn't feel so big about it if I wuz you.
+
+"Why, we men jest throw such little compliments in the way of females to
+keep you contented, jest as I throw crumbs from the table to Bruno to
+home and pat him on the back. He knows he can't come to the table. We
+men jest hang onto the ballot; wimmen hain't goin' to git holt of that
+in a hurry and boss us round, no indeed!"
+
+Oh, how obstrepolous and important he did talk and act! And Blandina
+lookin' up so admirin' at him and agreein' to every word he said, jest
+for all the world like an anty, seemed to rile me worse than anything
+else. But as long as I couldn't dispute a word he said, knowin' it wuz
+as true as gospel, I kep' demute, and hoped he would take it for a
+dignified silence that wouldn't dain to argy.
+
+Well, we had our lunch in a box and a bottle of cold tea, and we eat it,
+and rested quite a spell, Josiah's good nater returnin' with every
+mouthful he took, till by the time we got ready to start out agin, he
+wuz as clever a critter as I want to see.
+
+I wanted to tackle the Palace of Arts next, as it wuz quite nigh by
+considerin'. The Fair grounds are so immense that you have to travel
+quite a distance to git anywhere. But Josiah said he wanted to see
+sunthin' that wuz of practical use, ondervaluin' beauty, the great
+Power, as some do. He wanted to see sunthin' solid, such as mines and
+metals. And of course Blandina jined in with him, and though that is
+what I wanted of her, as second chaperone, it provoked me time and agin;
+queer, hain't it?
+
+So as that too wuz quite nigh by, we went to the Palace of Mines and
+Metals. It wuz a beautiful buildin', the walls covered with ornamental
+carvin' and ornaments, and two tall pillars standin' up each side of the
+entrance as if they wuz two Genis jealously guardin' the Under World
+from intrusion. But we got by 'em. And what didn't we see there?
+Everything that wuz ever dug out of the earth, and the way it wuz
+discovered, mined and made useful to man.
+
+Gems, precious stuns, granite, marble and all the processes for cutting
+and polishing. Minerals of all kinds, natural mineral paints and
+fertilizers, cement, luminants and waters. Asbestos, mica, coal, coal
+oil and all the machinery for refining and storing it. Displays for
+natural gas, petroleum; everything relating to lighting mines; safety
+lamps; oils; electricity; acetyline. Most interestin' display in
+geology; all kinds of rocks; crystal; clay; ores; nickel and all the
+metals for making iron and steel and makin' 'em right there before you.
+Explosives used in the Under World. Everything relating to the workin'
+of salt mines; oil wells; metals, photographs; maps, illustrating how
+these riches of the earth wuz deposited, and all the machinery for
+collecting and making them useful to man.
+
+And there wuz a place where we could see a miner's cabin, and miners at
+work, blasting, draining, driving tunnels, drilling, traveling
+underground. A gold mill; a New Mexican turquoise mine; a lead, zinc and
+copper mine, all working there before us; and a coal mine discovered
+there on the Exposition grounds, an underground railway connected these
+two mines. And all sorts of mineral waters, queer things they be flowin'
+side by side out of the same ground as different as water and wine. And
+there wuz a foundry and mint for makin' money.
+
+Imagine a buildin' coverin' nine acres full of such interestin' sights,
+and thirteen acres out-doors. For you must remember that it wuz not only
+the riches of America's Under World, but the wealth of England, France,
+Germany, Sweden, Italy, Japan and in fact every foreign nation. Josiah
+reveled in it, and so did Blandina vicariously. And I enjoyed it too,
+for I always wuz wonderin' what wuz goin' on under my feet, and now I
+had a glimpse on't.
+
+Well, we stayed there a long time and went from there into Manufactures
+Buildin', when who should we meet but Uncle Giles Petigrew, a M.E.
+deacon who used to live in Zoar but who had moved to St. Louis some
+years before. We used to know him well. He wuz a old man when he left
+Zoar, and had lost four wives a runnin' before he left there, and of
+course I didn't know how many he'd lost since he come West, I see he
+wore a mournin' weed, and mistrusted he'd lost another, and so it turned
+out. It beats all what bad luck he has had. He wuzn't to blame for any
+one on 'em, 'tennyrate them that passed away at Zoar, and I spozed it
+wuz jest the same here. Never pizened any of 'em, or divorced 'em or
+anything, it wuz jest his bad luck.
+
+He seemed real glad to see us and wuz dretful chipper for a man most a
+hundred; he got hold of my hand and shook it as if he never would leggo,
+and went right on confidin' in me about his lost companion, what a
+treasure she wuz, and what a loss.
+
+And I sez, "Your wives wuz real nice wimmen, most all on 'em wuz, or
+them that I knowed."
+
+"Oh, yes," sez he, "and these blows that has fell on me has most
+onmanned me."
+
+And I sez in pityin' axents, "You won't try to git another wife, will
+you, Uncle Giles?"
+
+"Yes, I shall, as long as the Lord keeps a takin', I shall--is that
+woman with Josiah a widder?"
+
+I answered evasive, and kinder stepped in between him and Blandina, I
+didn't want her to hear what he wuz sayin', I dassent. It wouldn't been
+best for her to married a man most a hundred. And I knowed her soft
+nater made her a willin' martyr to widower's wiles. Age made no
+difference to Blandina. And I dassent venter to let him git nearer to
+her. So I bid him a hasty good-by and linked my arm into hern and led
+her away. She lookin' back and sayin', "How agreeable and willin' a
+lookin' man that wuz," and I hurried her on fast to Manufactures
+Buildin'--stoppin' by the way to see the beautiful Sunken Garden.
+
+The display in Manufactures is so large that they fill two immense
+palaces, Manufacturers and Varied Industries, and you'd git lost you
+couldn't help it, amongst the bewilderin' and endless native and foreign
+displays, only the aisles are divided off into streets and squares, all
+the same width, so you can git 'round first-rate. And if you had ten or
+fifteen years you could spend here you might possibly see most of the
+displays of your own native land and all the foreign countries. These
+two palaces cover twenty-eight acres, as big as Luman Gowdey's farm that
+he gits a good livin' on, and the hull twenty-eight acres are full of
+interestin' sights. You can walk nine miles in it right ahead--as fur as
+from Jonesville way up to Zoar, and back agin.
+
+And jest think of every single thing that wuz ever manufactured from a
+hatpin to a rose-wood bedstead, and from a needle to a piano, and there
+it wuz in plain sight if you could git to it, for truly you got
+bewildered amongst the endless displays. Furniture, upholstery, all
+sorts of cloth, silk, wool and cotton that wuz ever woven, all kinds of
+silver and gold, and pearl and jet and shell and ivory articles that wuz
+ever used, clocks, watches, jewels, embroideries, laces, carpets,
+curtains, wall paper, stationery, hardware, glass and crystal, furs,
+bronze, ironware, leather goods, stained glass, artists' supplies,
+tailor shop, rubber store, toy store.
+
+But good land! what is the use of tryin' to name 'em over? I couldn't do
+it if I had a blank book as big as a dictionary and writ it full. But
+you can jest think of everything manufactured you ever see, or ever
+didn't see and there it wuz, and more and more and more, and I might
+fill pages with "mores," but what use would it be.
+
+But one of the best things we see at the hull Fair wuz there in the
+Palace of Varied Industries. For to the thinkin' mind, the countless
+display of articles, the marvels and magnificence of this Exposition is
+not its main value, but its educational worth, its power to inspire and
+teach the people of the world better ways of living and working, how to
+make the most and best of life for themselves and others. And among the
+educational exhibits one of the most interestin' to my mind is the one I
+speak on in the Varied Industries Palace.
+
+The company that displays this has other interestin' exhibits at
+different places at the Exposition, but here they have a display that I
+wish the head of every big concern that employs labor could see and
+study and take to heart. This company employs thousands of men and
+wimmen in makin' a machine that wonderfully simplifies labor.
+
+But where the real educational value comes in hain't in the machine
+itself, or the makin' on't, though that's interestin', but the way this
+company treats its employees.
+
+You sit in a neat little theatre, fitted up with easy seats, and
+electric fans and every comfort, and right in front of you, throwed onto
+a big screen, are pictures from real life showin' Capital and Labor
+dwellin' together like a lion and a lamb, and the child Justice leadin'
+'em.
+
+Here you see and hear in the interestin' talk of the lecturer pictures
+from the old time, when the company first begun its work up to the
+gigantic plant and immense buildings of to-day. You see a woman tryin'
+to warm some coffee over a radiator, they say the president of the
+company see that, and it first made him think of furnishin' a lunch room
+with a kitchen and every convenience for his employees.
+
+You see pictures of the women employees goin' to their work a half hour
+later than the men, so the cars won't be so crowded. You see 'em at
+their recreation time of fifteen minutes, at ten in the forenoon and
+three in the afternoon, goin' through their physical exercises, or some
+other recreation to brighten 'em up for the rest of the day.
+
+Then you see 'em at their clubs and classes, or playing tennis or
+baseball, or in the big auditorium built for their use, listenin' to
+some great orator or fine musician. These employees are not drudges, but
+joy is labor and labor is joy.
+
+Then there is a picture showing a street of the homes of these
+employees, pretty houses with windows and doorways covered with vines
+and bright blossoms, makin' a picture of what some say is the most
+beautiful street in the world.
+
+And there are pictures of noted people who have been there to study and
+learn their methods, folks from foreign countries, who will carry the
+blessed and beautiful example seen here to other lands. In one view is a
+Prince and Princess who went there to learn their ways, lookin'
+admirin'ly on. In another is a Cardinal givin' his benediction to
+thousands of the happy workers.
+
+It is a sermon better than is often preached, what you see there in that
+little theatre. It is Love and Labor and Beauty and Joy walkin' hand in
+hand. I wuz highly tickled with it, and spent a glad hour here.
+
+But Josiah and I thought we'd seen enough for one day, and would go
+home. But Blandina wanted to look over the articles of men's wearin'
+apparell a little more; I don't see what comfort they wuz to her but she
+said, "They brought back memories." And I spoze they did make her think
+of Teeter and mebby his possible successor. But one thing, I believe,
+that made her want to stay, we met Billy Huff jest as we wuz comin' out
+of the buildin', and Blandina proposed that she should stay a little
+longer with him and I gin a willin' consent, more willin' it seemed to
+me than Billy wuz, though he couldn't refuse to escort home a guest of
+the house.
+
+But Josiah and I went home and both on us used some anarky on our tired
+limbs, and he cleaned the mud offen our shoes, for truly it wuz faithful
+and stuck by us.
+
+It had rained the night before and that made it dretful muddy, Josiah
+acted real grouty about it and sot there mutterin' and complainin' about
+the mud till I got kinder wore out and sez:
+
+"For mercy sake! I guess you've seen mud before, Josiah Allen. Think of
+our Jonesville streets after a heavy rain."
+
+"Well, they never wuz so muddy that I lost the old mair in 'em, and a
+man told me to-day that they lost a elephant here the other day, it went
+right down in the mud out of sight, and they never see hide or hair of
+him agin."
+
+"Don't you believe that, Josiah Allen; it hain't no such thing, I hearn
+all about it, the elephant didn't go clear in. He didn't go more than
+half in, they could see his back all the time and they got him out all
+right."
+
+"Well, that's furder in the mud than the old mair ever went enough
+sight, and I never could have faced my country agin, if the streets had
+been so muddy at my Exposition."
+
+"Don't be pickin' flaws all the time, Josiah. There is enough of beauty
+and grandeur here to satisfy any common man."
+
+"But I hain't a common man, Samantha, and never wuz called so."
+
+"Well, oncommon then, there is enough beauty here to satisfy an oncommon
+man."
+
+That seemed to molify him, and he gin in that it wuz a pretty good show.
+But in many things inferior to what hisen would have been if he'd
+carried it out. But I discouraged all such morbid idees and led his mind
+off onto sunthin' else.
+
+That evenin' whilst Josiah went out to mail a letter Blandina come into
+my room and sez the first thing, "Aunt Samantha, I love him passionately
+but my love is scorned by him."
+
+And she busted into tears. I didn't ask no questions, but from Billy's
+icy demeanor at supper table and Blandina's sentimental grief-stricken
+linement I mistrusted she'd made overtoors to him that had been
+rejected.
+
+But I tried to turn her mind 'round by showin' her a letter I'd jest got
+from Maggie, my son, Thomas Jefferson's wife, tellin' me that her sister
+Molly, who had been visitin' a college friend in the South, had come
+home much sooner than she had been expected and seemed run down and most
+sick.
+
+But she wuz bound to go to the Fair and they thought it wouldn't hurt
+her to go, as there didn't seem to be anything serious the matter with
+her only she seemed melancholy and out of sperits, it seemed to be her
+mind that wuz ailin' more than her body. And would I if there wuz room
+in my boardin' place take her in and mother her a little. Maggie
+couldn't come herself, she wuzn't feelin' strong enough, and Thomas J.
+won't leave her, specially if anything ails her, no indeed! he jest
+worships her, and visey versey she him.
+
+I can't deny my first thought on readin' the letter wuz, another straw
+to be laid on the back of the camel, meanin' myself in metafor. But my
+second thought wuz I should be glad to have her come, for she is a
+lovely girl and I set store by her. She's been away to school and
+college for years, but I had often seen her durin' her vacations at
+Thomas Jefferson's.
+
+Maggie had showed her letters to me that she had writ whilst she wuz
+away South on this visit to her friend. One young man's name run through
+'em like the theme to a great melody, and then all to once stopped, and
+though Maggie and I hadn't passed a word on the subject I mistrusted
+more than Maggie mistrusted I did about the cause of Molly bein' so
+deprested.
+
+Young folks will be young folks! young blood can't run slow and stiddy,
+and how young hearts can ache, ache. The tide that youth sails out on is
+a restless one, it has its passionate tides, lit by glowing sunshine,
+and anon by the glare of the tempest. It flows ever and anon smooth, and
+then agin rough rocks of disappointment checks its swift glad flow, and
+what it calls despair, but which dwindles down into nothin' more than
+regret time and agin. It has its low tides, full of the sobbin' of
+waters that are flowin' back to the depths, and everything seems lost
+and gone. But anon the tide flows back again and so it goes on, storm
+and dull calm, sunshine and tempest, and they don't know which is the
+hardest to endure. That's why youth is so beautiful, so glorious, so
+tragic.
+
+How I wished I could take Molly (for I loved her) and lift her clear
+over the breakers into the calm of the deeper, smoother waters that the
+home going boat finds when it is nearing the nightfall. The calm waters
+lit by a light, soft and stiddy but sort o' sad like, not like the
+dancin' sunlight of the mornin', oh no! when the tired mariner looks
+back over the voyage and gits ready to cast anchor in the Home Haven.
+
+But I knowed I wuz onreasonable to even wish it, for grim old Experience
+must stand at the hellum every time in everybody's life, and folks
+hadn't ort to expect dyin' grace to live by; Molly had got to weather
+the storm of life whether or no and I couldn't help it. But to stop
+eppisodin' and resoom.
+
+I made a practice of writin' down mornings before I started for the Fair
+the places I wanted to see that day if the rest of the party consented,
+and I writ down that mornin' Liberal Arts, Fisheries, Educational
+Buildin', Electricity, Machinery, Transportation, Horticultural and
+Agricultural Buildin's and etcetery.
+
+Josiah wanted to know what etcetery meant, and I told him any other
+place we wanted to see which he said wuz reasonable, and he thought
+probable he should have to go to some shows on the Pike, he said he had
+met Uncle Sime Bentley the day before and they talked it over and
+decided that it seemed to be their duty as solid stiddy men to go to
+some of the worst shows, specially them that had pretty girls in 'em, so
+they could be convinced of their iniquity and warn the young
+Jonesvillians. He said they would take their advice as quick agin if
+they could warn 'em from experience.
+
+"But Josiah," sez I, "I wouldn't take such a distasteful, hateful job
+onto me, it hain't your duty to make such a martyr of yourself,
+specially as you hain't well."
+
+But Josiah said he'd always said "He wouldn't put his hand to the plow
+and look back," and he and Uncle Sime had talked it all over and agreed
+they would make the sacrifice for the good of Jonesville. But I meant to
+break it up; I knowed it wuzn't his duty to nasty up his mind, hopin' to
+do good by it, when I could never git it cleaned up agin as clean as it
+wuz before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about
+it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to
+the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it
+would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.
+
+But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time.
+And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she
+lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when
+he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there
+wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur,
+which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young
+man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.
+
+Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in
+white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect
+of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and
+thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a
+yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not
+for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The
+most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy
+more than to git her to goin', as he called it.
+
+He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz
+about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the
+same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd
+invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let
+forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going.
+She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures
+thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But
+everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she
+had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries
+but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.
+
+In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from
+Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to
+Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that
+made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went
+there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little,
+as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his sex
+with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would
+show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost
+putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the
+deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described
+her as holding her son by her apron string, as she termed it.
+
+She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come
+to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young
+gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and
+summer.
+
+She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness
+connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few
+weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St.
+Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale
+and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been
+cuttin' up. She sez:
+
+"You know she _lacks_." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation
+to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the
+imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they
+lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said
+his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone
+back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we
+come.
+
+Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only
+remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change,
+so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so
+on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her
+ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had
+been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a
+nice woman and didn't lack.
+
+But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child--faithful
+creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little
+creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly
+aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her.
+Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs
+hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition
+brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best
+impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so
+near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no
+paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie
+wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that
+she seemed to like me.
+
+Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we
+proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a noble lookin'
+structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think
+it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to
+Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the
+work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are
+the pride and glory of our country.
+
+"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the
+very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong
+as a bull."
+
+"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that,
+but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love
+to be corrected.
+
+And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from
+kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to
+work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of
+labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music,
+agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering
+schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian
+and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools,
+people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training.
+Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits,
+but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the
+foreign countries.
+
+We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but
+Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which
+wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in
+any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the
+greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to
+overcome space, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean
+and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a
+beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one,
+for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors
+can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into
+the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and
+nobody else--wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great
+onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us,
+helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't
+see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.
+
+And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have
+tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the
+world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed
+it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry
+and intolerance.
+
+And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all
+sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind,
+telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of
+electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one
+place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless
+power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical
+exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe
+to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.
+
+There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and
+magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of
+all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.
+
+There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model
+City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't
+hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin'
+to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest
+plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any
+difference.
+
+But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and
+behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off,
+strains of music. It's a sight.
+
+And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may
+discover the secret of _seeing_? Who knows what divine visitors are this
+minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls
+with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another
+like as not."
+
+And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their
+footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as
+they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their
+garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their
+tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If
+they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light
+and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered
+brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.
+
+"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their
+voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If
+their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and
+sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it
+by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. But
+sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now
+faintly apprehend."
+
+Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'?
+You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time
+for eppisodin', if there ever _is_ a right time."
+
+And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz
+sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my
+pardner out of the buildin'.
+
+But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of
+Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought
+I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when
+you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for
+a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of
+course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she
+wouldn't set down if she could.
+
+But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther
+onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much
+the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."
+
+Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."
+
+Then Josiah wondered if he couldn't borry the loan of a wheelbarru that
+would hold me up. He could trundle me along as well as not.
+
+Sez I, "I shall not enter the Palace of Transportation, Josiah Allen, in
+a wheelbarrow."
+
+"Well, I could probable git in Machinery Hall a pair of big castors and
+fix 'em onto your shoes, and Blandina and I could push you 'round like a
+buro. What do you think of that?" sez he anxiously.
+
+"I shall not enter into any such operation!" sez I. "How it would look!"
+
+"I d'no as it would look so dretful, you standin' up straight and easy,
+and Blandina and I pushin' you along, and 'tennyrate I guess it would
+look as well as bein' throwed onto the town! chairs cost like the old
+Harry."
+
+Sez I, "Don't worry, I shall pay with my own butter money." And so I
+did, and rid to Transportation Buildin' with Josiah and Blandina walkin'
+by my side. We entered one of its sixty doors, and the first thing we
+sot our eyes on up in plain sight, but fur ahead wuz the wheels of a
+great locomotive weighin' more than two hundred thousand pounds,
+revolvin' 'round in dizzy speed. They said it went by compressed air,
+another wonder, jest common air that you could dip up in your hand and
+not think you had anything in it, and yet if managed right had power
+enough to turn all the machinery we see goin'. Around this monster
+engine wuz electric head-lights throwin' dazzlin' beams in every
+direction. The hull thing well named, the Spirit of the Twentieth
+Century. And all 'round it wuz grouped models showing the development of
+the inventor's dream from the first rough effort at an engine up to the
+most perfect specimen of to-day. All sorts of electrical railways,
+freight and work cars, tracks, switches, signals, carriages,
+ortomobiles, motor vehicles, naval architecture, models, boats,
+steamships, men-of-war, battleships of the line.
+
+Exhibits of all sorts, illustrating inland transportation in India,
+France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and every other foreign country. You
+could see to once that there wuz ways enough to travel, and if you
+stayed to home it wuz your own fault.
+
+Well, we went from there to Machinery Buildin', that bein' writ down
+next on my pad. But as we walked along, I considerable riz up in my
+mind, owin' to what I'd seen, who should we come acrost but the widder
+Whisher of Loontown, a woman we knew well. She wuz settin' on a bench
+cryin' as if her heart would break, and I sez:
+
+"Why, sister Whisher, what is the matter?" (She wuz sister in the
+meetin' house.)
+
+She had a paper in her hand and held it out to us, "Jest see that! I
+found it in the pocket of my innocent boy!" pintin' to a coat layin' by
+her.
+
+"Why," sez I, "that paper is took more than any other almost; I like it
+myself first-rate, its editorials are the brightest and smartest you'll
+find anywhere."
+
+"Oh, but it is so sensational! so vulgar, so demoralizin' to the tender
+and innocent heart of youth. And to think that my spotless child that I
+have guarded so sedgously from every breath of evil should have it
+concealed in his pocket. I have always burnt every copy I've found." And
+agin she sobbed, and agin I sez:
+
+"Sister Whisher, don't take it so to heart; he'll have to weather worst
+storms than this on the sea of life. And you can't expect to be with him
+always and stand to the hellum."
+
+"Oh, but Reginald Heber is so innocent, so pure-hearted; almost an
+angel," sez she, "I have been so afraid that he wuz too perfect for this
+sinful world!" And her tears flowed afresh.
+
+Well, I see I couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with
+sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder
+soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better
+than common children so fur as I could see.
+
+And after goin' a few steps, Josiah and I in advance, Blandina a little
+in our rears, who should we see comin' directly towards us but Reginald
+Heber himself. He evidently didn't notice who we wuz, but wuz merely
+takin' note of a new victim, for after takin' fair aim at my stomach he
+bent his head down and went, "Choo, choo!--choo, choo!" like a engine
+and run towards me at full speed, and bunted his round shingled head
+right into my stomach with almost the force of an arrer shot out of a
+catamount, yellin' all the while like a demon.
+
+"Git out of the way, you old four-eyed devil you!"
+
+Makin' light of my spectacles, I spoze, though truly I wuz too weak to
+reason. After doublin' me up in agony he sought safety in flight. But my
+indignant pardner ketched him by his little short-tailed coat and
+dragged him back to his ma, hollerin' at her:
+
+"I'll give you a specimen of your innocent boy! He's jest the kind of an
+innocent angel I'd love to take a hemlock shingle to, and would, if it
+wuzn't for makin' talk." And he told the hull thing before I could
+interfere.
+
+She wept afresh, but sez she, lookin' at the whimperin' and strugglin'
+Reginald H., "How soon the demoralizin' effects of that paper shows----"
+
+But Josiah continued on in that same loud axent, his liniment red as
+blood with anger, "If I had your darling to deal with a spell, there
+would be a change in him, or a funeral appinted, and the body would be
+ready at the time sot, I can tell you that!"
+
+Josiah wuz fearful excited and by the side of himself. Such voylent
+language is almost a perfect stranger to him, but he feared for my
+bones. But I found after walkin' 'round a spell that they wuz intact,
+but the pain in my stomach hung about me all day, and that night, no
+matter how high my standin' wuz in the W.C.T.U., I had to take a
+peppermint sling.
+
+But to resoom backward. Machinery Buildin' wuz an immense beautiful
+palace. And when I tell you its contents are valued at eight millions
+you won't expect me to disscribe the hull on 'em, no, it hain't
+reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over
+fifty thousand horse-power.
+
+Now, jest think on't, a one horse-power hain't to be despised. Why, I've
+thought our old mair power when she wuz hitched onto a bob sled wuz
+powerful. But jest think of fifty thousand horse-power. Why, if they wuz
+hitched in front of each other with lines about the usual length, the
+line would reach more than a hundred miles. Why, the very idee is
+staggerin' to the intellect.
+
+But, there it was right there before our eyes grindin' out power to run
+this monster Exposition, and not complainin' or needin' the whip as the
+fifty thousand horses would, only jest knucklin' down stiddy to the
+work, groanin' considerable loud, and who blames it. And you could see
+everything in the line of engines from the little half horse-power gas
+engine, about half the mair's strength, about cow power, mebby, and from
+this up to a steam turbin of eight thousand horse-power, a rotary steam
+engine. And in the Belgian exhibit wuz a gas engine of three thousand
+horse-power, a common sized horse can be driv through its cylinders, it
+takes about thirty tons of coal a day to run it. And there wuz a big
+French steam engine turnin' three hundred and thirty times a minute. And
+there wuz a great hydraulic press from Germany that exerts the terrific
+pressure of ninety thousand pounds to the square inch--what would it be
+to the yard? My brain hain't powerful enough to tackle the idee.
+
+Well, there wuz every kind of machinery in the world from all the
+foreign countries as well as ours, and the methods of making and running
+them. And we stayed there till my head seemed to turn 'round and 'round,
+and I told my pardner I must git out into the open air or I should begin
+to turn 'round and revolve in spite of me. I spoze I did look bad, and
+Josiah said we would go and have lunch. He said there wuz a caff right
+'round the corner, as he pronounced cafe it sounded like a young cow.
+But the idee wuz good, and after we eat quite a good meal and rested a
+little we started to tackle Agricultural Buildin' which wuz writ next on
+my pad.
+
+It wuz quite a journey there, in fact, as I've said before, you have to
+walk a long distance to git anywhere, but jest before we got there we
+see sunthin' that made us forgit for the moment our achin' limbs. On the
+side of a slopin' hill at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, that
+lead up to the north entrance of Agricultural Hall is the most wonderful
+clock that wuz ever seen on this globe, and I don't believe they've got
+anything to beat it in Mars or Saturn.
+
+I can't give you much idee of it by writin', nobody can, but I can
+probably describe it so you can see it goes ahead of your own clock on
+the kitchen wall or mantelry piece. To begin with how long do you spoze
+the minute hand is? The minute hand on our clock is about three inches
+long, and the minute hand to this is fifty feet long, and its face is
+about three hundred feet 'round and all made of the most beautiful
+posies.
+
+Why, the figures that mark the hours are fifteen feet long, most three
+times as long as my pardner, if he lay flat as a pan-cake to be measured
+by a pole, jest think of that and these figgers are all made of bright
+colored foliage plants. The ornaments 'round the face of the clock is a
+border of twenty-five different plants, each one fifteen feet wide. Some
+different from the ornamental wreath 'round our clock face, that hain't
+more'n half an inch wide, if it is that. Our clock has a picture
+underneath of old Time with his scythe a mowin' down the hours and
+minutes as his nater his. And I told Josiah how beautiful and symbolical
+it wuz to think old Time had laid down his scythe for a spell, and wuz
+measurin' off the hours here in this Fairy Land with beautiful posies.
+
+And Josiah said, "The hours ort to be marked here with canes and
+crutches," he said his legs ached like the toothache.
+
+The distances are awful and I couldn't deny it, and you do git tuckered
+out, but then, as I told Josiah, jest think what you're tuckered for.
+
+And he said, "When you're as dead as a door-nail he didn't know what
+good some steeples and flags wuz goin' to do you, or floral clocks." I
+mistrusted he'd walked too fur lately, and had strained the cords of his
+legs, and his patience too much, though the last-named wuz easy hurt and
+always wuz.
+
+But Josiah took out his watch and looked at it and said he'd promised to
+meet a man on important bizness, and he'd meet us at a certain spot in
+Agricultural Hall in jest one hour.
+
+I asked him what bizness it wuz, and he hesitated a little and said as
+he hurried away that it wuz "Bizness connected with the meetin' house,"
+and I asked him "What meetin' house?" and he didn't answer me, he wuz
+walkin' off so fast--_mebby_ he didn't hear me.
+
+Well, Blandina and I stayed lookin' at this wonderful clock for some
+time, and she said that the man that invented this clock wuz a powerful
+genius and how she did wish she could meet him. She said such a man
+needed a kind and lovin' companion to take every care offen him and pet
+him and make of him.
+
+The machinery of this clock, what makes it go, is up above a little ways
+on the hill in a small pavilion. There are glass doors, and you can look
+in and see the works of the clock. A great bell there strikes off the
+hours and quarter hours, and there is a big hour-glass there too. One
+thousand electric lights light it up at night so folks can see day or
+night jest how time is passin' away.
+
+Agricultural Building is the largest on the ground. The two palaces of
+Agriculture and Horticulture stand up on a beautiful hill surrounded by
+orchards, gardens, vineyards, shrubs, vines of all sorts. This outside
+exhibit covers fifty acres. There are beautiful lakes full of the rarest
+aquatic plants, from the great Egyptian lotus, whose leaves are large
+and strong enough to hold up a good-sized child, and all kinds of
+smaller plants, but jest as beautiful; indeed, there is everything rare
+and lovely in that display that ever grew in water or on land, and they
+make it one of the most beautiful places of the hull Exposition.
+
+The enormous display outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every
+inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by
+Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its
+cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools,
+implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers,
+threshers, etc., run by horse-power, steam or electricity.
+
+Among the ploughs we see a small old-fashioned one made of wood, used by
+Daniel Webster when he wuz a poor farmer boy. Workin' hard at his humble
+work but his boyish mind, most probable, sot on sunthin' fur above,
+lookin' at the hard soil ahead on him that he must break up, with them
+wonderful, sad, eloquent eyes of hisen, and seein' visions, no doubt,
+and dreamin' dreams. Callin' out to his oxen or horses, "gee," or "whoa"
+as the case might be, and they not sensin' the fact that this voice wuz
+goin' to give utterance to silver-tongued, heart thrillin' eloquence in
+the highest places of Europe and his native land.
+
+As I looked at it pensively I pictured the tired boy holdin' the onhandy
+handles of the plow and trudgin' along behind his team through the long
+sultry days, and thought to myself, what hopes and dreams and ambitions
+wuz turned over by that old plow as well as green-sward.
+
+Right by that little plow wuz a big powerful one that went by
+electricity. A sight that would probable looked as strange to Daniel,
+could it have appeared to him then, as any of his wildest day-dreams
+materilized.
+
+And there wuz all the methods of irrigation, draining, engines,
+wind-mills, pumps, farm wagons, all kinds of fruit, sugar canes,
+vegetable sugar, candy stores, confectionery displays, vegetables of all
+kinds that wuz ever hearn on, some on 'em of such monster size that you
+never dremp on 'em, unless it wuz in a night-mair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Well, the time had arrived when we promised to meet Josiah at the
+appinted rondevoo. Indeed Blandina, went a little ahead of time, for as
+second chaperone she said it might be he would get there a little early,
+and bein' naturally high-sperited he might get impatient, and she said
+men ort to be guarded from anything that would wear on their tempers,
+jest as much as possible.
+
+So I looked 'round a little more, and when I got to the place appinted,
+there sot Blandina readin' extracts from "The Noble Achievements of Men"
+in a paper cover, which she carried 'round in her pocket. But no Josiah
+wuz there.
+
+Minutes passed; my happiness and peace of mind passin' off faster than
+the minute hand, and no Josiah. A quarter of a hour passed, and still no
+sign of that dear man. And when half an hour had gone by I busted into
+tears, and Blandina I could see wuz torn with anxiety and offered to go
+out into the streets of St. Louis and hunt for him. She mistrusted he
+had wandered off the Fair ground, and that clever creeter wuz willin' to
+leave all the allurements that wuz allurin' her here to hunt for him.
+
+I sez, "I don't believe he is there. But, oh, where shall we find him?
+and what state will he be in when found!" Knowin' the past as we did, we
+feared for the worst. But jest then Billy Huff happened to pass by and
+stopped and asked what wuz the matter.
+
+"Oh!" sez I, with the tears runnin' down my cheeks in copious as
+torrents, "my pardner is lost!"
+
+"Where did you lose him?" sez he.
+
+I told him how it wuz and he sez, "I'll bet I can find him for you; I
+remember his talkin' last night about a certain place."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sez I in tearful axents, "Oh, do! do try, and ease the heart of a
+distracted companion."
+
+But when he mentioned the place he thought he wuz I repelled the
+insinuation with scorn. It wuz one of the most hilarious and vain places
+of revelry at the Fair, where there wuz lots of bally girls and
+etcetery, and I sez:
+
+"No, indeed! He may have gone into some meetin' house and wandered up
+into the steeple onbeknown to him, or some educational exhibit, or Bible
+rooms, but never, never in that place."
+
+But yieldin' to his arguments I consented to go with him sayin' we would
+stay at the door while he reconoitered. But jest as we got to the door
+who should we see comin' out radiant and smilin' but Josiah Allen and
+Uncle Sime Bentley.
+
+Billy sez, "What did I tell you?"
+
+I couldn't frame a reply, I had no frame that fitted the remark, but as
+Billy disappeared to once it didn't matter. When Josiah ketched my eye
+and the look it wore, the blush of shame mantiled his cheek--or wuz it
+remorse?--I couldn't tell, they look some alike.
+
+And he sez, "We went in, Samantha, to look for a missin' man, and my
+corn ached like furiation jest as we wuz passin' the door, and I
+couldn't seem to walk another step, and it looked some like rain and I
+knew you wouldn't want me to spile my new coat----"
+
+And Uncle Sime chimed in, "We wuz took faint both on us jest as we got
+to the door and had to set down, and I mistrusted I should find cousin
+Zekiel there," and then happenin' to remember, both at the same time,
+they begun to say how they went for the good of the meetin' house.
+
+Sez I in frigid axents, "Say no more!" And I turned onto my heel and
+walked coldly away.
+
+But Blandina whispered to me, "Oh, be merciful, Aunt Samantha, men have
+such powerful intellects, that Shows that would almost ruin a woman,
+don't affect them hardly any. Speak tenderly to him," sez she, "and I
+myself will gently accost Mr. Bentley."
+
+So she stepped back to his side and Josiah advanced and walked by me
+still pourin' out excuses. Why he gin enough reasons to excuse a
+regiment let alone one small deacon.
+
+But Blandina seemed to lose her efforts, for Uncle Sime talked real
+grouty to her, he has never had a idee of marryin' anybody since his
+wife died and he mistrusts wimmen are runnin' after him. You know male
+widowers do git that idee into their heads, them that are as humbly as
+Time in the Primer, and a onmarried woman can't ask 'em about the
+weather, or sheep, or anything but what they mistrust some hidden
+warmth, and pride themselves on how attractive they be. It's a sight.
+
+As nigh as I could find out the minute Josiah Allen left me he took the
+railway and hurried to the wicked place where he and Uncle Sime wuz to
+meet, expectin' to git back in ample time to meet us. But they wuz so
+took up with the show they dallied, and so retribution and a indignant
+pardner overtook 'em. Well, we took the Intremoral railway and went back
+to finish Agricultural Hall, for that bein' writ on my pad I wanted to
+complete it so fur as we could, of course it would took months to do
+justice to it.
+
+We got there in a few minutes, and Josiah, as might be expected, wanted
+to see the food exhibits, so we went where there wuz all kinds of food
+made of vegetable products, all kind of grain, flour mills where you
+could see wheat go in one end and bread come out the other, bakeries,
+kitchens, tea and coffee pavilions and every sort of animal food
+products, milk and cream in every form, fresh and preserved cheese and
+butter dairies, all sorts of dairy tools, churns, separators, cheese
+presses and vats, everything connected with makin' butter and cheese,
+transporting and distributing. Starch factories, broom factories, market
+gardening in all branches.
+
+Grasses, all sorts of fodder for cattle, raised in every country of the
+world, and the best methods of raising. Everything relating to poultry,
+artificial hatching and raising. Every kind of crop raised in every
+country of the world and the best methods of raising and handling them.
+As in cotton, you can see it from the tiny seed clear to the cotton
+mill, so in corn, you see everything that is manufactured from it and
+how it is done--meal, breakfast foods, starch, bread, pastry, baking
+powders, yeast, from a kernel of corn up to mills and manufactories. And
+so it wuz in everything raised in our own country and all over the
+world.
+
+And there wuz a display of insects, bees and everything relating to
+honey and wax. Silk worms and their work and products, cochineal and all
+kinds of useful insects and their work, and hurtful insects and methods
+of destroying them, and so on and so on and so on. I couldn't tell all I
+see if I should try a week, and what we see wuzn't a drop to a fountain.
+The immense buildin' is divided off into streets and blocks jest like a
+city, and you might roam through them streets a month and find sunthin'
+new and interestin' every day and hour.
+
+Well, from there we went to Horticultural Hall, or we had started for
+there when Josiah made a observation about the size of a potato he had
+seen in Agricultural Hall, that I had to in the cause of Truth and Duty
+object to, the size he mentioned was a twelve-quart pail, and I said:
+
+"Josiah, take off a few quarts from that pail. For the good of your soul
+take off two quarts anyway."
+
+"Not a quart!" sez he, "nor a spunful."
+
+Well, we had words about it, Blandina as usual siding with her uncle,
+and it ended with their goin' back with a string, which Josiah produced
+from his pocket to measure it, I offering to stay by a certain statute
+till they got back. And as I stood there lookin' at the stiddy passin'
+crowd and philosophizin' on it as my nater is, I wuz accosted by a
+strange lookin' man, as I took it to be (I say It for reasons named
+hereafter).
+
+"Josiah Allen's wife, I am happy to meet you; I knew you at once though
+it is so long since we met." In the meantime it had gripped holt of my
+hand with fervor.
+
+I drawed back and sez, "Sir!" (I thought it favored that gender most)
+"Sir, I think you are mistook."
+
+"Oh, no, you are Josiah Allen's wife; I am Dr. Mary Walker."
+
+"Oh!" sez I in a relieved axent, as I returned the warm grasp of her
+hand, "I am glad to meet you, Mary."
+
+She's done some good things in her life, takin' care of poor wounded
+soldiers, etc., and I honored her for 'em. Though I don't approve of her
+costoom, as I told her in the conversation that ensued, after we'd
+talked considerable about the Fair and kindred matters. For I see as we
+stood there behavin' ourselves, curious eyes wuz bent on her and
+onbecomin' epithets hurled at her by them who knowed no better. She
+seemed oblivious to 'em, but I asked her if she wouldn't rather wear
+less noticeable attire.
+
+And she said she cared not for ribald remarks as long as her motives wuz
+pure.
+
+And I said we could carry pure motives under a headdress of peacock's
+feathers standin' up straight over our foreheads, but wouldn't it be
+better to carry 'em under a bunnet?
+
+"No better!" sez she. "Not a whit."
+
+"Well, easier?" sez I. "Wouldn't it be easier for ourselves and
+bystanders?"
+
+Sez she, "I care not for Public Opinion!"
+
+"But," sez I, "as long as we've got to live clost neighbor to Public
+Opinion wouldn't it be easier for us to fall in with his idees a little
+on comparatively unimportant things than to keep him riled up all the
+time? It seems to me that if folks want to impress their personality on
+the world it is better to do it by noble deeds and words than by
+startlin' costooms."
+
+Sez she, "My dress is fur more comfortable than the ordinary dress of
+females."
+
+Sez I reasonably, "Short dresses are a boon and a blessin', but in my
+opinion they can be short enough for comfort and still not infringe on
+man's chosen raiment. And as for pantaloons, men are welcome to 'em so
+fur as I'm concerned, and also tall hats, they hain't nothin' I hanker
+for either on 'em."
+
+Sez she, "We have a right to wear any clothes we see fit."
+
+Sez I, "We have a right to plow green sword, shingle a steep barn ruff,
+or break a yoke of steers. But the question is, will it pay in comfort
+or economy to do this? As for me, I'd ruther be in the house in a
+comfortable dress and clean apron, cookin' a good dinner for Josiah, or
+settin' down knittin' his socks whilst he duz the harder work he is by
+nater and education fitted for. But everybody to their own mind. And so
+fur as I am concerned I'd ruther attract attention by doin' sunthin'
+worth while, sunthin' really noble and good, than by tyin' a red rag
+round my fore-top. But as I say, folks are different, and I am fur from
+sayin' that my way is the only right way."
+
+Mary kinder waived off some of my idees and went on and spoke of her
+work on the battlefield and how necessary her dress wuz in such a place.
+
+And I sez, "Mary, I've always honored you for your noble work there. But
+I believe I could lift up the head of a dyin' man easier in a loose
+gingham dress and straw bunnet tied on, than I could in your tight
+pantaloons and high hat, but howsumever the main thing is that the man
+is lifted, and he doubtless wouldn't quarrel about the costoom of his
+preserver. The main thing in this world, Mary, is the work we do, the
+liftin', or tryin' to lift; the day's work we do in the harvest field of
+Endeavor. And I spoze a few trousers more or less hain't goin' to count
+when we carry in our sheaves. Though I must say to the last, Mary
+Walker, I could carry 'em easier in my dress than I could in yourn."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In the heat of our good-natered conversation Mary had slipped her hand
+through my arm and neither of us noticed it, so wropped up wuz we in the
+topics under discussion, when I hearn Blandina's voice behind me sayin',
+"Oh, what a noble lookin' man Aunt Samantha is talkin' to and how
+affectionate actin'; how sweet it will be to meet him." And then I hearn
+a sharp raspin' voice clost to me sayin':
+
+"Sir, I will thank you to onhand my wife!"
+
+I wouldn't hardly have knowed my pardner's voice, such burnin' anger
+showed in it and wuz depictered on his liniment as I turned round and
+faced him. And he went on:
+
+"Samantha, have I lived with you most a century to be deceived in you
+now?"
+
+His turrible emotions had onhinged his reasonin' faculties, we hain't
+lived together so long as that, but I didn't dane to argy, I only sez
+with calm dignity:
+
+"Miss Walker, this is my pardner, Josiah Allen."
+
+"_Miss_!" sez he in a overbearin' axent, "_Miss_ Walker!" He looked as
+if he thought it wuz a conspiracy hatched up between us to deceive him.
+
+"Yes," sez I coolly, "Miss Walker, Dr. Mary Walker."
+
+"Oh!" sez Josiah, in his surprise and relief not offerin' to bow or
+shake hands or nothin'. "Dear Samantha, I've hearn on her." And he
+turned and linked his hand in my other arm so for a minute we looked
+like three twins perambulatin' along. In the meantime I introduced
+Blandina, who looked bewildered and disappointed.
+
+But Dr. Mary Walker remembered a engagement, and to my relief took leave
+on us. And I said a few words to Josiah on the danger and cruelty to me
+of his hasty opinion and suspicion and in the cause of Duty I mentioned
+the late eppisode of himself and Uncle Sime, and he seemed mortified and
+apologetic for as many as three minutes. But it didn't last, it never
+duz with his sect. And we went on to Horticultural Hall, Josiah on the
+way reluctantly showin' me the string he had measured the potato with.
+He had to take off several quarts offen that pail, jest as I told him he
+would, and it made him fraxious.
+
+But he lost his shagrin on the way, it wuz buried under the acres of
+posies and beautiful shrubs and trees through which we wuz passin'.
+Every rare posy you ever hearn on wuz there and them you never dremp on,
+and trees, some beautiful and familiar, and them with strange and
+beautiful foliage. Little lakes, where gold and silver fish played and
+dotted over with the rarest and loveliest water plants and blossoms,
+shrubs runnin' over with bloom, why, there wuz acres of jest rosies. And
+in the middle of a six-acre rose garden stood a handsome statute of one
+of my own sect, Flora by name, jest lookin' down as if she owned the
+hull on't, and wuz proud and happy to be there, as well she
+might--she'll never git into such a delightful spot agin, I don't
+believe.
+
+And there wuz pleasant walks windin' round every which way and once in
+awhile a big tree shadin' a cozy nook where you could sit down and enjoy
+the beauty and perfume. It wuz good to be there, and it seemed as if the
+hull world had the same mind about comin' and wuz all there walkin'
+about or else settin' down enjoyin' themselves.
+
+Horticultural Buildin' is big enough and full enough to keep folks busy
+a month. Right in the centre, in a place as long as from our house clear
+over to she that wuz Submit Tewksbury's and I d'no but furder, wuz a
+display of fruit, all kinds of fruit of every shape and size that grow
+in every climate from frigid to torrid, and every country from Greenland
+to Asia, it wuz a sight. Then there wuz a display of every kind of
+horticultural machinery and implements, glass housen, aquariums,
+ferneries, all sorts of ornaments for gardens.
+
+All kinds of small fruits and how to grow 'em, everything relating to
+the culture of vines, vineyards, wine cellars. All sorts of ornamental
+plants and flowers, models of fruit in wax and plaster, baskets and
+bunches of flowers, conservatories, all flowering plants from every
+country and the way to grow them. All sorts of seeds, grass, fruit trees
+of all kinds, and the best way to prune and plant them.
+
+Josiah told me he thought we could git round and see what wuz in this
+buildin' in four weeks, but I felt dubersome about it and told him we
+would have to go a pretty good jog if we did. Blandina thought she could
+git round in three weeks if she had some good man's arm to lean on the
+most of the time.
+
+But 'tennyrate, after stayin' there and lookin' round a long time, I
+told Josiah I wuz tired enough to go home, so we went.
+
+I wuz most melted too, for St. Louis weather is tuckering to them that
+can't stand heat. It made Josiah real worrisome time and agin. And one
+thing he said about it put a idee into my head that I never had thought
+on, I thought it wuz real smart.
+
+Somebody wuz lamentin' the fact in our hearin' that so many thieves and
+villains of all sorts had congregated at St. Louis this summer, and
+Josiah sez:
+
+"It's a first rate thing for sinners to come here to git acclimated, as
+it were, before they die."
+
+I hadn't thought on't, but felt there wuz sunthin' in it, for truly the
+burnin' climate of the place I don't want to speak on by name, must be
+easier to bear after visitin' St. Louis than to plunge into it from
+cooler and more northern States. And still I don't know why we should
+want to make it easier for 'em, I spoze it wuz our pityin' naters that
+made us think ont.
+
+The weather wuz simply burnin' hot, no other word describes it, oveny,
+furnacy hot! and Josiah said, and well said, it set folks to thinkin'
+and inclined 'em to take warnin' and mend their ways. Sez he, "Two days
+of St. Louis weather wuz worth more to sinners than the sermons of a
+month of winter Sundays."
+
+Truly in heat it wuz a great object lesson. I wore my brown lawn dress
+day after day, havin' no chance to wear my rich alpacky, as I wanted to,
+to kinder show off before Miss Huff, and Blandina presented the wilted
+appearance of a long slim cabbage leaf plunged in bilin' water.
+
+I believe Josiah's groanin's and takin's on and mutterin's helped him to
+bear it better than if he had held in. Not that I told him so, no, I
+told him it wuz onmanly to carry on so. But truly the heat wuz fearful,
+our clothin' stuck to us and prespiration and sweat run down our faces.
+
+The next day it wuz so hot I felt kinder mauger and stayed to home.
+Blandina and Miss Huff went half a day, and in the afternoon Blandina
+went to a big department store in the city to git some thinner
+underwear, and I got awful skairt about her. Miss Huff gin her the most
+minute directions about where it wuz and what car to take, it wuzn't a
+great ways off, and she ort to got back at four o'clock anyway.
+
+But time run along, four struck, then five and then six, and I wuz
+gittin' dretful worried about her when she come in tired enough.
+
+Sez I, "I wuz awful worried about you, Blandina. Did you git lost?"
+
+"No." She said she got onto the right car and the conductor wuz a
+dretful handsome and fascinatin' man, and she went to git off at the
+right street, and kinder backed off, she always duz git off that way,
+and the conductor thinkin' she wanted to git on, he smiled so sweet and
+held out his hand to help her on so she would git on again. And that
+happened over and over. She not wantin' to hurt his feelin's and slight
+him by not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally
+she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform
+if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the
+last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz
+humbly and gruff and she got along all right, but it belated her.
+
+Sez I, "What made you do it, Blandina?"
+
+"Oh," sez she, "he looked so winnin' and invitin' I didn't want to hurt
+his feelin's."
+
+Sez I, "You'll sup sorrer yet, Blandina, by your wantin' to obleege
+everybody. You ort to look out for yourself some, you're alltogether too
+good to be comfortable."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Well, Josiah went that day with Billy Huff, he santered off without any
+system or plan, and wouldn't take my pad though I offered it to him. But
+I guess they jest poked round miscelaneous, as you may say, seein' jest
+what they happened to run into. And in some of their travels they met
+Barzelia Trimble, a woman lecturer, she's young and good lookin' and
+smart as a whip, and I guess she made much of Josiah, 'tennyrate she gin
+him tickets to her lecture.
+
+She said she'd met a man whose brother-in-law's cousin had bought a dog
+once of a neighbor of mine, and so feelin' so well acquainted with me
+she sent me the tickets, and did hope we would come. She said she felt
+that she knew us both so well that it would be a treat to her.
+
+The way she come to see Josiah that day, Billy had met her at school
+where she lectured.
+
+Josiah wuz very anxious that we should both go. He remembered the dog.
+
+But I sez, "I thought you didn't believe in wimmen's lecturin' and
+havin' rights, Josiah."
+
+"Well, I don't believe in 'em, but the tickets wuz gin to us, fifty
+cents right out of her pocket, and she'll expect us. She said it would
+make her feel more homelike to have us present."
+
+"Well," sez I, "I don't know as I feel so very intimate with her, I
+never see the dog, but her idees on wimmen's rights is sensible, I've
+read about 'em."
+
+And that kinder headed Josiah off onto a new tact; we had had a dretful
+good supper, and I believe Miss Trimble had made a sight on him, I
+believe she had flattered and pompeyed him and for the time bein' he
+felt soft in sperit towards the sex.
+
+And 'tennyrate men's moods are like the onfathomable sea, sometimes
+turbulent, throwin' up stunny arguments and sandy ones, and agin flowin'
+calm and smooth as ile, and this wuz one of the gently swashin' ones.
+
+"Id'no," sez he, "and I told her so, what wimmen want rights for, or to
+vote; I never wanted wimmen to vote, I told her they wuz too good, they
+wuz too near angels to have rights. You know I've always said so,
+Samantha, and I wuz readin' a piece a day or two ago, writ by one of the
+first ministers in the country, and he said that wimmen hadn't ort to
+want any rights; they ort to be riz up on a pedestal and I say so too."
+
+And I sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to
+do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb
+up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework."
+
+"Well, I say it hain't onreasonable. You ort to be up on one, Samantha."
+
+(How much Miss Trimble must have made on him. He wuz so oncommon clever,
+and he never wuz megum, poor creeter!) I didn't really want to git into
+an argument at that time o' day, but I see he wuz on the wrong tact, and
+I felt I must convince him, so I sez in reasonable axents:
+
+"I jest as lives be on a pedestal as not, I'd kinder love to if I could
+set, I always did enjoy bein' riz up, if I had nothin' to do only to
+stay up there some time, but wimmen have to git round so much it
+wouldn't work. How could I take a tower histed up like the car of
+Juggernaut or a Pope in a procession. I couldn't get carriers for one
+thing, and I wouldn't give a cent to be carried round anyway with my
+dizzy spells, I should more'n as likely as not fall off. But that hain't
+the main reason I'm agin it, it is too tuckerin' a job for wimmen."
+
+"Tuckerin' to be enthroned on a pedestal with the male sect lookin' up
+to you and worshippin' you. You call that tuckerin'?" sez he.
+
+"Yes," sez I, "I do. How under the sun can I or any other woman be up on
+a pedestal and do our own housework, cookin', washin' dishes, sweepin',
+moppin', cleanin' lamps, blackin' stoves, washin', ironin', makin' beds,
+quiltin' bed quilts, gittin' three meals a day, day after day, biled
+dinners and bag puddin's and mince pies and things, to say nothin' of
+custard and pumpkin pies that will slop over on the level, do the best
+you can; how could you keep 'em inside the crust histin' yourself up and
+down? And cleanin' house time----"
+
+"Mebby," sez I honestly, "it would come handy in whitewashin' or fixin'
+the stovepipe, but where would it be in cleanin' mop-boards, or puttin'
+down carpets, or washin' winders, or doin' a three weeks washin', or
+bilin' soap? or pickin' geese? They act like fury shot up on the barn
+floor. How could you git our old gander up on a pedestal? His temper is
+that fiery, to say nothin' of settin' or standin' on it and holdin' on
+to the old thing and pickin' it. And raisin' chickens and washin' old
+trousers and overalls, and cleanin' sullers and paintin' floors and
+paperin', and droudgin' round all the time, as a woman has to to keep
+her house comfortable.
+
+"And pickin' black-caps and strawberries, and churnin' big churnin's of
+butter, and pickin' wool, to say nothin' of onexpected company comin',
+and no girl. Let a lot of company come to stay all day the relations on
+your side and the work not done, and me posin' like a statute, lookin'
+down on you and your sect, you'd feel like a fool and jaw, you know you
+would. I presoom you'd throw your boot-jack at me and threaten to part
+with me, and how mean that would be in you when I did it at your
+request. 'Tain't anything any woman would go into if she wuz let alone."
+
+"And then think of the thrashers and silo fillers comin' in hungry as
+bears, what would they say? No dinner cookin' and I on a pedestal, why
+it would be the town's talk. Or you comin' home from Jonesville on a
+cold night fraxious as a dog and sayin' you should die off if you didn't
+have supper in ten minutes. How could I git it on time perched up there?
+
+"I say it can't be done, and it is onreasonable for men to want it, and
+at the same time want wimmen to do her own housework. For these men,
+every one on 'em, would act like fury if their house wuzn't clean and
+their clothes in order, and meals on time. And you must know it would
+jest about kill a woman to be doin' all this and histin' herself up and
+down a hundred times a day, and mebby half dead with rumatiz too. Why,
+it would be worse for me than all the rest of my work, and you hadn't
+ort to ask it of me."
+
+Josiah looked real huffy and sez, "I hain't the only man that's wantin'
+it done; men have always been sot on it. There's been more'n a wagon
+load of poetry writ on it and you know it. Men have always said a sight
+about it, I hain't alone in it," he snapped out.
+
+"No," sez I honestly, "I've hearn it before. But you see it wouldn't
+work, don't you? And I believe I could convince every man if I could git
+to 'em and talk it over with 'em. And I don't see where the beauty on't
+would come in; of course a woman couldn't change her clothes and put on
+Greek drapery right in the midst of cleanin' the buttery shelves or
+moppin' off the back steps. And to see a woman standin' up on a pedestal
+with an old calico dress pinned up round her waist and a slat sunbunnet
+on and her pardner's rubber boots, and her sleeves rolled up, and her
+face red as blood with hard work, and her hands all swelled up with hot
+soap suds and lye, what beauty would there be in it? It always did seem
+onreasonable besides bein' so tuckerin' no woman could stand it for a
+day."
+
+He looked mad as a hen and sez he, "They could manage it if their minds
+wuz strong enough."
+
+Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their
+legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up
+onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and
+then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more
+than two meals a day under the circumstances."
+
+Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said
+about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to
+statters."
+
+And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they
+have to do."
+
+And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin'
+considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read
+our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home.
+For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my
+body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot
+out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.
+
+The next mornin' grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did
+wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin' to the
+Fair and he wuz goin' to be left alone. So Blandina, clever creeter that
+she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume,
+Foxe's Book of Martyr's, and also from Lamentations and Job. Billy said
+his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable. We
+have all seen such folks.
+
+So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein' in good sperits and bein'
+gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an
+ortomobile. I didn't favor the idee and said:
+
+"Id'no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that
+it might prove our last ride."
+
+"But," sez he, "with a good shuffler there hain't any danger."
+
+But I still wuz dubersome and sez, "Mebby it would end by our shufflin'
+off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on."
+
+"You don't wear 'em, Samantha, nor never did, nor I don't wear a
+pompodoor" (he meant this for a joke for his head is most as bare as a
+sass plate).
+
+And he went on, "It would be a very stylish and genteel ride. I'd love
+to tell brother Gowdey about it. The bretheren will expect it of me as a
+live progressive Jonesvillian minglin' here with the noblest in the land
+to cut sunthin' of a dash."
+
+But seein' that I still looked dubersome he sez, "I don't feel very
+rugged this mornin' and I dread the crowded car; Id'no but I should
+faint away in 'em if I sot out."
+
+That of course settled the matter. As his anxious chaperone I consented
+to the project and he went and got the showiest one he could find. He
+didn't look for character or stability, only for gildin' and red paint.
+And we embarked, Josiah with a proud liniment, as if he wuz introducin'
+me into gay life and fashionable amusements. The man wuz to take us to
+the Fair ground for so much, and Josiah feelin' so neat had paid him in
+advance, and there wuz another party waitin' for him. And the speed that
+shuffler put on wuz sunthin' awful.
+
+The first few minutes before we got to goin' that terrific speed Josiah
+liked it, and seemed to look patronizin'ly down on the people walkin'
+afoot that we passed by and pity 'em. But anon the man got to goin'
+faster and faster and Josiah's liniment underwent a change and he
+hollered out to me, for the noise wuz so loud and skairful he had to
+yell:
+
+"Samantha, I don't believe it is right for members of the meetin' house
+to be goin' at such a gait."
+
+And I hollered back to him, "It hain't none of my doin's, it hain't
+nothin' I wanted," I a hangin' onto my bunnet strings and tryin' to keep
+my bunnet on. As for the tabs of my mantilly I had gin up tryin' to curb
+'em down, and they waved out like a pirate's flag in a cyclone only a
+different color.
+
+Finally Josiah hollered to the shuffler, "I want you to curb in your
+machine! I'm a deacon, and have got my station in the Jonesville meetin'
+house to think on. Hold it in, I say!"
+
+The shuffler glanced round at us as calm as a goggle-eyed clam and never
+dained to answer, and seemin'ly urged on the orto to redoubled speed.
+
+Oh, the awfulness of the seen! the terrific noise soundin' on my ear
+pans till it seemed as if them pans must break down, the dirt a flyin',
+my pardner standin' up with his whiskers and coat tails wavin' in the
+breeze. His hat blowed off and by almost superhuman exertions I ketched
+it and carried it in my hand, thinkin' it wuz safer than on his head.
+
+He a yellin', "Stop, I tell you! Whoa! back up! Dum your dum picter,
+whoa I say!"
+
+For the last few milds Josiah rid standin' all I could do and say.
+Yellin' at the shuffler, hollerin' whoa to him, and appealin' to Heaven
+and me simultaneous as it were, for mercy and succor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And that shuffler payin' no more attention to him than as if he wuz a
+fly, not a hoss fly, but jest a common fly. Only he would look back at
+us once in awhile through them big goggles of hisen that most curdled my
+blood to see 'em.
+
+At last Josiah, seemin' to give up all hope, sunk back and grasped holt
+of my tab and sez, "Good-bye, Samantha, if you git through alive
+remember I died tryin' to save you." His emotions and the dirt choked
+him, and he faintly added:
+
+"Tell the bretheren and see that it is put in the Jonesville Augur, that
+I died a hero's death tryin' to save my pardner." And his grasp on my
+tabs become almost hysterical.
+
+But at that minute the entrance gate wuz reached and the orto stopped so
+abruptly, that Josiah who had got up agin, wuz precipitated into my lap.
+But he got out immegiately, and the minute he and I stepped onto terry
+firmy he turned and shook his fist at the man and sez he, "If it wuzn't
+for the crowd and Samantha's feelin's, I would whip you within an inch
+of your life! Oh, if I only had you in a ten acre lot you'd feel the
+wrath of a lion when it wuz rousted up!"
+
+But I laid my hand on him and led him away, I knowed such seens wuz bad
+for his nerve. He trembled like a popple leaf, and the minute we got
+through the gate I had to set down with him and deal out four nut-cakes
+before he wuz himself agin.
+
+I wuz determined this day to go to the Palace of Fine Arts, so we did
+and I put in a time of almost perfect happiness there. We went into
+Government Building entrance that day, and I proposed to Josiah that we
+should stop at Liberal Arts Building on the way, and he at first
+demurred and sez:
+
+"Samantha, you're too liberal by half now for folks with our means and
+Id'no as I want you to spend your time in such a display." He said he
+would rather take me to the display of Economics, and sez he, wantin' to
+persuade me to go with him, "Wimmen has countless virtues, but to my
+mind her crownin' excelence is to be equinomical."
+
+But I explained to him that exhibit didn't mean bein' liberal with money
+but it wuz jest a step behind Fine Arts, and sez I, "I should think you
+would want to see the place where this Exposition wuz dedicated in the
+presence of one of the biggest crowds that wuz ever gathered together."
+
+So we stopped there a little while, and could have spent days there with
+interest and profit. The foreign countries have splendid exhibits here
+as well as our own.
+
+Everything in typography and books, everything possible in photography;
+models of light-houses; dams; geographical maps; Egyptian, Hebrew and
+Imperial surveys. Scientific demonstrations in liquid hydrogen and that
+queer substance, radium.
+
+I wuz dretfully interested in that wonderful new discovery and sez I to
+myself as I looked at it, "As little as there is of you there is enough
+to overturn big systems of science and philosophy, and begin a new
+history of the inside of the world." I wuz glad my sect had discovered
+this and thought it wuz one of the best things she had done in a number
+of years.
+
+And there wuz all kinds of hygienic displays, chemical and engineering
+works. China had a dretful interestin' exhibit, ancient manuscripts,
+books published thousands of years before our kind of type wuz invented.
+Weapons that wuz old when Mr. Confucious wuz livin'. Armor, costumes,
+musical instruments, queer lookin' things them wuz as I ever see and
+nothin' I would want to play on. Photo engineering, electrotyping,
+lithography, typewriting; telescopes of all kinds from tiny ones up to
+ones that weigh four thousand pounds. The latest medical and surgical
+instruments. The piano from the first one made up to the present
+automatic instruments of all kinds; stringed instruments, church organs;
+displays in civil and military engineering; machinery for making good
+roads; rock crushers, water purifying, and so on and so on and so on.
+
+The time spent in this buildin' is full of education as well as
+interest. There wuz some beautiful statutes too decoratin' this
+buildin', most on 'em I wuz proud to see wuz figgers of my own sect.
+
+But having sot out for the Palace of Fine Arts we anon wended our way
+thither. It is a beautiful building, or ruther there are four massive
+buildings connected together to form this Palace of Art. There are three
+big buildings in front and an annex, the central building built of stone
+and brick is the only permanent buildin' in this enormous Exposition so
+naturally they would make it as perfect as possible.
+
+And it is crowded full of beauty. In fact turn where you would you would
+see such glowing landscapes, such beautiful faces, such perfect
+sculpture that you git all mixed up, and when you thought it over you
+couldn't remember whether some picture or statute that stood out in your
+memory wuz in the U.S. exhibit or the French, or German, or Italian, or
+etc., etc.
+
+In lookin' back and thinkin' on't and tryin' to git 'em in the right
+place in your mind it is as difficult as it would be in walking through
+a big clover meadow and tryin' to sort out the clover blossoms and
+describe 'em one by one and tell in jest what corner of the lot you
+found 'em. It can't be done; in such an immense field of art your brain
+sort o' fills up and turns round and round and you git mixed. But as I
+say some of the pictures and statutes stayed in my memory so I couldn't
+dislodge 'em and don't want to, no indeed!
+
+Now there are three noble figgers at the entrance that you can't forgit.
+Inspiration standin' up above the main entrance is jest where she should
+be. Inspiration, breath of the Most High breathed into some of His
+children below anon or oftener, and then on each side is Truth and
+Nature. Nature, the kind All Mother, Truth, the divine one. How sweet to
+find 'em all there together guardin' and consecratin' these walls. You
+went in feelin' safer with such gardeens at the portal.
+
+I must say though that Truth didn't have any clothes on, she wuz jest
+settin' there on top of the world jest as naked as she could be, she
+could have wore one of my bib aprons as well as not, durin' the Fair
+anyway, whilst there wuz so many folks round and she would have looked
+enough sight better to me and been jest as truthful. But howsumever I
+knew she wuz likely, her face wuz innocent and beautiful.
+
+As I said it is some of the pictures and statutes that stand out
+clearest in my memory, but there wuz everything else there admirable and
+choice in art, paintings in oil, wax; on canvas, wood, enamel, metal,
+fresco paintings on walls and ceilings. Water colors, chalk, pastel,
+ivory, pyrography. Engravings, etchings, figgers in marble, metal,
+plaster. Carvings in ivory, stone, wood, etc. Architectural designs of
+all kinds; mosaics; art work in glass, earthen ware, leather, metal;
+artistic book binding and etc., etc., etc., and I might spread these out
+into volumes.
+
+And didn't my soul jest spread her wings here in delight, to speak in
+flowery language. What pictures of beauty dawned on my rapt eyesight,
+faces sweet as wuz ever dremp on, sad faces, tragic faces, old faces and
+young faces; children sweet and bonny as wuz ever seen. Youth and love,
+age and manhood and gratified ambition, princes and paupers, life and
+death.
+
+Landscapes full of the dewy freshness and joy of the morning, night
+seens dark and full of mystery and melancholy. Mountain and valley, hill
+and dale, ocean and rivulet. Every phase of human joy and sorrow wuz
+depictered there, and every phase of peaceful and warlike life. It wuz a
+sight. If I could stayed there a year right in them walls I might have
+got round mebby and seen what I wanted to and as long as I wanted to.
+
+But of course this wuzn't to be, for one thing the Fair would be closed
+before and then Josiah wouldn't gin his consent anyway. He got kinder
+worrisome as it wuz and didn't want to stay so long as we did, and after
+a hour or so I compromised with him, gin him nut cakes occasionally and
+anon when we would enter a new gallery he would set down by the door
+till I had got through lookin'.
+
+As I said some of the pictures and statutes clung to my memory as if
+they'd been throwed at my mind so powerful that they jest stuck there
+and couldn't be dislodged even by all the later multitude of sights
+throwed over 'em.
+
+There wuz one by Whistler full of the subtle mystery that he wrops round
+his figgers. Why you know he has painted one that to them that are
+sympathetic, the Little Lady in Black, will walk right out of the
+picture and come towards 'em, time and agin she's done it, I'm tellin'
+the truth that can be proved.
+
+In the "Mystery of the Night," the female figger dimly discerned through
+the veil of mist seems the incarnation of the mystery of sky and sea,
+the infinite solemnity, and peace and loneliness of the night.
+
+There wuz pictures that made you happy, and some that sort o' sent a
+chill to your sperit, like Millais' "Chill October," as you looked at it
+you almost felt the chill, mournful breeze that you knew wuz sweepin'
+along.
+
+Some queer pictures like the "Ghost Dance" kinder lingered in the
+vestibule of your mind. You know your mind has got more different rooms
+in it than any house that wuz ever built, and some pictures and folks
+don't git into the very inmost rooms; they never git furder than the
+doorstep.
+
+There are three pictures by the King and Queen of Portugal, all on 'em
+picturin' humble life. The King's show a peasant drivin' cattle to
+water. I wondered if he didn't wish, when he painted it, that he wuz
+that care-free herder, who could sing and whistle and wear easy shues,
+and throw on any old clothes, and santer out into the dewy mornin' and
+do as he wanted to.
+
+One of the Queen's wuz a farm wagon, such as they carry farm produce in,
+but sometimes I spoze load up with merry girls and boys for a happy
+outing in the green woods.
+
+I shouldn't wonder if when she wuz dead tired of the cares, formalities
+and burdens of a queen, she wished she wuz one of them happy young girls
+riding off in a cotton frock on the old farm wagon into some joyous
+picnic.
+
+The other one of hern wuz a cute little donkey and over all on 'em wuz
+bright sunlight and soft shadow. They done well. I wished I could
+encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so--a word of praise sometimes duz so much
+good, to anybody from peasant to king.
+
+Among the statutes that I see to the Fair that stood up straight in my
+mind wuz Light and Darkness. Darkness wuz in the form of two men, one on
+'em crouched low with his arm over his face drawin' his mantle to hide
+from the light. The other male is liftin' his head but his eyes are
+still shot, evidently he feels the dawn of sunthin' better and he's
+waking up, while standin' erect is the graceful figger of a female,
+beautiful and noble, full of boundin' life and light, holdin' up high
+over her head a star. She wants to wake up the hull world to the light.
+
+Dakota wuz pictured as a lady with precious few clothes on; she looked
+old in her face, and I told Josiah it wuz a shame to see a woman that
+age with such a low-necked dress on. It wuz cut down to the bottom of
+her waist. And lots of the men staters wuz wearin' low necks. I didn't
+like it, but Josiah remarked that he'd always said:
+
+"A vest and coat cut low neck would make a man look dressy, and he
+believed he should have one made for best."
+
+I looked coldly at him and said it looked bad enough to see young folks
+dress in that way without old folks cuttin' up and actin'.
+
+Lots of the statutes would looked as well agin if they'd had me to
+advise 'em about their clothes, but still take the pictures and statutes
+of the Fair as a hull they're magnificent and a honor to the nations.
+There are a thousand statutes, all beautiful and inspirin', to be seen
+there on the Exposition grounds.
+
+I wuz glad to see the statute of Dr. Jenner, who discovered vaccination,
+tryin' it first on his own son. When it is the law for doctors to try
+their medicine first on their own folks, miscelaneous patients will feel
+safer. Dr. Jenner acted honorable toward humanity at large. I told
+Josiah I hoped the boy got along well and didn't git hit on the arm
+while it wuz sore.
+
+And he said, "I wouldn't worry over folks I never neighbored with, and
+I'd better tend to my own companion, who wuz starvin' slowly by my
+side."
+
+He couldn't been so very hungry havin' eat so many nut-cakes since
+breakfast, but I dealt out some more to him.
+
+Well, we stayed in the Art Gallery a long time, so long that Josiah
+complained bitterly and sez, "If you stay as long in every buildin' when
+will we git round to see the Pike?" Truly Josiah longed for that place
+day by day, but as first chaperone of the party I tried to delay him
+from goin', knowin' that it must come sometime but gladly puttin' off
+the day.
+
+But I sez soothin'ly, "I shan't want to stay so long at any other
+place." And it bein' past our lunch time we went and had a good meal,
+and of course Josiah's crossness subsided with every mouthful he took
+and his liniment looked like a cosset lamb's in amiability when I
+proposed we should go to the Fishery Buildin', it wuzn't so very fur
+from there considerin', though as I have said before every place is a
+good ways off from anywhere else. You'd have knowed the buildin' by the
+great fish that wuz sculped over the entrance. It wuz a bigger fish than
+wuz ever lied about in male fish stories, and that's sayin' enough;
+connected with this is also an exhibit of forestry and game. We went
+into the part devoted to forestry first, there are several acres
+outdoors as well as inside devoted to this display, and what didn't we
+see there in trees, plants, woods of every kind, forest growth tree
+planting, all sorts of useful wood, pine, spruce, hemlock, cedar, all
+the hard woods, and everything made of wood; wood pulp, barrels,
+baskets, turpentine, alcohol.
+
+In the United States exhibit wuz immense pictures illustrating our
+forests, methods of lumbering, lumber camps, forest fires, etc., etc.
+There wuz displays of different species of trees and plants, forest
+botany, structure and anatomy of woods, saw-mills, seeds and plants of
+all kinds, and all the different woods and products of wood from Egypt
+to Japan, barks, roots, cork, rubber, gums, oils, quinine, camphor,
+varnish, wax, dye-woods, lumber, staves, why there wuz over two hundred
+different kinds of wood from Argentina alone.
+
+Josiah, who wuz real interested here, sez, "I'd love to have brother
+Gowdey step in here a minute; he's proud as a peacock of his strip of
+woodland, he thought he covered the hull field of forestry with his wood
+pulp and maple sugar. I guess his pride would be took down a little."
+
+"Well," sez I, "let's look on it as showin' the greatness and wonder of
+Providence and be humble and admire."
+
+"I shall look at it as I'm a minter!" he sez. But I guess he wuz more
+reverential for a spell.
+
+And there wuz all the plants and leaves used in medicine, and mushrooms,
+truffles, seeds and plants and implements for gathering and preserving;
+drying houses, nurseries, basket work, grass work. It seemed as if
+everything that could be known about trees and plants could be learnt
+here, and though we knowed we hadn't time or convenience to take all the
+knowledge in, no, our heads wuzn't big enough, but they felt crowded
+full as we left this buildin'. And that I felt wuz the crownin' glory of
+this fair, the new idees and knowledge of better ways and things that
+wuz learnt in all these exhibits, and wuz destined in the future to bear
+fruit and bless the world.
+
+In the Fishery department we see all the products of the great water
+world that makes up more than half of our earth. Every kind of fish that
+ever swum, from a whale to a minnie, salt water and fresh water fish,
+and them that are half fish and half animal, and aquatic birds and
+aquatic plants of all kinds, and plants that seem half way between
+vegetable and animal. Sea grass, shells of all kinds, pearls,
+pearl-shells, corals, sponges, skins and furs, illustrations, paintings
+and casts illustrating water life of all kinds, fishing grounds. All
+kinds of boats, nets, traps, rods, reels, lines, fish curing
+establishments, aquariums, and so and so on and so on, and I might write
+them "so ons," indefinitely but what would be the use?
+
+Jest imagine everything that is discovered and brought to light by them
+that go down to the sea in ships and there it wuz.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+West of the forestry buildin' growin' right out of the ground is a
+immense map of the United States covering five acres of ground, gravel
+walks mark the State and coast lines, and each State is sot out in its
+own native flowers.
+
+There it wuz, you could look right down onto it jest like a map, from
+the rocky shores of Maine down to Florida.
+
+Josiah wuz simply infatuated with the sight and I myself thought it wuz
+a great idee and I sez:
+
+"Josiah, this is a plan worthy of Uncle Sam to immortalize what is
+dearest to him in living colors."
+
+"Yes, indeed!" sez he, and after a minute's thought he added, "Others
+can foller suit and set them that are dearest to 'em out-doors. If I
+live till another spring, Samantha," sez he firmly, "I will set you out
+in the paster. The dooryard would be too small to do justice to you. Ury
+and I will plant you in the middle of the ten acre lot."
+
+I wuz touched by the tenderness underlyin' the idee, but sez I, "Have
+you counted the cost, Josiah?"
+
+"I know it will cost, you're hefty and big boneded and I'd want you
+heroic size, but we needn't have your hull frame made in posies, I could
+plant you in different seeds and raise you like a crop, and sell you in
+the fall. Beans would look well in different colors."
+
+He see my look of cold irony as he spoke of sellin' me, and added, "Or I
+could set you out mostly in pusley if you'd ruther, the garden is full
+of it."
+
+"I shall never be sot out in pusley, Josiah Allen, I always hated it.
+The hull thing is as crazy as anything you ever undertook."
+
+"Crazy or not it will be did; summer squash would look well and be
+equinomical, I could probable train 'em so you'd seem to be holdin' the
+squashes in your arms."
+
+"Give up the hull skeem, Josiah Allen; don't try to combine love and
+economy so clost."
+
+But he vowed he wouldn't give it up, and I spoze I may see trouble
+weanin' him from the idee.
+
+That night whilst I wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah
+havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and
+Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the
+fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and love to
+man.
+
+She said she'd been readin' all day to grandpa Huff and as near as I
+could make out he'd kep' her right down to them blood-curdlin' chapters
+where they fried the martyrs in ile and briled 'em on grid-irons. She
+looked dretful tired and I told her I wouldn't gin in and read such
+stuff all day.
+
+But she said Mr. Huff wuz anxious to hear it and she wuz perfectly
+willin' and more than willin' to please him, for sez she smilin' in a
+queer sort of a way and sort o' bridlin' a little, "I'm anxious to do
+anything for him I can because I love him devotedly."
+
+I wuz fairly stunted. "Love him?" sez I, "why how long ago wuz it that
+you loved his grandchild passionately? Why," sez I, "Blandina, you seem
+to rob the cradle and the grave for objects of affection."
+
+"Yes, I did love Billy with perfect devotion till I found that my
+affection wuz driven back like a dove from the rest it fain would made
+in his youthful heart, and now it has settled down upon his grandpa's
+bosom. Mr. Huff needs a companion, Aunt Samantha. He needs a tender
+female companion to journey by his side over the rough pathway of life.
+And, oh, I do feel that this world is a cold rough place and my heart,
+like that wanderin' dove I spoke on, sithes to find rest."
+
+"Well," sez I reasonably, "mebby a dove would be safe to rest on grandpa
+Huff, but I don't believe he could stand the weight of a hen. Why, he's
+ninety if he's a day, Blandina."
+
+She didn't reply but sot lookin' mournful but clever, and agin she sez,
+"This is a cold world."
+
+"Not here it hain't, not in St. Louis," sez I, wipin' my heated forward,
+but she went on:
+
+"My heart has gone out to him without any will of my own. I feel that he
+has the makin' of a noble man in him."
+
+And I sez, "I guess he's made about all he can be on this spear." But
+seein' her mournful looks I added, "You're a clever critter, Blandina,
+that's what's the matter with you, you're so good hearted you mistake
+good nater and pity for love more'n half the time. I don't believe," sez
+I feelin'ly, "I ever see a cleverer creeter than you are." And I meant
+it, every word I said.
+
+But she repeated agin, "I love him, Aunt Samantha, with a pure, deep
+devotion."
+
+"Well," sez I, "if I wuz in your place I would take a little catnip tea
+and go to bed. I'll steep some for you over my alcohol lamp." I knowed
+it wuz her good nater and her nerves that wuz wrought up instead of her
+heart, though catnip is good for the heart for all I know. She'd got all
+nerved up readin' them dretful things and felt queer, I wuz sorry for
+Blandina to think she wuz so very sensitive to masculine influence. She
+refused the catnip tea but took the other half of my advice and went to
+bed, and I sez to myself, I declare I don't know what the good nater of
+that creeter will lead her into and I most wished she wuz back in
+Jonesville where that trait of hern wouldn't have so much room for
+showin' off and so many objects to practice on, but I felt safe about
+grandpa Huff, for I knowed that even if he'd been strong enough to stand
+up to be married, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren wouldn't let
+him.
+
+Well, the next morning Molly come, havin' arrived on a sleeper. I
+welcomed her warmly. She's a sweet girl, with big eyes soft and brown as
+the shallers in our trout brook and a shadder in 'em now some like the
+dark places where the deep water is. Hair about the same color, done up
+in a shinin' coil on the top of her head, but where it would git loose a
+little kinder curlin' and crinklin' about her white forward and round
+white neck. A sweet sad expression on her lips, cheeks white as snow now
+but meant to be pink and a pretty plump figger. She wuz very beautiful
+and called so by good judges.
+
+And I wuzn't surprised that Billy Huff fell immegiately and voylently in
+love with her to his own discomfiture and the great enrichment of them
+that sold perfumery and hair-oil. But I knowed it wouldn't hurt him any,
+it wuz only a new face to hang up for the present in the gallery of a
+boy's Fancy. Aunt Tryphena fairly worshipped her. She immegiately rose
+to the top place in her gallery of perfect beings. Nothing wuz too good
+for her, no service she could render her wuz too hard, she almost soared
+up to that pinnacle on which her Prince Arthur dwelt. Dotie became her
+willin' adorer and Miss Huff couldn't do enough for her.
+
+But to resoom backward a little. Molly didn't want to go to the Fair
+ground that morning, wantin' to rest and recooperate, so Josiah,
+Blandina and I sot forth a little later than common. There wuz a
+stoppage of the cars some ways from the gate and we got out and walked
+thinkin' we'd git there quicker, Josiah started to step off first when
+Blandina rushed past him, waved him back, and descended herself right
+into the midst of horses heads and huffs and yells and profanity from
+two drivers who wuz stoppin' the way and wuz revilin' each other, and
+after we got safe onto the sidewalk and wuz walkin' along I sez to her:
+
+"You ort to be more careful, Blandina, or you'll find yourself killed
+some day and trompled on, I wuz skairt for you."
+
+"Oh, I didn't think about myself, I wuz only thinkin' of savin' dear
+uncle Josiah, it wuzn't so much matter about me. A woman's life you know
+is not worth anything compared to a man's."
+
+"Oh, shaw!" I sez, I wuz driv to it, and I sez it agin, "Oh, shaw!"
+
+"Why, Aunt Samantha, you know it has been decided that that is so. It
+has been settled by law that a female's life is worth only half as much
+as a man's. Don't you remember last spring in Brooklyn it wuz settled
+once for all that a female child's life wuzn't worth only half as much
+as a male child?"
+
+Sez I, "I remember a man's saying so, I don't remember it wuz proved; I
+myself thought it wuz about as hefty a thing as a judge ever undertook
+to try to set a value on two human lives with all their glorious and
+terrible possibilities, and," sez I, eppisodin' a little but walkin'
+along all the time, "how did that man know but the soul of a Florence
+Nightingale would wake up in that girl and bless the world for all time?
+And how did he know but the boy would prove a Benedict Arnold or a
+Guiteau? An evil influence to curse the world forever. It wuz a hefty
+job, and if Josiah had been judge I wouldn't let him undertook it, or if
+he had I'd had him set an equal value on what God and nater and human
+affection had made equal."
+
+"Well, well," sez Josiah, "le'ss git along unless you want to stay here
+and preach all day on the sidewalk."
+
+"But," sez I, "I'm not preachin', Josiah, I'm eppisodin'."
+
+"Well, there is a time for eppisodin' and a time for common sense, and
+le'ss git along."
+
+He acted real grumpy, I guess he'd thought more on me, if I had
+pretended I thought his life wuz worth double mine. But I wouldn't say I
+thought so not even for love's sake. And mebby he squirmed because I
+said I would have him do thus and so. Men are so queer! you can't always
+tell jest where the shue pinches, but you know by their actin' and
+behavin' that it pinches somewhere.
+
+But Blandina sez, evidently reconnoitering the past seen in her memory,
+"No livin' bein' will ever make me think a man's life is not worth more
+than a woman's." Well, she felt so and I couldn't make her over at this
+late day, she'd been made too long, so Common Sense, with whom I always
+try to be on the most intimate terms, told me I hadn't better multiply
+any more words with her. Josiah's liniment wuz some clouded till his
+mind wuz took up by seein' some horses with hats on which truly wuz
+needed in that torrid heat, and he forgot his temporary shagrin in
+visions of the future.
+
+Sez he, "The first work I do when I git home will be to git a hat for
+the old mair; I won't have to buy one, Tirzah Ann's last summer hat will
+be jest the thing. You know that one trimmed with red roses and shiffon
+and long lace streamers. Your hats ain't dressy enough; why the old mair
+hain't quite twenty-one, hain't old enough to vote even if her sect had
+the privelige. She's young and ort to dress young. That hat will be jest
+the thing. And what a sensation we will make enterin' Jonesville on a
+Sunday mornin', the mair, myself and you, we shall attract world-wide
+attention." But that minute we got to the gate and entered in. I never
+shall ride after the mair with a hat on, and pink roses and long lace
+streamers, never. But didn't argey about it.
+
+Well, Josiah couldn't be held off any longer, he would go to the Pike
+that mornin'; I told him it wuzn't writ in my pad.
+
+And he sez, "Dum that pad! Am I goin' to be held in by that pad, and led
+round by it all summer? I'm goin' to the Pike to-day and you can do as
+you're a minter." And Blandina jined in of course and said that if dear
+Uncle Josiah's mind wuz sot on it it wuz best to go, and she sez kinder
+low to me, "it wuzn't right to cross a man unless it wuz absolutely
+necessary."
+
+I wuz goin' to twit her and tell her that as first chaperone I wuz the
+one to settle these matters, but I see Josiah wuz gittin' too agitated,
+one look at his gloomy face made me think of the past, and I gin in as
+gracefully as I could, and we wended our way thither with no more
+parley, and Josiah, as soon as our heads wuz turned that way, begun to
+brighten up and look better, and so about one-half of my mind and sperit
+wuz satisfied. And sometimes I think you can't be satisfied any more
+than that on this spear wherever you go, and whatever you see, specially
+if you have a man to deal with that is more or less fraxious and
+worrisome. To ease his mind and temper you'll git led into strange and
+devious paths time and agin.
+
+But to resoom forward. The Four Cowboys on a Tear guardin' the entrance
+to the Pike confronted us and in their wild and boysterous hilarity
+seemed to my agitated and forebodin' sperit to shadow forth what we
+would find inside their domain. They wuz a strange and skairful set,
+their clothes wuz rough and disheveled and so wuz their linements. They
+all on 'em brandished aloft a pistol, seemin' to be on the lookout for
+someone to shoot. Their horses wuz on the dead gallop and you knowed by
+the expression on their faces jest what blood curdlin' yells wuz issuin'
+from their throats.
+
+Why, if you'll believe it they wuz goin' at such a gallopin' prancin'
+gait that the feet of one of their horses never touched the ground, all
+four of his feet wuz gallopin' through the air. Josiah sez as he looked
+at it:
+
+"I would give a dollar bill to Ury in a minute if he could learn the
+colt to do that trick, gallop along without his feet touchin' the
+ground. Jest think what a sensation it would make to the Jonesville
+fair. The old mair is too old of course to git the trick."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "I guess her feet will never be lifted altogether from the
+ground till they are turned up in their last rest. But I wouldn't try,
+Josiah Allen, to imitate that roarin' and rakish set if I wuz in your
+place, you a member of the meetin' house."
+
+"Oh, keep throwin' that meetin' house in my face, I should think you'd
+git tired ont but don't spoze you will."
+
+And Blandina sez, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, don't be too harsh on them happy
+young men, it is only their high sperits. They would probable settle
+down and make the best of husbands if they had a tender and loving
+companion. I wonder," sez she, "if they wuz took from life and if
+they're here to the Fair I do so like the looks of one on 'em, I believe
+we would be congenial."
+
+I hurried 'em along, the one she pinted out had his pistol raised the
+highest of the lot and he looked the most rakish.
+
+But you forgot the looks of the cow-boys as you stood at the entrance
+and got a full view of the Pike. A perfect flood of all the colors of
+the rainbow, and towers and steeples and domes and crescents, and
+ornaments of all kinds busts on your vision, and at the same time your
+ear-pans are assailed by a noise like the sound of many waters, it is
+the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and to,
+and keep at it night and day.
+
+The great crowd seen here all the time shows how much the average human
+craves amusement and recreation. For the Pike is the amusement street of
+the Exposition. And a bystander standin' by told us that it extended a
+mild and a half from the Lindel entrance where we entered clear up to
+the Skinker road.
+
+"What Skinker is that?" sez Josiah to the man. "Is he any relation to
+the Skinkerses up in Zoar? Old Ethan Skinker had a boy who come West.
+Most probable you've seen him here; I know most every stranger that
+comes to Jonesville."
+
+"Where is Zoar?" sez the man, an uppish lookin' creeter, but sunk in
+ignorance, for when Josiah sez, "Zoar is four milds from Jonesville,"
+sez the man:
+
+"Where is Jonesville?"
+
+And Josiah sez to me, "I'll be jiggered, Samantha, if this man at this
+age of the world don't know where Jonesville is."
+
+"Well," sez I coolly, "we hain't expected to civilize all creation,
+Josiah." And as we had jest come to the entrance of the Tyoleran Alps I
+wouldn't let Josiah stop and parley with him any furder. He wuz kinder
+snickerin' to himself, a ignorant onmannerly creeter.
+
+I had told Josiah and he fell in with the idee to once (he is clost)
+that we wouldn't try to see all the sights of the Pike. But this bein'
+the first one we come to we thought we would enter and we found it wuz a
+highly interestin' spectacle.
+
+There wuz lofty snow-crowned mountains, some on 'em that seemed fur
+away, and some nigher by, a lake lyin' smooth and placid at their feet.
+Its shore wuz dotted with trees, and little picturesque cottages nestled
+on its banks.
+
+Anon a large fair city spread out at the foot of the serene mountains.
+Then you would come to an immense castle, so nigh the mountain that it
+seemed to grow out of it with its ivied walls and lofty towers pierced
+with quaintly paned windows. Crowds of sightseers passin' in and out its
+lofty arched entrance and walking through the grounds outside.
+
+Another castle, handsomer yet, wuz the castle of Linderhof, which stands
+in stately magnificence at the foot of the mountain, but furder away
+from it. Rows of clipped evergreens stand along its white terraces and
+masses of foliage on each side. A white monument towered up to the sky
+in the centre of its beautiful lawn in front, and nigher by there wuz a
+big leapin' fountain guarded on each side by statutes of female wimmen
+reclining at ease but seemin' to have their eye on the hull beautiful
+seen and tendin' to things, as wimmen have to.
+
+Then anon you would come to a little village with pretty houses, mostly
+gables. There wuz a mountain torrent with several bridges over it that
+foamed and dashed along through the quaint little place. Pretty girls in
+their gay national costume accosted us from the verandas anon or oftener
+wantin' to sell sooveneers.
+
+Josiah noticed the price they asked and hurried me onwards. They wuz
+real pretty girls so I didn't mind so much goin' on (married wimmen will
+understand my feelin's. We have to keep one eye out more or less).
+
+There is a little chapel and below it cut from solid rock is a statute
+of Andreas Hofer, victorious soldier, lover of country, but like many
+another hero he had to suffer martyrdom for it. But his grateful
+countrymen keeps his memory green. I wuz glad to see it.
+
+It wuz a pretty place: the lofty mountain side with cow bells tinkling
+along the winding roads, the cool pretty villages below, chimes sounding
+from high towers, the peasants singing their national songs, the bands
+ringing out their stirring melodies. And you could take a tram car and
+go through some of the loveliest seens in the Alps. We stayed there some
+time.
+
+I have hearn since that them mountains wuz holler and they keep beer and
+stimulants there, Id'no how true it is. But I sez, "If it is so it is
+symbolical of where such stuff and its dealers will find themselves if
+they don't repent, down in the dirt and the dark, keepin' company with
+the Prince of Darkness. But I didn't see hide nor hair of any of 'em and
+don't know as there wuz anything to see."
+
+I kinder wanted to go into the Irish Village, and said so; I remarked
+that you could buy Irish linen and lace there right on the spot. But
+Josiah sez, thrustin' his portmoney deeper in his pocket, "Id'no why we
+should go in there, we hain't Irish."
+
+But I sez, "Miss Huff said it wuz dretful interestin', Josiah, I'd
+kinder like to see it."
+
+But Josiah gin another deeper thrust to his portmoney and must have
+strained his pocket and sez in terser, hasher axents:
+
+"We hain't Irish!"
+
+And I sez kinder short, "Id'no as we're Alps." But I didn't argy there
+wuz so many folks round, wimmen have to choke off time and agin and
+conceal their shagrin' and their pardner's actin'.
+
+Miss Huff had told me a lot about it. She said they had a real House of
+Parliament and you could drive in jaunting cars through Lake Kilarney
+region and the rocky road to Dublin that we've all hearn about.
+
+Blarney Castle is used here as a theatre with stirring national plays
+going on and there is an Irish arch over nine hundred years old, and in
+a village here is an Irish national exhibit together with a Scotch
+display, laces, linens, carpets, etc., and there is a gallery of famous
+Irish beauties. She said it wuz as good as a visit to Ireland to study
+the country and the looks and ways of the people.
+
+But as I say, Josiah hurried me past the long, many windowed front of
+the Irish Industrial Exhibit with its gay flags wavin' out on top
+bagonin' us to come in, past the famous St. Lawrence gate, Droggeda, one
+of the most famous relics in all Ireland, with its tall towers and its
+noble archway filled with crowds of sightseers, for he had seen right by
+the side of that gate a big roundin' entrance arch with the round world
+poised above it and above the arch in letters as high as he wuz:
+
+Under and Over the Sea.
+
+And of course he wuz bound to indulge in that luxury. And it wuz
+thrillin' in the extreme though I stood it better than he did.
+
+The first thing you see is a submarine boat, you can see this plain from
+the Pike and the passengers embarkin' on it, two hundred and fifty can
+be carried by this boat at one time, and Josiah led us onto it with a
+excited linement, but he tried to look brave and fearless.
+
+But the sights we see down there wuz enough to dismay a man weighin' far
+more than Josiah. You could look right out of the boat on the dashin'
+waves, water above you and on every side and see the strange monsters of
+the deep, and the queer marine growths and blossoms. Imagine seein'
+whales up over your head comin' right towards you, and Id'no but there
+wuz leviathians, I guess there wuz, they wuz big enough.
+
+Anon you come to the river Seine in Paris and swoop up to the top of
+Eiffel Tower. Blandina sez holdin' onto my tabs, "From the bowels of the
+earth up to the vaulted heavings!"
+
+I said tabs, but I meant tab, for Josiah had holt of the other with an
+almost frenzied grasp, and sez he, "Where will we go next, Samantha?"
+
+And I sez, "Id'no, mebby to the moon or Mars."
+
+And Blandina in trembling axents sez, "I wish I wuz safe at Mars."
+
+Her ma is old but got her faculties. And Josiah sez with chatterin'
+teeth and quaverin' voice as he looked down from the dizzy hite onto
+Paris, "If I git through this alive I shall be glad to tell the brethren
+about it."
+
+Far below us lay the illuminated city, for it wuz night, and a beautiful
+seen but sort o' melancholy. And sure enough, as if to prove my words
+true, here at the very top of the tower wuz an air-ship on which we took
+flight through the boundless fields of air. Paris died on our vision,
+then we floated over many cities and harbors, up the English Channel,
+anon the lights of London are passed and we are high up above the ocean.
+Weird and wild is the seen, the moon comes up, black clouds rise, and
+the voice of the winds is heard, then the rumbling of thunder and the
+forked lightning darts its baleful glare at us.
+
+Josiah whispers, "Samantha, have you got on your gold beads?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I wear 'em under my collar but most always take 'em off in a thunder
+storm not wantin' to be struck in my neck. And I seen him furtively
+gittin' ready to throw away his jack-knife. But at that minute the storm
+calms down and Josiah replaces his knife jest as we enter New York
+harbor. A flight over sea and land, forest and city, and we land agin at
+the Exposition.
+
+As we disembarked Josiah grasped holt of my hand ostensibly to help me
+but really in tender greeting, and sez in fervid axents, "I wouldn't
+have you take that trip alone, Samantha, without me with you to protect
+you, not for worlds."
+
+"No," sez Blandina, "what would we have done without dear Uncle Josiah
+by our side?"
+
+I didn't argy but felt that he wouldn't with his size and weight made
+much headway agin them whales and water monsters to say nothin' of
+danger by drowndin' and fallin' from the sky. But he felt neat and we
+wended our way on.
+
+Josiah said he didn't care about goin' to Asia, and I said it wuz a pity
+not to when we wuz so nigh, but he kinder hurried me on.
+
+I told him that the Streets of Seville interested me, for it wuz planned
+by a woman, the only woman who ever received a concession in a amusement
+street of a Exposition.
+
+And Josiah sez, "I shall spend my money on sunthin' of more importance;
+it probable all runs to crazy quilts and tattin."
+
+But it wuz no such thing, it wuz perfectly beautiful, as I've hearn
+folks say that have been there. But I see he wuz beginnin' to look
+kinder mauger, and as first chaperone I sez anxiously, "Where do you
+want to go, dear Josiah? Do you want to go to Hagenbecks Animal Show?"
+
+"No, I don't; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own
+barnyard."
+
+"Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?"
+
+"No, we shall git there all right if we keep on without my payin' out
+money. I told you I wuzn't goin' to pay to go in to all these places."
+
+"Well, do you want to go to France or Ceylon or Persia? Or Cairo? Or
+where do you want to go?"
+
+Sez he, cross as a bear, "I want to go where I can git sunthin' to eat."
+
+And I sez, "Dear Josiah, I've been so took up I forgot your appetite; we
+will go to once." And havin' heard that good food could be got in Japan
+we hastened thither.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+We entered Fair Japan through a big gateway a hundred feet high. It wuz
+called the Temple of Kiko, it wuz all covered with carvin' and gold
+ornaments. And they say it couldn't be made now of the same materials
+for a million dollars. It would been magnificent lookin' if it hadn't
+been for what looked like serpents wreathin' up the pillars in front. I
+hate snakes! and they're the last ornaments I would ever sculp over my
+front door.
+
+Blandina said they wuz dragons, and mebby they wuz. 'Tennyrate they wuz
+fastened to the pillars and didn't offer to hurt us. We got quite a good
+meal, but queer, in a tea-house on the borders of the lake. They had the
+best tea I ever drinked. I asked 'em how long they steeped it, and how
+much they put in for a drawin', but they bein' ignorant didn't seem to
+understand me. But I enjoyed bein' there, for whilst our inner men and
+wimmen wuz bein' refreshed our minds wuz enriched by this real picture
+of life in Japan, for in there it is jest as if we had traveled
+thousands of milds and wuz sot down in the real Japan.
+
+After the edge of Josiah's hunger wuz squenched he begun to look about
+him and praise up the looks of the Geisha girls that wuz dancin' or
+rather posterin' in their pretty modest way, and some on 'em playin' on
+queer lookin' instruments that looked some like my carpet sweeper.
+
+These girl musicians wuz settin' on the floor dressed in what seemed to
+be gay colored night gowns, and they looked well enough, kinder innocent
+and modest lookin'. But I told him it wuzn't becomin' in a old man and a
+professor to be so enthusiastick over young girls dancin' and playin'.
+
+And he sez, "Oh, well, fetch on your girl blinders and I'll put 'em on.
+But till you git 'em for me and harness me up in 'em I've got to look
+round some."
+
+But I told him there wuz enough for him to see besides girls and there
+wuz. For it beats all what long strides the Japans have made in every
+branch of education and culture. If they keep on in the next century as
+they have in this some of the so-called advanced nations will have to
+take a back seat and let this little brown, polite people stand to the
+head. But then they have been cultured for hundreds of years, though
+lots of folks don't seem to know it.
+
+But I am sorry to say it wuzn't the high art and culture of Japan that
+Josiah wuz most interested in, but the queer things, such as the strange
+stunted trees trained into forms of men and animals hundreds of years
+old and no higher than a common chair, and lots of 'em not so high. And
+there wuz roosters with tails twenty-five feet long.
+
+Josiah said he wuz bound to git an egg and see if he could hatch one.
+
+And I sez, "Where would it roost? It's tail is long agin as the hen
+house is high."
+
+Well, he said in the summer it could roost on top of the barn with its
+tail kinder hangin' down and out over the smoke house.
+
+But it wuzn't a minute before his eyes wuz took up with some images,
+some big ones covered with the most exquisite carvin', down to them so
+small, if you'll believe it, they wuz carved out of a single kernel of
+rice. And there wuz gold fish and a hundred other kinds of fishes, and
+you see there the common houses of the people and people livin' in them
+jest as they do in their own country, and a royal palace, arched
+bridges, lanterns hangin' everywhere, pagodas, temples, lagoons with
+ornamental boats, cascades, etc. All made a pretty picture, though
+curious.
+
+Then in Asakusa, a native village of Japan, is forty stores and there
+you see the most beautiful display of rugs, carved ivory and wood,
+porcelain, jewels, fans, paintings, etc., and the workmen busy making
+'em right before your eyes. And in the narrer streets jugglers,
+acrobats, fortune tellers are giving their mysterious performances.
+There are bands of music, jinrikishaws with men harnessed up in 'em, and
+you can ride in 'em if so inclined.
+
+There wuz quite a number of places on the Pike that we passed that I
+kinder wanted to see, but Josiah wuzn't willin' to pay out too much
+money, and what interested me most wuz the foreign countries that I had
+never had a chance to see, they havin' the misfortune to be so fur from
+Jonesville. But when we got to the Chinese Village, it had such a
+magnificent and showy front that Josiah never made an objection to goin'
+inside.
+
+I wuz dretful glad to go there, you know it is nater to want to do what
+you can't. And China has been so determined to keep Josiah and I and the
+world out of her empire, I wuz glad enough to git in, and wuz real
+interested lookin' at them queer yeller pig-tailed little creeters with
+dresses on, and their funny little houses.
+
+There wuz a big Chinese theatre, and a Joss house where they worship
+Joss, whoever he or she may be, I wanted to have their religion
+explained to me, there wuz a guide there to do it.
+
+But Josiah said that as a deacon he wouldn't countenance it, for I might
+be led into idolatry. And when I argued with him he whispered to me:
+
+"Samantha, if you insist on hangin' round their meetin' house here any
+longer I shall say out loud, 'By Joss!'"
+
+At that fearful threat I started on, I wouldn't let him demean himself
+before the heathen.
+
+You can see here in this country, as in Japan, native workers plyin'
+their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk
+weavers usin' the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory
+carvers fashionin' elephants and other animals, and all on 'em tryin' to
+sell to us in their high-pitched voices.
+
+I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin' on the oldness
+and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin' if it would ever be
+merged into a newer, fresher life.
+
+Blandina didn't share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, "I
+believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in
+straighter and they dressed different."
+
+And I sez, "I wouldn't admire 'em in that capacity, but after all they
+would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off
+round the bottom you could cut it off and make 'em wear it, men's
+clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin'. And you could pass
+him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is
+sunthin' I wouldn't approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before
+a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that
+held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box."
+
+But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin', but equinomical, they
+can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes 'em a debt of
+gratitude anyway for tunnelin' her Rocky Mountains, buildin' her big
+railroads and diggin' ditches to water the land and make it beautiful
+that they're shet out of.
+
+Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, "No man ort to be turned
+back out of this country." She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious,
+equinomical and peaceable.
+
+And I sez, "Yes, they work well and don't go round like some other
+foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But," sez I, "Blandina, I will
+not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be
+said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they
+needn't ask me to."
+
+I hadn't more than said these words as we wuz strollin' along when who
+should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be
+married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but
+couldn't go, our plans bein' all laid and tickets bought, but I sent 'em
+a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.
+
+Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin' on its bough than did Rosy
+Nelson hangin' onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz
+well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.
+
+I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all
+day's visit soon as I got home, I'm lottin' on't.
+
+We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and
+inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off
+happy as two turkle doves, not needin' or desirin' any other company
+than their own, and showin' it plain by their actions. Josiah was put
+out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home,
+bein' highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.
+
+Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on 'em
+wropped up in the glowin' mantilly of youth and joy: "Oh, happy, happy
+wedded souls! how I envy you."
+
+And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, "How queer it is that two such smart
+young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won't
+last. It won't be long before Royal will be willin' to pass the time o'
+day with a Jonesvillian."
+
+I told him there wuz nothin' so beautiful as love. "No, nor nothin' that
+makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don't act as though they knew
+putty."
+
+I hated such oncongenial idees. But couldn't deny they wuz spooney, for
+they wuz, not a small teaspoon but a big silver dinner spoon, and I
+believe it will last. Not the outward form of the spoon, oh, no, that
+would be too wearisome to the world and themselves, but the precious
+metal that forms it. Love is the greatest thing in the world.
+
+Blandina had always lived in a back place and had never heard a
+graphophone, so bein' kinder tired, and bein' nigh a place where they
+had one, we went in at her request and sot for quite a spell.
+
+And we heard voices and songs gay and sad, marches and melodies,
+loftiest oratory, maddest mirth and profoundest feeling all comin' out
+of a little square box, what a idee!
+
+What a man that Edison is. It seems always like watchin' the wonderful
+onseen secrets of nater, like seein' the mortal made immortal to think
+that voices we've loved and mourned as they wuz hushed in the last
+stillness can sound out agin, breakin' our hearts with the same old
+echoes, the same old sweetness of the voice we loved and lost, talkin'
+in mortal words and axents to us when they've long, long ago learnt the
+immortal language, beheld the immortal seens.
+
+Why Cleopatra's voice might have been stored up as she made love to
+Antony, or the voice of the relation on her own side, old Mr. Pharo
+himself orderin' the Hebrews to git out of his premises, and their back
+talk about plaguin' him till he wuz willin' they should go.
+
+Why even Eve scoldin' Adam about slackness in gittin' kindlin' wood or
+her pardner complainin' about her wastefulness and extravagance in usin'
+so many fig leaves for her fall suit. Oh, how nateral, how nateral that
+would sound to wimmen.
+
+Or old Noah's voice as he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin' to
+the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin' and
+patronizin' tellin' the female dove to go out and shirk round on the
+water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh,
+how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin' out through the
+centuries.
+
+And on and on down the long years, Job's voice complainin' of the bitter
+comfort of his friend's familiar talk. He'd stood losin' family and
+fortune and had stood biles but the seven days' visitation and the "I
+told-you-sos" and the advice of well wishers wuz too much for him.
+
+And Solomon's talk to Miss Sheba and hem to him. And Daniel's talk by
+the deep waters, and mebby the Great Voice that said to him:
+
+"Understand!"
+
+And brave Queen Esther's voice facin' her enemies and a drunken king,
+and sweet Ruth's, and Paul's incomparable words, and St. John's. Or the
+lofty voices of the Patriot fathers as they nobly shrieked for freedom
+as they threw their pardner's tea overboard, while they hung onto their
+whiskey and tobacco that wuz taxed twice as high.
+
+Oh, how their impassioned cries for liberty, and how they would
+willin'ly sacrifice their wives favorite beveridge ruther than to yield
+to the tyrant. How nateral, how nateral them noble yells would sound to
+their descendant females, the Daughters of the Revolution, and all the
+rest. What would it be for us all to hear them axents, and it could have
+been done if Edison had been born sooner and that little box had been
+round.
+
+I didn't wonder that Blandina wuz enthused, it is enough to enthuse
+anybody that never has hearn it, she said she laid out to go every day
+three or four times a day and stay jest as long as she could.
+
+One of the most remarkable sights we see on the Pike wuz Jim Key, a
+horse that is valued at a hundred thousand dollars, who travels in his
+own private car. A horse that can read and write, spell, understand
+mathematics, go to the post office, git mail from any box, give chapter
+and verse of Bible text where the horse is mentioned, uses the
+telephone, and is so intelligent you expect him to break out in oratory
+any time.
+
+Josiah wuz spell bound here, I could hardly tear him away. And sez he:
+
+"The first thing I do when I go home will be to send the colt to the
+deestrick school."
+
+I told him the teacher wouldn't want him whinnerin' round amongst her
+scholars, and mebby gallopin' and snortin' round the schoolroom.
+
+But he wuz as firm as adamant in his idee. And Id'no what I shall do
+about it. But spoze the trustees will have to head him off.
+
+Josiah wanted to go and see the Fire Fighters, he said he thought he
+could git some idees to tell the brethren that wuz in the fire company,
+and Blandina and I wanted to see the Esquimeaux Village. We went on,
+Josiah promisin' to meet us there. And as we went I said:
+
+"I've sung for years about Greenland's icy mountains, but never spozed I
+should set my eyes on 'em." For there towerin' up to the skies wuz
+immense ice mountains peaked and desolate lookin', and inside it looked
+worse yet. A bare snowy place broken by cold lookin' water dotted with
+ice islands and surrounded by tall ice peaks. I don't spoze it wuz real
+ice and snow, but looked like it.
+
+And there wuz reindeers hitched to sleds, and the low round huts of the
+natives lookin' jest like the pictures in our old Gography. And there
+wuz some white bears natural as life, and dog teams haulin' sledges,
+toiling up the steep cliffs hitched tantrum. The natives wuz queer
+lookin' little creeters, dark complexioned, dressed in furs and thick
+costooms. But little Nancy Columbus born at the World's Fair, Chicago,
+wuz cute as she could be.
+
+There wuz a big street show at the other end of the Pike and this place
+wuz most deserted by sight-seers, and Blandina and I sot down on a bench
+by the side of one of these little housen to rest. As we did so we hearn
+the voice of oratory comin' from the other side, where some Esquimeaux
+seemed to be gathered with open mouths and wonderin' linements. The
+orator seemed to be finishin' his address in words as follers:
+
+"Let us not permit ourselves to be spiritually incapacitated by
+quandaries regarding the control of earthly matter. Let us
+circumnavigate the ethereal realms of unexplored ether, quander the
+unquanderable until the everlastin' stupendiousness of the whyness of
+the what shall dawn on the enraptured vision, and precipitate the
+effulgent tissues of ethereal matter in one glorious pulchritude of
+transcendentalism."
+
+As the speaker paused for needed breath Blandina clasped her hands and
+sithed out, "Oh, what glorious eloquence! I never hearn anything like
+it!"
+
+And I sez, "I never did but once, I know that voice, though I hain't
+hearn it for twenty years; that is Prof. Aspire Todd." And I thought to
+myself, he is practicin' over a speech, and thought the Esquimeaux would
+stand it better than tribes less humble and good natered. And so it
+turned out; he hoped he would be invited to speak at a scientific
+meetin' to take place in Festival Hall in a day or two, and bein' to the
+Inside Inn he'd tried to orate his speech in his own room, but it is
+built so shammy you can hear things from one end to the other, and they
+threatened him with horse whippin' on one side and lynchin' on the
+other, and bein' drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood
+it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on 'em weepin' bitterly, not
+knowin' what ailed 'em.
+
+Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, "I hearn Aspire Todd at a
+Fourth of July celebration in Josiah's sugar bush."
+
+"Oh," sez Blandina, claspin' her hands, "would it be possible for you to
+introduce me to that noble being?"
+
+Sez I, "You like his talk then?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. "His
+matchless eloquence is beyond praise."
+
+"So 'tis," sez I, "way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you
+want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to
+supper." So as he come round the corner of the buildin' follered by some
+bewildered lookin' natives I put out my hand and sez, "I don't know as
+you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I
+am Josiah Allen's wife."
+
+He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, "Indeed my memory retroacts
+readily on that delightsome remembrance."
+
+And then I introduced Blandina, knowin' I wuz makin' her perfectly happy
+by so doin'. He'd growed old considerable, which I didn't blame him for
+and didn't see as he could help it, twenty years havin' gone by. His
+hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz
+streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious,
+sentimental, high-flown look to him.
+
+I didn't admire his looks, but Blandina's manners to him wuz worshipful,
+and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to
+her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I
+fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while
+Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before
+they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.
+
+I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my
+room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein'
+quite ready owin' to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my
+room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin' with
+excitement, and she sez, "Lazy, good for nothin' things! but it hain't
+what they _do_ that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise."
+
+Sez Molly, "If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Overlook it!" sez she, turnin' an' facin' us with her hands on her
+portly hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived
+with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why,
+I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin'
+what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the
+kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never
+wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand
+makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'"
+
+"Well, you know Princes are not common in this country," sez I.
+
+She drew herself up more hautily, "Such a Prince as that hain't common
+in no country! Why he's so handsome and good the very birds in the trees
+will stop singin' to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter
+green where he's stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush
+with happiness if he looks at 'em."
+
+"How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?"
+
+"I tole you before," sez she with dignity, "that when he went off to
+school I wuzn't in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous,
+you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing
+together, you know I've sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in
+'em. Ole Miss couldn't sing no more than a green frog. And he always
+said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up
+his Ma's back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin',
+but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses
+then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and
+so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie's ma. And here I is!"
+sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.
+
+She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart
+searchin' pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never
+hurt anyone but herself.
+
+Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable
+better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin' to Grandpa Huff and
+Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst
+twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the
+earth with silver stars (metafor).
+
+I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest
+secrets of their heart to me. And Id'no why it is, but they most always
+do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I've felt first rate
+by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my
+face. But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks
+think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some
+like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows
+for a spell and relieve 'em some. Well, Id'no which it is, but
+'tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin' as wan and pale as a white
+rose on a cold November evenin' she told me the whole story, hid from
+her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.
+
+Josiah may say what he's a mind to, but I believe it is the natural
+nobility of my linement that drawed it from her. While she wuz away
+visitin' this school chum in a southern city she met a young chap
+handsome as Appolyan, I knew from what she said, and so talented and
+gifted, I could see in a minute they had fell in love voylently from the
+very first time they met, and day by day the attraction growed till they
+wuz completely wropped up in each other. She said he seemed to worship
+her.
+
+But strange, strange thing! with all the love he showed her, in every
+word and act, he left her without a word, only a sort of a wild note
+saying he could not endure the wretchedness of seeing a heaven so near
+that he could not hope to enter, and after that silence, deep, dark and
+onbroken silence and despair. "And my heart is broken!" sez she, as she
+laid her pretty head in my lap sobbin' out, "What shall I do! Oh, what
+shall I do!"
+
+She wep' and cried and cried and wep', and I wep' with her, my snowy
+handkerchief held in one hand, the other hand tenderly caressin' the
+bowed head in my lap. But as she said the word Silence it brung up
+sunthin' I had read that very day, and I sez:
+
+"Dear, did you ever hear of enterin' into the Silence?"
+
+"Yes," sez Molly, liftin' her tear wet, sweet face, "I have a friend who
+enters into the Silence for hours, and she says that everything she
+greatly desires and asks for at that time, is given her. She calls it
+the New Thought."
+
+"And I call it the Old Thought, Molly, older than the creation of man.
+And what they call Entering into the Silence, I call Waiting on the
+Lord. And what I call prayer, they, from what I read, most probable call
+waking up the solar plexus, whatever that may be. But it don't make much
+difference what a thing is called, the name is but a pale shadow
+compared to the reality. Disciples of the New Thought, Christian
+Scientists, Healers, Spiritualists, etc., are, I believe, reaching out
+and feeling for the Light as posies growin' in a dark suller send out
+little pale shoots huntin' for the sunlight. And so I feel kinder soft
+and meller towards the hull caboodle on 'em though I can't foller all
+their beliefs.
+
+"For I, as a member of the M.E. meetin' house, call this great
+beneficient over-rulin' Power that sot the world spinnin' on its
+axletrees and holds it up, lest it dashes aginst the planets, and
+directs the flight of the tiny bird fleeing before the snows; this
+Mighty Force that controls us from the cradle to the grave, but which we
+cannot see no more than we can see His servants, the cold and wind that
+freezes us or the warmth and love that blesses us. This Power, that
+whether we scoff or pray, holds us all in the hollow of His mighty hand,
+I call God the Father, Son and Holy Guest, and believe it once took
+mortal shape and dwelt with humanity to uplift and bless it. And that
+love, that torture, crucifixion and death could not slay still yearns
+over this sad old world, still as the comforting Guest makes its home in
+human hearts that love and trust."
+
+Molly sot still with her pretty head leaning aginst me and I went on,
+"In the story of His life and death, that volume that holds the wisdom
+of the old and ripened glory of the new, that holy book sez, 'He that
+dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under shadow
+of the Almighty.'
+
+"What a place to abide in, Molly, the shadow of the All Loving, the All
+Mighty one, a shadow that casts glowing light instead of darkness like
+our earthly shadows, a pure white light in which, lookin' through the
+eye-glass of faith we can read the meanin' of all the sorrows and
+perplexities and troubles he permits us to endure, and find every word
+on 'em gilt edged with glory.
+
+"Spiritualists, Christian Healers, etc., may name this what they will.
+Disciples of the New Thought may call it the Silence, but I shall keep
+right on callin' it the Secret Place of the Most High. And He who
+inhabits that sacred place has promised that if you reverently and
+obediently enter and dwell therein and trust in Him, He will give you
+the desire of your heart.
+
+"So all you've got to do, Molly, is to do as he tells you to, obey and
+trust Him jest as the child trusts his pa, and asks him for what he
+wants most, you must ask Him for the desire of your heart, and if it is
+best for you, dear, He will bring it to pass."
+
+"Do you think so?" sez she, brightenin' up more'n considerable.
+
+"No, I don't think so. I _know_ it."
+
+Well, them consolin' words, for thought is a _real thing_, and I jest
+wropped her round with my tenderness and compassion, I guess they
+comforted her some, 'tennyrate she promised me sweetly that she would
+obey and trust, and I felt considerable better about her.
+
+I wuz sorry for her as sorry as I could be, but I had a strong feelin'
+inside of my heart (mebby some wise, sweet angel whispered it to me)
+that everything would come out right in the end, and Molly would git the
+desire of her heart.
+
+She's belonged to the meetin' house for years. But sometimes members git
+some shock that jars 'em and sends 'em out of the narrer road for quite
+a spell and they git kinder lost gropin' through the dark shadders of
+earthly disappointment and sorrow. Nothin' but the light that streams
+down from above can pierce them glooms, and I knowed by the sweet light
+that lit up Molly's linement that her face wuz turned in the right
+direction and she wouldn't look sideways, behind or before, but would
+seek for light and help from above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Well, for the next week we had a busy time, goin' to the Fair most every
+day, sometimes all together, but not stayin' together long, for most
+always we'd meet Professor Todd somewhere and he and Blandina would pair
+off together (I jest as willin' as anybody ever wuz).
+
+Molly had a young schoolmate who lived in St. Louis, and sometimes they
+would spend the day together at some reception or other. But most of the
+time Josiah and I paid our two attentions to the Fair stiddy, a
+travelin' about and seein' all we could.
+
+And one mornin' Josiah asked me before breakfast, jest as cool as if he
+wuz proposin' a glass of lemonade with ice in it, if I didn't want to go
+to Jerusalem that mornin'.
+
+Jerusalem! City of our Lord! Oh, my soul, think on't! As he said the
+words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and
+entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over that old him:
+
+"Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
+Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and soul oppressed.
+We know not, oh, we know not what joys await us there."
+
+And Josiah broke in and sung the last line with me (or what he called
+singin').
+
+"What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare."
+
+But I knowed that singin' that time of day would be apt to draw
+attention, specially as Josiah's singin' wuz very base and my sulferino
+hain't what it wuz, and I hastened to say:
+
+"Yes, Josiah, I want to go."
+
+Breakfast wuz kinder late that mornin', and little Dorothy come into my
+room, she slep' jest acrost from us, and she begun to tell me to once
+about a meetin' she'd been to the night before with Aunt Pheeny. And to
+make talk with her I asked her what the text wuz, and she sez:
+
+"Jesus the quilt."
+
+Josiah wuz horrified, and it did sound bad, and he begun to reprimand
+her sharp, but I sez:
+
+"Tell me all about it, Dotie."
+
+And come to find out, it wuz "Jesus the Comforter," and her little
+bedspread wuz sometimes called a quilt and sometimes a comforter. And I
+told Josiah how necessary it wuz not to condemn children before
+searching into their motives. But Dotie wuz evidently thinkin' about the
+sermon she had hearn so lately, and she went on to ask, "Was Jesus a
+Jew?"
+
+And I sez, "Yes, dear."
+
+"Why," sez she, "I always thought Dod wuz a Presbyterium."
+
+That wuz her Aunty Huff's persuasion, which she nachully thought
+couldn't be improved on.
+
+Dotie had a little straw hat on that time o' day and I asked her what it
+wuz for, and she sez, "Oh, I carry my papers in it, I'm writin' a book."
+
+Grandpa Huff always carried papers in his hat, and she copied him. I
+asked her what her book wuz about, and how she wuz gittin' on with it
+and she said:
+
+"It wuz about a lady, a buggler and a ghost, and I've killed 'em all and
+that's as fur as I've got."
+
+Killin' a ghost! a burglar and a heroine, I thought what a noble start
+for a sensational novel.
+
+But the breakfast bell rung jest then, and I took the little warm hand
+in mine and led her down to breakfast.
+
+Well, after breakfast Josiah and I sot out in good season for Jerusalem.
+
+Molly wanted to go to the British Building to see a school friend of
+hern that she thought might be there, and Blandina offered to accompany
+her. They wuz goin' to stop at a number of places on the way, and we
+agreed to meet at noon sharp at the English Building.
+
+We went into the walled city of Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, through a
+tall arched entrance in the stun wall. Within wuz lots of carriages and
+horses and camels and donkeys and men, wimmen and children, some in
+strange and startlin' costooms, but the first thing Josiah spoke on wuz
+the name of a restaurant, "A Fast," it wuz over a door clost by.
+
+"A fast," sez he, "that don't look very encouragin' in a eatin' house.
+If it wuz Brek Fast it would look more hopeful."
+
+"You've had your breakfast, Josiah, and a good one. Don't be thinkin' of
+vittles so much in such a place as this."
+
+"I shall think of what I'm a minter, and you can't break it up, mom!"
+
+Truly he spoke the truth; I could cling to his arm, drink out of the
+same cup, set in the same chair, lay my head on the same piller, and
+yet, he might be millions of milds from me in sperit, 'round with other
+wimmen for all I knew. Queer, hain't it?
+
+Yes, he wuz thinkin' of food right here in this Holy City. As for me, a
+perfect troop of lofty emotions wuz sweepin' through my mind, as I
+looked 'round me on the very same seen our Lord had looked at. Low
+old-fashioned stun housen such as He might have entered in, men and
+wimmen clad in long robes such as He wore.
+
+And to think of seein' the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, that He
+walked, carryin' the agony of humanity, and the pityin' compassion of
+divinity.
+
+And the Nine Stations of the Cross where our Lord stopped to rest on
+that bitter journey, toiling up the steep hill carrying up the heavy
+cross and the woes and sins of the world, awful! beautiful Calvary!
+sacred, heart-breaking, holy place. How my soul burnt within me thinkin'
+of all this as I stood in the Holy City.
+
+And there wuz the Tower of David, the Shepherd king. I always liked
+David, though I could advised him for his good in lots of things. He
+didn't do right by Ury, and he ortn't to had so many wives, if he'd
+scrimped himself a little in 'em, mebby his son, Solomon, wouldn't had
+so many, and one is enough, as I told Josiah.
+
+"Yes," sez he with intense conviction in his tone. "One wife is enough
+for any man, heaven knows, and anybody that hankers after more than one
+is a fool!"
+
+I didn't really like his axent; he'd been layin' it up, I guess what I
+said about vittles, but I didn't mind it.
+
+And we went through the different quarters of the city. The little
+stores and bazars by the side of the street wuz full of real nice things
+to sell, rich Eastern woven goods, embroideries, cushions, curtains,
+rugs, lamps, jewels, ornaments, trinkets of all kinds, etc., etc. There
+is more than a hundred of these little booths and stores in Jerusalem,
+and all full of handsome things. I loved to look at 'em, though Josiah
+tried to draw me away.
+
+Sez he, "You don't want to buy here; you can do as well agin in
+Jonesville tradin' off your butter and eggs, and probable git a chromo
+throwed in."
+
+I didn't argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe
+for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the
+man said.
+
+I told Josiah they would prize 'em high havin' come from Jerusalem.
+
+And he said, "They never see Jerusalem," he said they wuz growed over in
+New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized
+the berries and the grain of the wood.
+
+But he couldn't no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable
+truth. And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin' in the
+queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin'
+through their religious ceremonies jest the same. And we went through
+the Citadel and the different public buildin's.
+
+There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin'
+posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in
+Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make
+talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.
+
+They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair,
+their lustrous eyes lookin' out at us as they might have looked at the
+Postles.
+
+And there wuz cunnin' little donkeys that anybody could ride if they
+wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin' down ready for
+folks to mount and be carried 'round the streets. Josiah stood ready to
+pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.
+
+But I declined the treat. I sez, "We don't ride the old mair hoss back
+to home, and I don't hanker after bein' histed up onto a camel's hump,
+or to see you in that perilous poster."
+
+He said he'd love to tell the bretheren we'd rid 'em, but seein' I wuz
+sot agin it he gin up.
+
+The streets smell bad and are so narrer I don't see how they would
+manage if two buggies met; one would have to back out, they couldn't git
+by each other.
+
+The old Roman barracks are bare and dreary lookin', but dretful
+interestin' to me for there our Lord stood to be judged by Caesar like a
+lamb before the shearer, and he said, "I wash my hands of this matter, I
+find no fault in this man."
+
+I wish Caesar had had more gumption. His wife could see furder ahead
+than he could. But that is often the case, as I tell Josiah.
+
+And we went through St. John's Hospice, and the Mosque of Omar. That is
+a monstrous big building with a great round dome on top, two broad
+flights of steps lead up into it, we clumb the nighest one and went
+inside. The high dome is lined with colored mosaic, and looks
+first-rate, but I didn't pay much attention to that for right underneath
+the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up
+Isaac, or got ready to. How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham's heart and
+most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had. It is
+heart-breakin' to think on't, though it all come out right in the end,
+as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.
+
+But Josiah wuz gittin' worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, "Josiah, I
+must see Solomon's Temple."
+
+It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn't begrech the time or journey,
+and jest as we wuz goin' up the steps, who should we meet comin' out but
+Jane Olive Perkins (_nay_ Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin' in
+Chicago, but visitin' her old home and relation quite often.
+
+She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin' with diamonds. I
+don't approve of such dressin' in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always
+showy.
+
+She held out both hands in joyful greetin' (the meanin' of which I
+mistrusted afterwards). We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our
+own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez:
+
+"I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen's wife, for I know you will
+want to give to a noble cause I am workin' for, you and dear Mr. Allen.
+It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin' heart, and I knew
+you'd give liberal."
+
+I'd forgot my portmoney that mornin' and didn't want right there in
+Solomon's Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make
+him fraxious. And I wuz havin' such a lot of lofty emotions there at
+Jerusalem, I didn't want to bring 'em down by havin' words with my
+pardner. And I knowed too that "dear Mr. Allen" would be apt to say hash
+things that would bring him down in Jane Olive's estimation, he's so
+clost and he never liked her to begin with.
+
+So I said I couldn't very well stop and tend to it right there in
+Solomon's Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should
+come and see me. She wuz stayin' at a big tarven not so very fur from
+Miss Huff's, and said she'd brought her orto and shuffler with her from
+Chicago.
+
+Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin' the last thing "_owe Revwah_," or
+sunthin' like that and Josiah sez to me:
+
+"Who's she twittin' us on? I don't owe nobody by that name, nor never
+did, not a cent, I'm a man that pays my debts."
+
+And I sez, "Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it."
+
+Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I'dno but in Fancy I and the
+public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon's Temple, and I'll
+tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz. She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and
+married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks
+thought she done mizable when she married him. Sam hadn't been put to
+work much bein' sort o' weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder
+peaked.
+
+But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his
+folks and wuz kinder savin' up his strength, layin' it up as you may say
+for the time o' need, so he had it all when he wuz married. A master
+hand he wuz to save things and make 'em count. For all he never did any
+work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins
+boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o' speculated and
+laid up.
+
+He wuz kinder mean too, runnin' after wimmen at that time, though
+onbeknown to Jane Olive or his folks, but it come out afterwards, he wuz
+awful sly. When he married Jane Olive Gowdey that wuz a surprise too,
+for Bill, the oldest boy, wanted her the worst way and everybody spozed
+they wuz engaged. A good creeter Bill wuz, virtuous as Joseph, or any of
+the old Bible Patriarchs, and virtuouser than lots of 'em.
+
+But Sam, in jest that way of hisen, laid low and sort o' did the best he
+could with what he had to do with, sort o' speculated and increased her
+likin' for him on the sly (mean fellers will git ahead of good ones five
+times out of ten, wimmen are so queer). And lo and behold! the first
+Jonesville knew they up and got married.
+
+They moved to a big city where Sam got a chance to travel for a grocery
+store, and Jane Olive opened a inteligence office, where for an ample
+consideration she furnished incompetent help to distracted housekeepers,
+receivin' pay from both victims, and they laid up money fast. Then he
+went into pork and first we knew Sam wuz a very rich man, lived in great
+style, kep' his carriage, but wuz awful mean, so we heard, hadn't no
+morals at all to speak on so fur as wimmen wuz concerned, and we had
+hearn that Jane Olive not bein' over and above happy in marriage, and
+forgittin' to all appearance she had ever dickered with mistress and
+maid, wuz tryin' her best to work her way in among the aristockracy, she
+wuz dretful ambitious and so wuz Sam, they wanted to go with the first.
+
+She did everything she could to foller their example, she dressed up in
+satin and diamonds and trailed 'round to theatres and operas and hung
+over dry goods counters, and kep' her maid and coachman and butler, or
+that's what folks say, I don't even know what a butler is expected to
+do, or Josiah don't. "Butler," sez I when I hearn on't, "I can't imagine
+what a butler duz."
+
+And Josiah sez, "A coachman is to coach, and a waiter is to wait, and a
+butler must be to buttle."
+
+Sez I, "Buttle what? Or who? Or when?" But he couldn't tell. Well, Sam
+he did everything to git into the first and be fashionable, he embezzled
+a lot, broke down two or three times with enormous profit to himself,
+spent his money like water, wuz jest as mean as he could be, went over
+to Europe now and then, did everything he could do to be fashionable and
+act like a man of the world, and finally he led astray a little girl
+that lived with 'em, a motherless little girl they had took, pretty as a
+pink too, and affectionate dispositioned. Jane Olive turned her
+outdoors, of course, when she found it out. It wuz in the fall of the
+year, and the night before Christmas the girl with her baby in her arms
+jumped into the river and wuz drownded.
+
+Her father had some spunk and took Sam up, but he wuz always sly and
+looked ahead, and he proved that she wuz a day or two older than the age
+of consent, and he got let off triumphant and her father had to pay the
+cost, besides the funeral expenses, and grave stun.
+
+Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent
+to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin' to his
+powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I
+believe he brought it down to about ten years. He wuz thought a sight on
+by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for
+their interest. He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a
+sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered
+broadcast through the country without _any_ license to pay. I spoze
+there never wuz a more popular statesman. He worked too hard though, and
+had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts.
+And he kep' right on, so they say reapin' 'em ever since, cuttin' up and
+actin', but always actin' jest inside the law and always cuttin' up the
+same.
+
+He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin'
+what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze
+there never wuz a more popular legislator.
+
+But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after
+he'd made a powerful speech at the openin' of a saloon he owned, a old
+one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin', and by
+some wimmen too.
+
+Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin' to show off to the
+world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded
+off, weaker drinks in one place leadin' up gradual to brandy and
+whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin' man, so I hearn, who made a
+prayer and then they all sung the Doxology:
+
+Praise God from whom all blessings flow--
+
+Askin' God to bless what He'd cursed. What must God thought on't! For He
+and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed
+out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the
+brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.
+
+Praise Him all creatures here below--
+
+When that minister knowed the stuff he wuz dedicatin' rendered all
+creeters here below, no matter how smart they wuz nachully, incapable of
+tellin' whether they wuz on their head or their heels, blessin' or
+cussin'. When a man is drunk as a fool how can he praise anything? It is
+all he can do to navigate his own legs within' and weavin' along under
+him, ready to crumple down any minute into the gutter. He'd look well
+tryin' to sing gospel hims when he can't tell what his own name is, or
+speak it if he could.
+
+Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
+
+Why, I don't see how they dasted to sing that when they knowed that the
+Heavenly Host couldn't have flowed through such places without bein'
+liable to git their feathers pulled out in some of the drinkin' carouses
+held there. As liable agin for their pure eyes must be dimmed with
+tears, tears for the eighty thousand victims turned out yearly from
+these resorts. Innocent youth changed to reckless wickedness, noble
+manhood turned to brutes falling from honorable places in society down
+into drunkards' loathsome lives, drunkards' dishonored graves.
+
+How could these pityin' sperits help weepin' over it? And the long,
+agonized procession follerin' on--pale, wretched mothers, once happy
+wives, now hungry, broken-hearted wrecks, with pinched, starved children
+clingin' to their ragged skirts. The idee of askin' this pure heavenly
+Host to praise God for what brought all this to pass!
+
+Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
+
+Why, I believe that Satan himself, though he loved to see the work go
+on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don't believe you'd
+ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it
+would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said
+plain:
+
+"Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips."
+
+And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that
+saloons wuz made a purpose for this.
+
+"And no drunkard hath eternal life." And that minister wuz ordained to
+help people attain that life, not to help 'em lose it.
+
+I don't see what he wuz thinkin' on. Of course, the top of the long
+slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin', lit up with false
+lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin' the victims on and
+down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for
+ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin' down. He knew that
+nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up
+agin to level ground.
+
+A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top
+for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man
+would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed
+they wouldn't and couldn't. He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands
+every year, he knowed what made 'em fall. And he might jest as well made
+a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it
+to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.
+
+For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only
+evil. And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the
+Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to
+sting, and its bite is death.
+
+And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made
+to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the
+end thereof is death.
+
+I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast. But then
+as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.
+
+But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and
+Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the
+sacred cause of religion by it.
+
+I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none
+too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin'
+along--sweepin' along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can't
+bear to think on't; I'm kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it
+hain't my Josiah that has got that ahead on him. I wish he'd ondo now
+what he's done as fur as he can, he'd feel better, I believe, I know
+that I and the meetin' house would and Josiah.
+
+But, 'tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin' and sneerin' and
+angels bendin' down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin' through their
+pityin' tears hopin' it must be a mistake, not believin' it possible
+that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin' saloon. And
+coverin' their eyes with their droopin' wings when they found it wuz
+so--they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went
+home in good season. And Perkins also started home walkin' afoot, it wuz
+so little ways.
+
+And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him. Some of
+these wimmen's husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man's
+Club. And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight
+had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins
+owned. For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin' him, that
+money spent enticin' the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz
+easily influenced, wuz money well spent.
+
+For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their
+profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin'
+ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off. And this
+saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy
+and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a
+flourishin' bizness.
+
+Two or three of Perkins' saloons made a specialty of sellin' drink to
+girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night
+and found 'em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin' of the
+pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother's care to earn
+their livin', out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere. And
+some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school----
+
+These mothers thinkin' what a weak thing a girl's will wuz when drink
+had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion
+and temptation urgin' 'em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed
+'round him.
+
+These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts,
+and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash
+vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so
+they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin'.
+
+But they couldn't do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their
+onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and
+escorted Perkins home with honor. But to resoom backwards.
+
+I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon's Temple and go on
+in.
+
+This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the
+wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish
+streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with,
+I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him. I'd say:
+
+"Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin' so much show your
+smartness by gittin' rid of six hundred and niney-nine on 'em; keep jest
+one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest. Set 'em up
+in dressmakin' or millionary or sunthin' to git a livin' by, and settle
+down peaceable with one." Mebby he'd hearn to me and mebby not, men are
+so sot in their way.
+
+But to resoom. Here we stood in that splendid temple which was the
+wonder of the world, and see the tabernacle the old Hebrews carried with
+'em through the parted waves of the Red Sea and their journeyin's
+through the wilderness for forty years, led by the pillow of fire.
+
+What feelin's I had as I looked on it and meditated, what riz up
+feelin's them old four fathers that carried it must have had, and them
+that follered on, led as they wuz by heavenly light, fed by heavenly
+food. How could they acted as they did, rambelous often and often,
+wanderin' from the right road, but still not gittin' away from the
+Divine care.
+
+And there wuz a picture forty feet long, as long as our barn, showing
+the old Hebrews encamped before Mount Sinai, where Moses received the
+Law that rules the world to-day (more or less). Heaven drawin' so nigh
+to earth that hour that its light fallin' on Moseses face made it too
+glorious for mortal eyes to look on.
+
+And I'dno but one of them mountains we see wuz where Moses stood after
+his forty years journey, castin' wishful eyes onto the Promised Land,
+not bein' able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And
+I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin' places we plan and
+toil for and then can't enter in and possess through some past error and
+mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of
+emotions I had thinkin' this, and how on top of another mount the great
+prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God took him.
+
+I wuz lost and by the side of myself, but Josiah's voice reached me up
+in the realm of Reverie and brought me back.
+
+"What ails you, Samantha? Do you lay out to stand here all day?" And I
+tore myself away.
+
+Well, there wuz movin' pictures describin' the Holy Land and we see 'em
+move, and dissolvin' views of the same and we see 'em dissolve, and at
+last Josiah got so worrisome I had to go on with him. We laid out to
+stop to Japan and France, they bein' right on our way, and I sez, "We
+might as well stop at Morrocco." For as I told Josiah, while we wuz
+travelin' through foreign countries we might as well see what we could
+of the people, their looks and habits.
+
+But he sez to once, "You don't want to buy any Morrocco shues, Samantha,
+they don't wear nigh so well as calf-skin and cost as much agin." And
+sez he, "We won't have more than time to go through Japan and France and
+do justice to 'em." So we went on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace.
+There are seven large buildin's besides the small pagodas and all filled
+with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must
+have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do
+it with a big war goin' on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend
+words what wonderful people the Japans are.
+
+There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or
+Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in
+harmony, havin' but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the
+best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion,
+rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of
+carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown
+workman.
+
+In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing
+the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of
+railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin' they have other ways
+of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed!
+it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.
+
+The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen
+million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the
+school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our
+country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as
+much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one
+of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.
+
+The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa,
+chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful
+specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are
+worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each
+side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered
+screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and
+priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel
+that you'd love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds
+the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are
+embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring
+landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas.
+And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in
+the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white
+with yellow chrysantheums.
+
+Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved
+laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings,
+and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels
+flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand
+dollars.
+
+And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns,
+cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every
+description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns,
+fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw goods, cameras, etc., etc.
+
+In the mining display is a model of one of their copper mines, and you
+see they have the largest furnace in the world, and they not only mine
+on land but under the sea, it beats all how them Japanese do go ahead.
+There are tall gold and silver bars showing how much they have mined in
+these metals.
+
+Their educational exhibit shows the same wonderful energy and
+advancement. There is a compulsory educational law and twenty-two per
+cent. of the children attend school. There are schools for the blind,
+deaf and feeble-minded, and a display of all their excellent methods of
+education, from kindergarten to the imperial university.
+
+In the Palace of Electricity on a map thirty feet high and twenty-five
+feet wide, you see pictures of Japan's great engineering work, Lake Biwa
+Canal, connecting the Lake with Kioto. Irrigating, electricity making,
+electrical apparatus invented by them, they have nearly twenty-five
+thousand telephones, long and short distance.
+
+In the tea exhibit you see everything relating to this beverage, tea
+houses, experimental farms and over one hundred different kinds of tea
+are shown. Rice is shown in every stage of its growth, tobacco, fruit,
+canned goods.
+
+You can enter the Forestry and Fish departments through a temple built
+of twenty different kinds of wood. Here you see all the native forest
+woods, bamboo takin' the lead. Their fish and their methods of fishing
+are shown off, charts of their fishing grounds and boats. The Japanese
+section of the Palace of Fine Arts has the best samples of sculpture,
+painting and pottery.
+
+But the crownin' beauty of the Japanese display is the Enchanted Garden
+(well-named). A charmin' little lake lies in the midst of flower beds
+and hedges, dotted by aquatic flowers. Beds of hydrangeas and
+chrysantheums and other bright flowers glow in the sunlight. A pretty
+summer house stands on a little island and bending over the water are
+dwarf pine trees brought from Japan. At one end is a waterfall, and
+there is a pleasant tea house where pretty Japan girls serve tea on the
+broad galleries.
+
+Beyend the lake you see a model Japanese house and not fur off is the
+headquarters of the Japanese commission. Near the top of the hill is a
+large pavilion made of wood and bamboo. It is used as a reception room,
+and here you see Japanese costooms from the earliest day to the present.
+Here are pictures of the Emperor and Empress. There is a display here
+also of the Red Cross society, medical boxes of army and navy, etc. This
+is the only hint this courteous country gives of the great war going on
+at home that would stop the exhibit of most any other country. They are
+a wonderful people and are making swift strides to the front in every
+direction. I took sights of comfort here and so did Josiah.
+
+I said a big war would stop the exhibit of most every country--it has
+stopped Russia--she don't have much show here to the Fair, they wanted
+to, and laid out to, but couldn't on account of havin' to go to war. It
+is dretful busy this year, killin' off men, and sendin' out men all the
+time to be killed, so of course, it can't devour the same time in more
+peaceful occupations.
+
+I wuz really sorry, for I always liked the Zar. Of course, we don't
+visit back and forth, he havin' the misfortune to not live neighbor to
+us. But I always thought he wuz likely, real smart and good-natered,
+lovin' his wife and babies devotedly, settin' a splendid example in this
+direction to other high potentates who act and behave more or less.
+
+And his Peace Proclamation, like a tall white monument riz up for men
+and angels to admire. How its pure luminous light lit up this dark earth
+and streamed clear up to heaven, the blessed influence it shed abroad
+wuz so beneficient and divine. How much I and the hull world thought
+on't.
+
+And here it is all broke to smash, for of course, it wuz right in his
+way and he had to tromple on over it, he and the squadrons he called to
+war.
+
+I don't know exactly the right or wrong on't, it is hard sometimes to
+keep track of ethics in a Jonesville quarrel, and when two big Empires
+git to cuttin' up and actin' and sassin', and dastin' each other to do
+thus and so, I can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of their
+dispute.
+
+But I do know this, that the beautiful Peace Monument is smashed all to
+pieces under the feet of the thousands and thousands of men sent out to
+murder and be murdered, and it is doubtful to me if the Zar can ever
+contoggle it up agin to be as strong as it wuz before. You know he will
+nachully git his muscles and will and temper kinder stiff jinted leadin'
+the armies and gittin' so awful mad.
+
+But, there they be, these two great nations, Japan and Russia, sendin'
+out their peaceable and well-behaved sons by the thousands and hundreds
+of thousands to cut each other to-pieces, shoot, maim and murder each
+other, for that is what war is, it is on purpose to kill men, the
+greatest crime in the civil calendar.
+
+As I told Josiah one night to Miss Huff's, as I laid down a paper givin'
+the details of a bloody battle which wuz headed "A Great Victory."
+
+Victory! the idee! hundreds of men borne bleeding from the field
+suffering tortures worse than death and every pang they felt twice
+suffered by them that loved 'em, watching and waiting at home in
+agonized suspense, hundreds more layin' with their white, dead faces
+upturned to heaven as if in mute appeal and wonder that such a horror as
+war could be in a world where the words of the gentle Christ had been
+hearn.
+
+Sez I, "I can't understand it, Josiah, John Jones gits mad and kills one
+man, a small boneded man too, and weakly, couldn't live long anyway, and
+John had been abused by him shameful and wuz dretful mad at him. A
+horrified state law clutches John Jones and kills him. Public Opinion
+sez good enough for John, it will keep other murderous-minded men at bay
+mebby.
+
+"But I always loved justice, and if a king gits mad and kills or causes
+to be killed hundreds of thousands of men I can't see why he if
+successful should be admired for it, have a monument riz up to show
+forth his nobility and school boys be taught to emulate his greatness."
+
+Josiah said, "That wuz different, a war between nations wuz planned
+ahead, it wuzn't murder."
+
+"But," sez I, "if John Jones had planned killin' his man he would git
+hung the sooner."
+
+"Well," sez Josiah, "great national quarrels has to be settled some way.
+Nations wouldn't go to war unless they wuz aggravated."
+
+Sez I, "John Jones wuz aggravated. Murders hain't generally planned or
+committed in class meetin's, and love feasts."
+
+"Well," sez Josiah, scratchin' his head, "it is different."
+
+But I sez, "How different, Josiah, they are both murders."
+
+Sez Josiah, "I guess I'll go down to Grandpa Huff's room and borry the
+World." But I kep' thinkin' on't after he left about war and what it
+wuz. Rivers of human blood flowin' through ruined countries, follered by
+the horrible specters of pestilence, disease and famine, moral and
+financial ruin. Acres and acres of graves filled with forms once full of
+throbbing life and hope and dreams of future happiness, cut down like
+grass before the mower. Wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts see the sun
+of their life's joy go down in blackness, their heaven of love and
+happiness changed into a hell of misery by somebody's quarrel,
+somebody's greed and ambition. How many of the common soldiers who make
+up the great body of the army know or care about the right or wrong of
+their cause. They go into the fight like dumb-driven cattle, suffer and
+die and make their loved ones die a hundred deaths jest because they are
+hired to do it, hired to murder their fellow men, jest as you would hire
+a man to cut down a grove of underbrush. They go out to this wholesale
+slaughter to kill or be killed, to meet all the black awful influences
+that foller the armies, go gayly to the sound of bugle and drum.
+
+It is the common people who bleed and die, it is the hearts of the
+common people that are wrung; it is their wives and orphan children who
+have to struggle along and strive and die, or live and suffer by this
+cause.
+
+And who can tell the moral, physical and financial ruin, the sickenin'
+and terrible effects of evil habits formed there, the sin and woe that
+like a black cloud follers the army? The recordin' angel himself can't
+do the sum till the day of judgment, not till then can he add up the
+broad, ever-widenin' effects of evil and sorrow that follers a great war
+and that shall go on and on till time shall be no more.
+
+Calm judicial eyes lookin' back at this problem from the happy days when
+Peace and Love shall rule the world, from the era when Courts of
+Arbitration will settle national differences, will look back on the
+bloody godless warfare of to-day with more horrow than we do on the
+oncivilized doin's of our savage ancestors.
+
+It is strange, hain't it, to think eighteen centuries of Christian
+teaching hain't wiped the blood stains off the face of the earth, as it
+would like to? Yes, indeed! our Lord's words are luminous with Charity,
+Peace and Love. But the vengeful black clouds of war sweep up between
+the nations and the Sermon on the Mount and hides its words so they
+can't, or don't heed 'em.
+
+And I d'no what's goin' to be done. I guess them that don't believe in
+war must keep on givin' in their testimony, keep peggin' away at Public
+Opinion and constant droppin' will wear away stun.
+
+But to resoom backwards. We stayed so long in Japan that I couldn't
+devote so much time to France as I wanted to, for they too had a fine
+display. The most beautiful exhibit we saw was the reproduction of the
+Grand Trienon, the favorite home of Napoleon, brought from all
+appearances from Versailles with its famous garden and sot down here in
+St. Louis.
+
+There is a big central pavilion and on each side wings, each terminating
+in a pavilion joined by tall marble columns. The ruff is surrounded by a
+balustrade ornamented by vases and beautiful statutes. The same
+balustrade extends the hull length of the building below, five hundred
+and thirty-four feet.
+
+And below it stretches the beautiful garden, terraces, lake, fountains,
+statutes, rare flowers, shrubs and trees. Winding walks in which the
+great Conqueror might have walked with his brain teemin' with ambitious
+plans. I didn't want to leave the garden it was so beautiful, but time
+wuz passin' and we went inside and went through room after room, each
+one seemin'ly more beautiful than the one we had seen last. The
+picture-room wuz specially beautiful filled as it is with treasures of
+French art. And all the rooms wuz gorgeous with tapestries, elaborate
+carving, sculpture, painting, the most exquisite decorations of all
+kinds showing what a beauty and pleasure-loving race can gather about it
+of beauty and grandeur if it sets out to.
+
+And France shows off well also in manufactures, electricity, machinery,
+transportation, etc. All together this is the best exhibit she has ever
+made, and she has reason to be proud on't.
+
+England makes a good show in products and processes in every Exposition
+building. In the Palace of Varied Industries she gives a model of one of
+her charming country houses, a model indeed of comfort and luxury.
+
+Her national pavilion is built of red brick and stone and is a
+reproduction of the Orangery, a building two hundred years old. It wuz
+Queen Ann's favorite home, and I didn't blame Ann a mite for lovin' it.
+As I walked through the beautiful and stately rooms I thought I would
+have loved to neighbor with Ann and spend some time with her.
+
+The gardens outside are so beautiful you don't want to leave 'em, shaded
+avenues, terraces, flower beds, yew and box shrubs trained into shapes
+of lions and big birds. Josiah wuz entranced here, and as he stood lost
+in admiration of them green animals growin' right out of the ground, he
+sez:
+
+"My first job in Jonesville is cut out, Samantha."
+
+As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, "Don't jar your
+mind too much, Josiah, don't dwell on tuckerin' things."
+
+"But," sez he, pintin' to the green form of the lion growin' right out
+of the ground, "do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old
+mair is goin' to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple
+tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain't good for nothin'
+anyway."
+
+But I sez, "You can't prune apple trees into figgers, Josiah, it takes
+different trees, and that is too big anyway."
+
+"That's a woman's way of talkin'; I want her in heroic size, she's
+worthy on't. I expect," he went on, "the road will be jest lined with
+Jonesvillians, and we'l see 'em hangin' over the orchard fence lookin'
+on and admirin' the beautiful statter, I think I can see her now, head
+up, tail out, mane a flutterin'--you'll see, Samantha."
+
+"Oh, dear!" sez I, "I expect I will see more than I want to."
+
+But goin' on a little furder we see what put such vain and onpractical
+idees out of his head. We wandered into a spot where there wuz
+old-fashioned flowers, such as grow in the green meadows and hedges of
+old England, and there wuz some old wimmen wrinkled and gray, poorly
+clad, lookin' at them daisies and cow-slips and laughin' and cryin' over
+'em.
+
+They wuz fur from the old home and the summer time of youth and love, a
+half century of years and dreary wastes of sea and land lay between 'em,
+but these cow-slip blows and daisies took them back to their youth and
+the sunny fields they wandered in with the young lover whose eyes wuz as
+blue as the English violets, while their own cheeks wuz as rosy as the
+thorn flowers.
+
+When the hull world lay hid in a rosy mist, and they wuz the centre of
+it, and life wuz new, and hope and happiness gilded the future, and the
+Fairy land of America wuz beckonin' to 'em out of the rosy mist.
+
+Fifty years of dusty, smoky tenement life, hard work, child-birth,
+rearing children, toil, disappointment, pain--where wuz they? They had
+all gone. They wuz eighteen agin; they wuz pickin' the rosy blooms in
+the dear home land, and love wuz whisperin' to 'em that they wuz sweeter
+than the flowers.
+
+I took out my snowy handkerchief and almost cried myself, the tears just
+run down my face, and Josiah blowed his nose on his bandanna, and I
+believe furtively wiped his eyes. But men never love to betray such
+sentimental emotion, and most immegiately he asked me in a gruff tone
+for a fried cake, and I handed him one absently and as one who dreams,
+and we went on and met the girls at the rondevoo appointed.
+
+I'd had my supper and wuz restin' in my room, Molly and Blandina had
+gone for a walk accompanied by Billy Huff, and Josiah had gone down to
+set with grandpa Huff a spell, when Aunt Tryphena come in and said a
+lady wuz there to see me; I asked her who it wuz, and she said:
+
+"I don't know, but guess it is some 'big bug trash,' 'tennyrate she come
+in a antymobile that stands to the door without hitchin'."
+
+I knowed in a minute it wuz Jane Olive Perkins and told her to bring her
+up to my room. And she entered with more than her usual gushin' warmth
+of manner, and told me the first thing that I grew better and younger
+lookin' every year.
+
+But I kinder waved the idee off and told her, I didn't feel so young as
+I did twenty or thirty years ago.
+
+I acted well. (But then I spoze I do look remarkable young for one of my
+years, and I admired her good horse sense in seein' it so plain.) But
+she looked real mauger, and I sez:
+
+"You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?"
+
+Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her.
+
+"Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?"
+
+No, she said she had ten servants.
+
+So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face
+looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her
+efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it
+since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her,
+she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's
+efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she
+wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do.
+
+Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz
+fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and
+south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet
+country she come to Jonesville.
+
+And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a
+name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way
+in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens
+and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the
+money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers
+who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago. Her
+money went jest as fur as though it had descended onto her from the sale
+of the mink skins and cabbages of the grandpas of the 400.
+
+Well, as I say, this did more than all her other efforts put together,
+and took her inside furder, for givin' as much as she did they had to
+invite her to set down on the same charitable boards where these genteel
+females wuz settin'. And when a passel of wimmen are settin' down on one
+board they have to be more sociable and agreeable like, than if they wuz
+settin' round on different piles of lumber.
+
+So Jane Olive wuz highly tickled and gin money freely. And now I don't
+want it understood that Jane Olive done every mite of this work and gin
+every cent of money for the speech of people or to git on in fashionable
+life. No, she wuz kinder good hearted and felt sorry for the afflicted.
+Her motives wuz mebby about half and half, half goodness and half
+ambition, and that is I spoze a little worse than the average, though
+motives will git dretfully mixed up, evil is worse than Canada thistles
+to git mixed with good wheat.
+
+When some good object rises up and our souls burn within us aginst wrong
+and injustice and bigotry and such, we may think in our wropped moments
+that our motives are all good. But most always some little onworthy
+selfish motive will come sneakin' in by some back door of the heart and
+wiggle its way along till it sets down right by the side of our highest
+whitest motives and stays there onbeknown to us. It is a pity that it is
+so, but human nater is human nater and we are all on us queer, queer as
+dogs. Once in awhile you'll see some rare soul that seems as if all
+onworthy motives have been driv out by the angels of divine Purity and
+Endeavor, but they're scurce, scurce as hen's teeth.
+
+Jane Olive wuz highly tickled with her success, and then, as is the way
+of human creeters, when she'd done well she wanted to do better. She
+wanted to outdo the other females settin' on the boards with her, she
+wanted her board to tip higher than theirn, so she took it into her head
+to build a Home for Fallen Wimmen in that end of the city where she
+lived. She said that there wuz sights and sights of wimmen that had
+fallen round there, and sights that wuz fallin', and I spozed there wuz.
+I spozed that anywhere that Sam Perkins lived there would be apt to be,
+and she took the idee of buildin' a home for 'em, it wuz a first rate
+thought, but in my opinion it didn't go fur enough, it didn't cover the
+hull ground.
+
+Well, Jane Olive had gin of her own money ten thousand dollars and had
+raised nine thousand more, twenty thousand would build it, and she wuz
+collectin' round even in St. Louis when she met anybody she thought
+would give; she knowed how the welfare of humanity, specially female
+humanity, lay down on my heart, therefore she tackled me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+She talked real eloquent about it, and kinder begun to shed tears. She's
+a capital hand to git money, she could always cry when she wanted to
+when she went to school, did it by holdin' her breath or sunthin'.
+
+And when I say that I don't want it understood that I believe she did
+all her cryin' that way. No, I spoze she could draw on her imagination
+and feelin's to that extent and git 'em so rousted up that she did
+actually shed tears, wet tears jest like anybody, some of the time, and
+some she made, so I spoze.
+
+Well, when she begun to cry I looked keen at her and sez, how much she
+made me think of herself when we went to school together. And she
+stopped sheddin' tears to once and acted more natural and went on to
+tell about her skeem. She said female vice wuz stalkin' round fearful,
+fallen wimmen appeared on the streets with shockin' frequency, sunthin'
+must be done for these lost souls or their blood would be on our dress
+skirts.
+
+She told me how much she'd gin to this object and how much ministers had
+gin and how they wuz all goin' to preach sermons about these poor lost
+wimmen and try to wake the public up to the fact of the enormity of
+their sins and the burnin' need of such an institution.
+
+She talked powerful about it, and I sez: "Jane Olive, I've gin a good
+deal of thought to this subject, and I think this house of yourn is a
+good idee, but to my mind it don't cover the hull ground. Now I will
+give five dollars for the Home for Fallen Wimmen and the other five for
+the Home for Fallen Men."
+
+Sez she, and she screamed the words right out: "There hain't any such
+institution in the hull city!"
+
+"Why, there must be!" sez I. "It hain't reasonable that there shouldn't
+be. Why, if a man and a woman go along over a bridge together, and both
+fall through, and are maimed and broke to pieces, they are carried to a
+male and female hospital to be mended up. Or if they fall through a
+sidewalk or anywhere else they have to both be doctored up and have the
+same splints on and rubbed with the same anarky, etc."
+
+"That's very different," sez Jane Olive.
+
+"Why different?" sez I. "If they both fall morally their morals ort to
+be mended up agin both on 'em. The woman ort to be carried to the Home
+for Fallen Wimmen, the Home for Magdalenes, and the men to the Home for
+Fallen Men, the Home for Mikels."
+
+"There hain't no such place!" sez Jane Olive agin decidedly.
+
+Sez I, "Did you ever inquire?"
+
+"No," sez she, "I wouldn't make a fool of myself by inquirin' for such a
+thing as that, Home for Mikels! I don't know what you mean by that
+anyway."
+
+"Why," sez I, "fallen men angels. You know Mikel wuz a angel once and he
+fell."
+
+"Well, there is no such place," sez she, tossin' her head a little.
+
+"Well," sez I, "you ort to know, you're from the city and I hain't; but
+I know that if there hain't such a place it's a wicked thing. Just look
+at them poor fallen men that are walkin' the streets night after night,
+poor creeters goin' right down to ruin and nobody trying to lead 'em up
+agin to the way of safety and virtue--poor fallen, ruined men! I feel to
+pity 'em."
+
+Sez Jane Olive, "Oh, shaw! they don't feel ruined, they're all right,
+I'll resk them."
+
+"How do you know how they feel? Take a tender hearted, innocent man,
+that some bad, designin' woman has led astray, led him on till she has
+betrayed and ruined him, and he feels that the screen door of society is
+shet aginst him----"
+
+"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive agin. "The door of society hain't shet aginst
+the man, it never is."
+
+"Then," sez I, "there is sunthin' wrong with the door and it ort to be
+tended to."
+
+Sez she, "Things are winked at in a bad man that hain't in a bad woman."
+
+"Not by me," sez I firmly. "The man won't git a wink out of me more or
+less than I would give to the woman."
+
+"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive. "And," sez she, "no self
+respectin' man goes to any place that hain't licensed and respectable."
+
+"If such houses are respectable," sez I, "and the law makes 'em so, why
+hain't the wimmen called so that keep 'em? Why hain't the wimmen looked
+up to that work there?"
+
+Sez Jane Olive, "You don't talk no good sense at all."
+
+Sez I, "Jane Olive, I am spozin'. Mark you well, I don't say they are
+respectable; I say they are the depths of infamy. But I am talkin' from
+the standpoint of legislators and highest officials, and if they call
+'em respectable, and throw the mantilly of law and order over 'em it is
+only justice to let the mantilly spread out, so it will cover the males
+and females too. Agin I quote the words of the poet to you, 'what is
+sass for the goose ort to be sass for the gander.'"
+
+Says she, "Such things are looked on so different in a man, they can
+hold their heads up jest as high as they did before."
+
+"Not if I had my way," sez I. "If the female is dragged off to the Home
+for Fallen Wimmen let the same team come back and haul the men off to
+the Home for Fallen Men, tie 'em up with the same rope, preach to 'em
+from the same text, let 'em out when they've both repented and want to
+do better. That's my scheme," sez I.
+
+"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive, "it wouldn't work."
+
+"Why not?" sez I. "I'll bet if that course wuz took for the next five
+years with fallen men you wouldn't have to raise so much money for
+fallen wimmen; I'll bet it would ameliorate their condition more than
+anything else would."
+
+"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive agin.
+
+"Why don't it hurt 'em?" sez I. "If it makes a woman so bad the hull
+world calls her ruined and lost, and prints her name out in the daily
+papers, as they always do, givin' her full name and address and sayin'
+some wild young man (but nameless) of respectable family was implicated,
+and talks of her as if Heaven wuz shet aginst her, and she has got to
+pray and repent in sack-cloth and ashes all the rest of her days, and
+never, never git her old place back in the eyes of the community, it
+hain't reasonable to spoze it don't hurt a man a mite to fall at the
+same time and in the same way. There is no sense in it, and I'll bet if
+you hunt round in your city you'll find where fallen men are kep' hid
+away till they can repent and reform.
+
+"Why," sez I, "men's hearts and souls and morals are made out of exactly
+the same stuff that wimmens be. And as I said before, let a man and a
+woman fall out of a high winder together it smashes him jest as bad as
+it duz her. They have to be carried off to hospitals jest the same, the
+same doctor tends 'em, the same medicine has to be administered to 'em
+and they have to come back slowly to health agin. It takes the same
+length of time to lose the marks of the woonds and bruises, and they
+have to hobble round on the same kind of crutches. And why under the
+sun, moon and stars there is any difference in the woonds on their souls
+and morals I can't see, nor I don't believe you can."
+
+Agin she snorted and acted real high headed, and sez she, "There hain't
+no such a Home as that you're talkin' about, and never wuz."
+
+"Well," sez I, "then it is high time there wuz." And I went on real
+eloquent, "Poor fallen men have been neglected too long and their ruin
+will lay on our doorsteps if we don't do sunthin' to help 'em; I won't
+give a cent to help fallen wimmen, who have had ten times as much
+preachin' to 'em and as much done for 'em, till justice has been done to
+fallen men. Poor mizable creeters! They'll find out they've got one
+friend that will stand by 'em if they've never had a mite of pity or
+help or encouragement held out to 'em before in the world. It is high
+time sunthin' wuz done for 'em; and when you who live right in the midst
+of fallen men come here and say you've started a home for 'em, where
+there will be preachin' to 'em, and encouragement gin 'em to repent and
+reform, when you've come and told me you've started this job I'll give,
+and give liberal."
+
+She sot kinder demute for a minute, and I went right on, and sez I, "I'd
+have a immense big house built if I had my way so's to accommodate 'em
+if I could git a house big enough. And I would set 'em there in immense
+rows and let 'em meditate on their sins a spell and I'd have good likely
+preachers of both sects go and preach to 'em about fallen men and fallen
+wimmen, and how they could git up agin with God's help if they tried
+hard enough to. And I'd have pictures hung on the wall of Mikel and
+Magdaline and them old fallen men castin' stuns at fallen wimmen and
+what the Lord said about it. And then to kinder encourage 'em and show
+'em to what they might rise up to, if they repented and reformed, I
+would have pictures of some likely he angels flyin' round up in a purer
+air and----"
+
+I wuz almost carried away and by the side of myself with this beautiful
+and inspirin' picture I'd cunjered up in my heated brain, when she broke
+in all wrought up with excitement and horrow with a new thought that had
+dawned on her:
+
+"Why," sez she, "if you did that, if you shet up such men there wouldn't
+be a man left outside." And she sort o' screamed out, "Where would I git
+a coachman to drive for me or a butler?"
+
+"Drive yourself," sez I sternly, "and buttle too; if that is so, but I
+don't believe it."
+
+But she still looked most wild with excitement and horrow, and agin she
+sez, "It would take away every man in the world! and what would we do
+for men?" sez she.
+
+"Do!" sez I, all wrought up, "Do without 'em if that is the case, though
+I don't believe it; but if it is so it's high time we begun fresh,
+educate and bring up men babys in the right way, and begin agin; start a
+new world with 'em, jest as you'd start a new kind of gooseberry or
+anything. But I don't believe a word on't, not a word. I believe there
+are good men in the world, lots and lots of 'em."
+
+"I know there hain't," sez she.
+
+And I sez, "I know there is."
+
+And we disputed back and forth several times but didn't convince each
+other. You can see jest how it wuz, it wuz the example of our own
+companions that wuz influencin' us in our opinions. She havin' lived
+with a perfect sardeen and he-wretch, thought all men wuz like him, I
+nerved up by the thought of my noble-minded (though small) companion
+held my faith firm as a iron anchor that the world wuz full of good men,
+scattered here and there like good wheat among the tares, and I felt and
+knowed that the tearers wuz fur scurser than the wheat.
+
+But Jane Olive riz up and kinder let her train flop out over the floor,
+she'd held it up as she come in.
+
+I bid her a cordial good-by and told her to come and see me in
+Jonesville, but she acted kinder cold and hauty and I hain't much hopes
+that she will foller my advice.
+
+Josiah came in pretty soon, and when I told him about it he acted real
+huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for
+Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a
+few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't
+mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands of worlds like
+this.
+
+And Josiah acted puggicky all the evenin'. But I knowed I wuz in the
+right on't. Truly the path of duty is a thorny one anon or oftener.
+
+We went into the Fair the next mornin' by what they call the Skinker
+Entrance, and we hadn't hardly got in when Josiah sez to me, pintin' to
+a small low house, "What do you spoze they show there, Samantha? It must
+be pretty poor if they can't afford shingles or a tar ruff."
+
+And sure enough the ruff wuz covered with straw. It wuz a low buildin'
+built of sunthin' that looked like stun. But come to find out it wuz the
+cottage of Robert Burns, and I hastened my steps, Josiah and Blandina
+follerin' on.
+
+For low as that buildin' is, lookin' like a ant hill almost by the side
+of the high red granite administration buildin', that little cabin holds
+memories that soar up higher than the peakedest, highest ruffs on the
+Fair ground. The Home of Robert Burns, the Poet of the People. How his
+inimitable poetry come troopin' through my mind as I walked through the
+low rooms, there is only four on 'em, kitchen, settin' room, store room
+and stables.
+
+I didn't approve of havin' the stables so nigh the livin' rooms, and
+should have advised Robert's wife to stood her ground and not had it.
+But I wuzn't there, and she gin in probable, and mebby she wanted it so,
+it wuz handy, you could open the door and milk into your coffee cup if
+so inclined. The bed is built in the kitchen wall; I spoze they couldn't
+afford anything better, and 'tennyrate that humble bed pillowed the form
+that will walk down the ages crowned with honor and lovin' memories,
+while many monarchs who at that time rested on carved rose-wood have
+sunk into oblivion.
+
+The people are not goin' to forgit their poet. He who taught that no
+matter what the rank, a man wuz a man "for a' that." Who sung and
+dignified the humble pleasures of the poor. "The Cotter's Saturday
+Night" will be remembered when many a scientific tome and eloquent poem
+writ in long words is dust and ashes. And the scathing irony and wit
+satirizing the ignorant rich, the scorn of meanness and bigotry, the
+love of liberty and justice the melting tenderness of his love poems,
+the People he loved and wrote for, will not forget.
+
+The big open fireplace might have been the one immortalized in his
+poetry. There wuz a high clock like the one that told him the hours,
+anxious hours, weary hours, happy hours, hours radiant with the poet's
+inspiration. Despairin' hours full of anxiety and dread for the wife and
+children he loved. It told the hours of day and night too, for Robert
+did love what he called a good time, and I presoom Bonnie Jean read the
+face of that old clock with anxiety and weariness writ in her own face
+when the small hours struck and her Robbie wuz away with gay companions.
+
+And with what despairin' grief did she read its calm old face while her
+poet writ this sad truth:
+
+"I'm wearin' awa' to the Land o' the Leal."
+
+And there wuz a cupboard with blue and white dishes and a sugar bowl
+that he and Bonnie Jean had used. Oh, warm fingers, tired fingers! how
+long you've been dust, and the little piece of metal still endures. Oh,
+my soul! the wonder and the pity on't.
+
+There are chairs, tables, spinning wheel, etc., similar to those that
+were in the Burns cottage. But there is a reel that wuz used by Bonnie
+Jean herself, I took holt on't tryin' to bring to my mind what emotions
+she had time and agin as she reeled her threads on and off, love,
+anxiety, ambition, fear, hopes and sorrows; how they twined and ontwined
+in her faithful breast as the reel turned, emotions stilled long ago,
+long ago.
+
+And there wuz the very griddle and toaster with which Bonnie Jean
+toasted the bread for her Robbie. Many and many a time her heart, I
+presoom to say seemin' to git seared in the burnin' fires of jealousy
+whilst the bread wuz toastin'. For Robert wuz a man of many fancies, and
+though a wife through pride or affection may seem blind to such things,
+yet burns will smart and "jealousy is as cruel as the grave."
+
+But many a time also whilst she toasted her bread her heart would bound
+with joy and pride thinkin' of some triumph the man she loved had won,
+or rememberin' some words of love and appreciation he had whispered in
+her ear, which made the dark world over in a minute into a bright one,
+for wimmen's hearts beat the same in Ayr or Jonesville, and Bonnie Jean
+wuz proud of her poet lover and loved him. And he loved her the biggest
+heft of the time, and mebby all the time; men are queer in such things
+and their ways past findin' out.
+
+'Tennyrate my heart bent in homage to his genius and his bravely borne
+poverty and sufferin'. And I wished, oh, how I wished that some of the
+pride and honor showered on him now the world over could have brightened
+his hard life when it wuz needed. But it wuzn't to be, I wuzn't there to
+advise folks, or to cheer him and Jean up by my warm appreciation and
+good vittles. And I reluctantly tore myself away from the memory-hanted
+spot.
+
+Molly wuz dretful interested here too, but naterally wanted to ride in
+the Intremoral railway and see all she could, it bein' her first visit.
+So as I had spoke of wantin' to see the air-ships we went there next and
+then to the Philippines.
+
+Sister Sylvester Bobbett laughed when I told her that probable Josiah
+and I would go to the next Exposition through the air.
+
+Sez she, "You might jest as well talk about goin' through the ground."
+
+But I wuz glad to see that other folks realized the importance of the
+subject, for they have given as much space to air navigation as for all
+the other modes of transportation put together. The buildin' covers
+about fourteen acres--I wonder what Sister Bobbett would say to that,
+the walls are thirty feet high, the lower twelve feet, air tight, the
+upper eighteen feet lattice work.
+
+Part on't is a sort of a harbor for their air-ships to light in. They
+say they need a still harbor away from boisterous winds jest as much as
+water ships do. This is the first Air-Ship harbor ever built. Josiah
+said it wuz the humbliest buildin' on the Fair ground, and it wuzn't a
+beauty so fur as architecture goes.
+
+But I sez, "Handsome is as handsome duz! I don't spoze," sez I, "that
+Noah's Ark wuz a beauty, but he started a new world with it, and I
+believe this buildin' holds the great hope and promise of the future in
+the way of transportation, and it looks good to me."
+
+It stands between Physical Culture Hall and the Hall of Lady Managers. I
+wuz glad it wuz where wimmen could keep an eye on 'em and keep 'em from
+bein' run on. In one corner on't is two stalls, jest as they have horse
+stalls in barns, but these stalls are one hundred and eighty feet long
+and forty feet wide. There wuz most ninety entries for the contest. If
+they make a speed of twenty milds an hour they git a prize of one
+hundred thousand. I would like to know what Sister Bobbett would think
+of that.
+
+Josiah said he believed they wuz dangerous, but the head of this company
+told me with his own mouth that he had traveled over fifteen States in
+air-ships and had never been hurt or even skairt, and I told Josiah that
+wuz more than he could say of our wheel-barrow that had never been out
+of Jonesville. Josiah went out one dark night to shet the barn door and
+fell over it, and it rared up on him and throwed him; he wuz skairt to
+death thinkin' it wuz a burglar who wuz tryin' to fight him.
+
+I had to take the lantern and go out and rescue him, and I hain't goin'
+to tell how he kicked that wheel-barrow when he re_cog_nized it, and the
+language he hurled at it. It wuz onbecomin' a deacon, and I told him so.
+
+Next to the Hall of Electricity, the great onseen Wizard that sways the
+world, this Hall of Air-Ships wuz interestin' to me, for it is the
+transportation of the future. Baby eyes blinkin' now at the canopys of
+their cribs will look up and see the blue sky above 'em cleft by the
+white wings of great ships of the air sailin' to and fro with no
+treacherous rocks to dash aginst, no forests to subdue or mountains to
+tunnel, no roads to break, to and fro, back and forth shining white
+aginst the crimson sunset, aginst the rosy dawn, and the cloudless noon.
+Oh, what a sight for the eyes that will behold 'em! I wish I could stand
+it till then, but most probable I can't, and I wouldn't want to anyway
+if Josiah couldn't be there to see 'em with me; and his health hain't
+what it wuz, his liver is bad. But I think sometimes that Josiah and I
+may look on and behold this glorious sight from some cloudy terrace of
+the Better Country; I'd love to if we could. But 'tennyrate it will be
+seen by them that live long enough.
+
+I took solid comfort and lots and lots of it wandering round seeing
+these immense Travelers of the Sky and askin' questions and lookin'
+forward towards the glories that is to be.
+
+Josiah and Blandina didn't enjoy it so much as I did, though Josiah,
+always wantin' to embark in some new enterprise, thought he should go up
+in one whilst he wuz there. He said he wanted to brag on't to Deacon
+Henzy and Deacon Huffer. And I told him that wuzn't the right sperit to
+show, it wuzn't the sperit of a true Discoverer tryin' to solve the
+problems of the future through love for God and humanity.
+
+And he said he guessed he knew what he took comfort in and what he
+didn't.
+
+Well, we rid round considerable so's to give Molly a view of the
+Cascades and big buildin's, and then we went on to the Philippines. This
+is the largest single exhibit at the Fair and covers forty-seven acres
+of beautiful woodland and water spaces, and is the largest colonial
+display ever made. I told Josiah as we walked towards it, Molly and
+Blandina goin' a little ahead, "What wuz the use of travelin' so fur to
+see our new possessions?"
+
+"Yes," sez he; "no use spendin' so much money."
+
+This wuz to me one of the most interestin' exhibits at the Fair. And I
+thought it a first rate idee to show off to the world the almost
+limitless wealth as well as the hard problems that face Uncle Sam in his
+new possessions, for like a careful pa he will see that they learn how
+to take care of themselves before he sets 'em up in independent
+housekeepin'.
+
+We went over a fine bridge, copied from one of their own into the walled
+city of Manila. Here in one room you see all of its war exhibits,
+immense cannons, the blow guns of the Negritos; axes the Iggorote
+head-hunters used to cut off the heads of their enemies. The Moro cris,
+the wooden guns and bamboo cannons and home-made powder used in 'em by
+the insurgent army with the rough machinery used in makin' it.
+
+Wanderin' on you see the nita huts of the Visayans, big handsome fellows
+they are and pretty refined wimmen, and hear their weird melodies as
+they are at work making their beautiful bamboo furniture, and weaving
+their handsome blankets, etc.
+
+You see on the hillside the huts of the Negritos, black little creeters.
+Then you see the Iggrotes, a real village, some of the housen brought
+from their own land and the rest built here by them from their own
+materials. It is jest as though you stepped over to the mountains of
+Luzon and see 'em at their simple housekeepin'.
+
+I whispered anxiously to Josiah to keep clost watch of his own head, for
+though they promised to not pursue their favorite pastime till they got
+back home agin, yet I didn't know what might happen, though I felt he
+wuzn't in so much danger, his bald head bein' so slippery and nothin' to
+lay holt on, still I kep' a clost watch on that dear head all the while
+we wuz there.
+
+Josiah didn't sense his own danger, but whispered, "I'm glad enough
+Bruno is to home." They will eat dogs and dance their war dances, but I
+spoze I couldn't hender 'em, so didn't try to advise 'em. Some on 'em
+didn't have clothes enough on to be decent unless you call the tatooin'
+on their naked bodies, clothes. I see Josiah looked at 'em with
+interest, and he wondered if common ink and diamond dyes could be used,
+and if Ury could handle 'em.
+
+And I hurried him on to the encampment of the Moros. Here we see the men
+and wimmen dressed in silk and satin, but cut after patterns I would
+never let Josiah wear or wear myself. Some of these Moro girls are quite
+handsome in their bright striped mantillys, their long hair hanging down
+under their gay turbans. One of these villages is on land and one built
+on bamboo poles over the water. Jest open sheds covered with nipa
+leaves. Anyone with rumatiz couldn't stand it in 'em.
+
+But what took Josiah most of all wuz the tree dwellers, their houses are
+built up in the highest trees they can find, and they git to 'em by
+ladders they pull up after 'em; as he looked on 'em I see in Josiah's
+reminescent eye dreams of summer housen in our ellums and maples, and I
+hurried him on. Blandina said she could be perfectly happy up there with
+a congenial companion, and I knowed she wuz thinkin' of Aspire Todd; but
+she never could git him up there, for his tongue is the strongest part
+on him.
+
+We all admired the Native Scouts; they live in a little village of tents
+in a beautiful piece of woodland. There are four companies, Visayan,
+Tagalog, Maccabebe and Ilicano. Their band of music, and the band of
+eighty pieces of the native constabulary are called the finest at the
+Exposition. When they march they all seem to be one body; so smooth and
+even are their movements, they are called the most perfectly drilled
+soldiers in the country.
+
+Jest think on't, if they show off so now what will they do at the next
+Exposition. There are ten large buildings containing their enormous
+display of art and science, education, agriculture, horticulture,
+manufactures, commerce, etc. Some of the statutes and pictures are
+beautiful; you couldn't tell some of 'em from them brought from abroad.
+But folks don't seem to realize that some of the Filippinos are as
+refined and cultured as if they come from the middle of Boston.
+
+Their forestry exhibit is the finest ever brought to any Exposition and
+contains everything relating to the fifty million acres of Philippine
+forests, splendid timber, over fifteen hundred different kinds of wood,
+rattans, gutta percha, dye stuffs, trees yielding oil, gums, rosin, etc.
+The mineral exhibit shows how rich these islands are in gold, copper,
+coal and other minerals. In agriculture you see the great display of
+fibres, Manila hemp which brought 'em over twenty-two millions last
+year, ropes made from bamboo, cocoa-nut, rattan. Sugar, tobacco, coffee,
+hats, baskets and other articles made from palm leaves, bamboo, rattan
+and nito, colored by their own native dyes. In the flower display are
+the most rare and exquisite orchids growing jest as common there as
+weeds along the Jonesville road. One interestin' display wuz a map built
+out doors showin' more than 2,000 islands, their shape and comparitive
+size.
+
+But most of all I wuz interested in the educational exhibit. So anxious
+have they been to learn night schools have had to be established. The
+big normal school building in Manila is handsome enough for any American
+city, and the smaller district and industrial schools are doing jest as
+good work. Our Government sent five hundred and forty teachers there in
+1901, and now we have about seven hundred there. I took comfort in
+seein' the great work they have done, as well as the church and private
+schools, and how well they're learning and getting along.
+
+Anyone could spend five weeks at least jest at the Philippine display,
+and find abundance to interest 'em all the time in the educational, art,
+manufacturing, horticultural, agricultural and other displays, but we
+hadn't no five weeks to spend, so we had to move on, but I felt proud
+enough to see what my revered Uncle Sam had done and wuz doing.
+
+Truly he took a big job on his hands to take care of such an immense
+family, and differin' so widely in cultivation, temperament and clothes,
+to lead the ignorant ones into civilization and keep peace in the family
+and among his own folks.
+
+He'll have as hard work to do it as that widower I hearn on who had
+three or four children of his own, and married a widow who also had a
+number, and then they had several, and one day she came callin' to her
+husband, "Come quick! come quick! Your children and my children are
+fightin' with our children."
+
+But Uncle Sam will be on hand, he'll wade right in with a birch gad or a
+spellin' book, jest which he thinks they need most at the time, and
+settle the differences all right, and I believe it will be a star in his
+crown in time to come: turning the savages and cannibals that inhabit
+part of these new possessions into good American citizens.
+
+I don't spoze I shall see the day when this shall fully come to pass,
+and mebby the babies of to-day will be great-grandpas before it takes
+place, but it will be, I believe, and so duz Josiah.
+
+Yes, he's doin' a good job by his step-children, I guess they would be
+called that seein' he stepped in when they wuz poor and oppressed and
+took 'em under his care.
+
+I honor him for it, but wish he would do as well by his steal children,
+the dark complexioned ones stole away from their own land to be slaves
+and drudges for his white children.
+
+He'll mebby tell me they wuz ignorant and degraded and wuz better off
+here than in their own land, but I'll say back to him, "Samuel, Josiah
+and I would probable be in a better house and more high-toned society if
+some king or other should steal us and carry us away from our humble
+farm to their palace. But do you spoze we would enjoy ourselves as well?
+No indeed!"
+
+And 'tennyrate they're here, the problem that lays so heavy on the
+Southern and Northern heart and conscience and the riddle gits harder
+and harder to solve. The lurid blaze of livin' torches makes bloody
+blindness in the eyes of them that look on and light them fires. The
+disgraceful glare flames out, shamin' you in the eyes of the world, and
+streams up to the pityin' heavens askin' for justice.
+
+Mebby you'll tell me you don't see how you can help it, but Samuel, you
+must try, for though there are here and there oasises in the gloom
+lighted up by education and inteligence still there remains the great
+multitude of your steel children that you ort to help, you ort to do as
+well by them settin' in long rows right on your very doorstep as you're
+doin' for them six thousand milds off. Sinners must be punished by law,
+else what is law made for? Order must be kep', the helpless protected,
+but you know, Samuel, that if some of the disgraceful seens that are
+bein' enacted here right under your dear old nose took place amongst
+your adopted Philippine children or even amongst your protejays in
+Turkey or China you would send out a warship to once. I am sorry for
+you, Samuel, and think the world on you, but faithful are the woonds of
+a friend; you must hear the truth once in awhile or who knows what would
+become on you, you might puff up with proud flesh and have to have an
+operation, and I guess you will anyway before you git through with this
+problem.
+
+I presoom you want me to advise you what to do, only bein' a man you
+hain't really wanted to come out and ask me. Josiah acts jest like that
+lots of times.
+
+So I'll say to you, I honor you, Samuel, for what you're doin' for these
+foreign children, but I want you to do jest as much to home. I want you
+to send teachers and found schools at your own expense; you're four
+handed and able to do it. And Id'no but you had better buy land in their
+own home you stole them from, buy a small farm for each one that wants
+to go. Travelers say that in the Valley of the Nile, a country with
+similar climate and soil to the south land where they wuz born, is an
+unoccupied place big enough for each one to have a small farm of their
+own. I want you, Samuel, to buy this land for 'em, take 'em back there
+at your own expense, all that want to go. There are plenty of the young
+and enterprising who would go full of the hope of foundin' a new
+republic for their own race, where they can expand and grow strong away
+from parlyzing influence of racial and social hatred.
+
+There would be lots of 'em who wouldn't want to go, and why can't you,
+Samuel, I'd say, buy them a little home here, for instance, on the vast
+unoccupied area of Florida? Let 'em have the hull state if necessary;
+let each family have their little piece of land, and then make 'em work
+it; send teachers, found schools, teach 'em to be self sustaining and
+self respecting.
+
+Samuel would probable sass me back and say, You can't teach a nigger to
+respect himself and stand upright.
+
+And I'd say, "'Tain't so, Sam, but if it wuz, centuries have been spent
+by the white race in teachin' this people to be dependent and helpless,
+to not think for themselves, to lean entirely on the judgment and
+justice of the white people (weak reeds to lean on anon or oftener)."
+
+And then I'd say, "Samuel, you did a foolish thing after the Civil war,
+you did it with the best of motives, and you needn't be skairt, I hain't
+goin' to scold you for it, but it wuz jest like turnin' a company of
+babies out into the world and tellin' 'em they wuz jest as tall and
+inteligent as their pas and mas and they must go on and take care of
+themselves, and with their utter lack of all knowledge and strength take
+an equal part in public affairs. How could these babies do it, Samuel, I
+would say. But you wuz gropin' along most blind in them dark days, and
+you did the best you knowed how to then. But when you see you've made a
+mis-step you must draw your foot back and start off agin jest like a
+elephant crossin' a weak bridge, I've seen 'em go down into the water
+and wade ruther than resk it. You may have to wade through deep waters
+to fix it all right, but that would be better than to fall through a
+weak bridge and break your neck.
+
+"It is because I think so much on you, Samuel, that I talk so plain to
+you, for I don't want you to git the name Miss Eben Simmons got. She
+jest spent her hull mind and income on foreign missions and let her own
+children go so dirty and ragged they wuz a disgrace to Jonesville. I
+want you and Miss Simmons to not scrimp in your foreign charities but
+begin to home and make your own dependent ones comfortable."
+
+I presume I could convince him if I had time enough, but we are busy
+creeters, Samuel and I, both on us, and Id'no as he'd have time to argy
+back and forth with me, but it would be well for him if he did, men must
+have wimmen advise 'em if they ever expect to amount to anything.
+
+But to resoom forwards. These thoughts wuz runnin' through my head as we
+wended our way around, it did my soul good, as I said, to see the
+progress these Filipinos are makin', and to meditate on the fact how
+enterprisin' Uncle Samuel is when he sets out. Why jest think on't, he's
+taught them Filipinos more English in four years than the Spaniards
+taught 'em their language in the four hundred years they took care on
+'em.
+
+I wuz so proud and happy as I thought on't that I stepped considerable
+high as I walked along, and I hearn a profane bystander say (wicked
+creeter to think on't),
+
+"That woman has took too much stimulant."
+
+And Josiah sez, "What ails you, Samantha? You walk as if you wuz
+follerin' a band of music."
+
+And I wuz, it wuz the music of the Future that sounds out in my ears
+anon or oftener, sweet inspirin' strains that even Josiah can't hear if
+his head lays on the same piller.
+
+It sings of an ignorant, oppressed race changed into an enlightened
+prosperous one, this great work done by our own country, this song comes
+floatin' into my ears over the wide Pacific. And another louder strain
+comes from nigher by made tender and pathetic by years of oppression and
+suppressed suffering that could find expression in no other way than
+this heart searching pathos. And blending with it, ringing over and
+above it, triumphant happy echoes telling of real freedom of mind and
+conscience, the true liberty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Well, Blandina wanted to go to the Anthropological Buildin'. She said
+Professor Todd had recommended it. I should knowed he would choose that
+spot in preference to any other. I hadn't a idee what it meant, but
+didn't feel obleeged to tell her so, but spozed it wuz sunthin' hard to
+tackle, judgin' from the name, but told her I wuz willin' to go to see
+_it_ or _her_ or _him_, not knowin' which it would turn out to be. But
+come to find out it wuz everything relatin' to the history of man, and
+spozed that wuz one reason why Blandina wuz interested in it.
+
+It wuz a monstrous big buildin', and in it and outside on't wuz exhibits
+from all the different countries of the world, showin' the difference in
+the races of mankind, their difference through all the ages, anatomy,
+industries, customs, education, different religious rites, games, books
+and pictures, maps illustrating mankind and his works, etc., and I could
+fill a dozen pages with etcs., and not half exhaust the contents of the
+immense buildin'.
+
+Blandina wuz in her glory here, she wuz studyin' in full magesty the
+history of her idol, man. But as I told her, I spozed the term, man,
+included woman also. But she looked dubersome, she didn't like the idee
+I could see, and Josiah didn't. But I knowed I wuz right, and I guess
+Molly thought so too.
+
+This is the most complete gathering of the world's people and races that
+has ever been got together, and includes different types, from the
+smallest pigmies from Central Africa to the Patagonian giants. Josiah
+wuz delighted to learn of the strength of these pigmies, how they kill
+elephants and rhinocerhorses, and sez he, "I tell you, Samantha, it
+hain't size that counts, it is most always the smallest men that are the
+smartest, looked at Napoleon and me."
+
+But I whispered to him to keep still, for he wuz attractin' attention,
+and I led the way to see the giants. But he looked coldly on 'em, and
+sez he:
+
+"They hain't thought much on, it speaks about their mean statter in the
+guide books."
+
+But I thought to myself how handy it would be to have one on 'em in the
+neighborhood to rent out by the day to whitewash overhead or shingle the
+barn; they wouldn't even have to git up in a chair, and Id'no but they
+could lay a chimbly standin' on the ground; they wuz immense.
+
+And there wuz displays of the works and habits and native surroundin's
+of the lowest types from the beginnin' of the stun age up to the present
+finished glory of Jonesville and the world at large. And I wondered
+what, what would be the glory showed off a hundred years from now, what
+hites would men stand on, sailin' round through the air and comin' from
+other planets to the show like as not jest as easy as we come from
+Jonesville. And where will Josiah and I be then? That wuz another
+thought that hanted me, and what would we be lookin' on? 'Tennyrate I
+hope we will be together wherever it is.
+
+But to resoom. There wuz the skin housen of the Indians from Mexico and
+the display of the Ainu tribes from Japan; red negroes from Central
+Africa, and all the Indian tribes left in North America, so fast meltin'
+away like the leaves of the forest before the march of winter. Basket
+makers from California and Arizonia, bead workers, arrow workers, all
+carryin' on their work before us and goin' through their ceremonies and
+playin' their games.
+
+And there wuz the tradin' post, with the agent cheatin' the Injuns jest
+as nateral as life, so I spoze. Mexico had a wonderful collection,
+native books on Maguey paper, amulets of gold, sculpture, carved idols,
+remarkable lookin', though I wouldn't worship one on 'em not for a
+dollar bill.
+
+Egypt, where Civilization first started, had to crumple down and send
+her best treasures to the fur away West. Oh, how fur, how fur
+Civilization has traveled since she left the Lotus land. And she hadn't
+better set down yet and fold her hands. She's got a good many jobs
+before her that I could pint out to her right here in America.
+
+And there wuz a hull Egyptian tomb, mummies, ancient pottery, necklaces
+and beads took out of old Egyptian tombs. Oh, where wuz the throbbin'
+hearts that beat agin them with boundin' life and joy? So much stronger
+and greater than the fragile things, yet gone to dust and ashes
+centuries ago, while these senseless toys outlive 'em and are brought
+thousands of milds to be looked on by a strange race. And there wuz
+scarabes, symbols, strange lookin' things as I ever see and piles on
+'em.
+
+And there wuz a display showing how they first started fire, which they
+worshipped when first discovered as the Red Flower God, and everything
+up to its present development. And so with the earliest attempts at
+makin' weapons, blades of bamboo and wood, hammered copper up to the
+deadly life destroyers of to-day.
+
+And in one room wuz the priceless treasures of the Vatican, and a
+exquisite collection of the Jubilee presents of the Widder Albert carved
+ivory gems, beautifully set jewels, fans, feathers, leather work and
+wrought gold, carved ebony, sandal-wood, embroidered silk and velvet
+caskets, silver prayer wheel (though she never used it I'll warrant, no
+quicker than I would) gold boxes from Africa, Burmah and all her
+provinces; gold and velvet harnesses and saddle cloths, chains and
+plumes; a chair of state of carved ivory; kneeling cushion in rich
+embroidered velvet; elephants' tusks mounted on ebony and on rosewood;
+there are thirty cases in all, and as I looked on 'em, lent to this
+Exposition by his Gracious Majesty, King Edward VII, jest as willin' as
+I'd lend sister Bobbett a drawin' of tea, my feelin's pretty nigh
+overpowered me and I almost bust into tears, but knowin' Josiah's state
+of nerves I kep' up and restrained myself in a measure.
+
+But I noticed Blandina wuz beginin' to act restless and looked at her
+watch, and finally she said that Professor Todd had promised to meet her
+at the Anthropometric Display.
+
+Sez I, "I should know that of all the places in the world that would be
+his chosen rondevoo."
+
+"Yes," sez she, "he has got such exquisite taste--in dress."
+
+I don't believe she had a idee what it wuz, I believe she thought from
+what she said that it wuz some kind of men's clothes, or scarf pins
+mebby. I myself didn't even hazard a inward guess, but made up my mind
+to be resigned to the sight whatever it wuz and bear up under it the
+best I could.
+
+But we found out it included all kinds of measures, attitudes and
+angles, photographs, moulds, casts and rates of pulsation, measurements
+of respiration, tryin' to measure and estimate as well as they can the
+different physical values of the different races and people, it wuz a
+sight to see it.
+
+Sure enough Professor Todd wuz there, and I willin'ly resigned her into
+his care. He offerin' to see her home after the illumination. I knowed
+he wuz to be trusted, and they went off, Blandina lookin' up happy and
+adorin', he happy, patronizin' and lookin' down. Both on 'em contented
+creeters. He leadin' her a willin' victim to where the biggest named
+articles wuz and explainin' 'em to her in words more'n two inches long,
+I'll bet, but if anybody is happy that's enough. And though it is
+puttin' the wagon considerable ways before the horse, I may as well tell
+a conversation I overheard between Professor Todd and Blandina later in
+the day. Molly and Josiah wuz interested in lookin' at a display a
+little ways off, and I'd sot down for a spell restin' my tired head on
+my hand, and closed my eyes, for they too wuz so weary I felt I should
+almost be ashamed to face them two gray orbs in the lookin'-glass, for I
+knowed I had worked 'em too hard, and no knowin' when they would git any
+rest, for it seemed as though the more we see the more there wuz to see.
+
+And I sot there lost in wistful retrospection of the view from our back
+door where there wuz but one object in front of me, and that wuz a plain
+barn with no cupolas or minarets, or towers or domes on it. No, jest a
+plain barn with a slidin' door enriched and bejeweled when open only by
+the form of my beloved pardner. And the only vista visible the grassy
+path that led round the hen house to the ash-barrel, and the only
+ornamental water, the waterin' trough embellished only by the green moss
+on its sides.
+
+I felt I'd seen too many ornaments, I most knowed I should never hanker
+agin for a minaret or a mosque, or a steeple or a crescent, or a wavin'
+banner, or gildin', I felt that my heart would never more long and pine
+for water to squirt up in the air or drizzle down three or four hundred
+feet, nor for statutes or peaks or pillers. No, I almost felt I should
+have Dave Yerden saw off the top of the whatnot because it riz up in a
+sort of ornamental fashion, and I almost despised the thought of the M.
+E. steeple in Jonesville, to such wicked and reckless lengths will
+over-weariness lead one. But jest as I wuz rebukin' myself to myself, I
+hearn jest on the other side on me the voices of Blandina and Professor
+Aspire Todd. He wuz evidently continuing a conversation begun sometime
+before.
+
+"Oh, that lost companion of mine! oh, that beauchious female so
+humilitous in her sweet humility, so super-conscious of man's superior
+attainments, she seemingly only existed to minister to my corporial
+necessities."
+
+"Well she might, Professor, well she might," sez Blandina. "Any woman of
+right feelin' would feel only too blest and honored to do the same."
+
+"I experienced from the first moment my eyes rested on you," sez the
+Professor in solemn axents, "a sensation, or a feeling, as you may say,
+that you wuz my affinity, that your soul wuz congenial, and every
+transitory period of time that has progressively advanced since then has
+but intensified the impression."
+
+Though I couldn't see her, I could feel Blandina simper. But at that
+minute Josiah interrupted the dialogue by askin' where Samantha wuz, and
+I come forward and jined 'em. Blandina looked radiantly happy, and I
+motioned to Molly and Josiah to come on, I knowed they would rather have
+our room than our company. For I remembered I wuz onmarried myself once,
+and though my sperit wuz never incarnated in the personality of a
+Blandina, yet I had a vivid remembrance of the time when Love first laid
+holt on me, and I well remembered the feelin's I felt at the ardent
+attentions of a Josiah.
+
+Professor Todd might not be an object of admiration to me, indeed he wuz
+not, fur from it! But one of the last things we learn in life is not to
+judge other folks attachments and desires by our own liking, and not to
+condemn other people for having fur different ideals than our own. I had
+found out that Professor Todd wuz likely and respectable and well off,
+and if Blandina had got to git along through life without knowin' much,
+she had better git along with a protector and under comfortable
+circumstances. So I stood ready to give away the bride at any time, for
+to tell the truth I had worried about her future, not knowin' but I had
+her on my hands for life. But true to my principles I felt that I would
+make no matches nor break none, but would only smooth the path for True
+Love to trundle along in.
+
+Josiah wuz blind as a bat to what I see, and wanted to know, "What
+Blandina wuz pokin' round with that fool for?"
+
+Truly men can't see through a stun wall or a matrimonial movement with
+anything like the clearness of a woman. As I wended my way onwards I
+felt jest as sure in my mind how it would end as I did two months
+afterwards when I see 'em at the altar.
+
+But to resoom backwards. Josiah, Molly and I wended our way off to
+another department of the immense buildin', goin' from one display to
+another, and could have stayed a week and seen sunthin' new every
+minute.
+
+I took sights of comfort at the Indian schools. Seein' on one side the
+old poor oncivilized way of living, habits and customs; and then to see
+what education and culture had done and wuz doing for 'em, what swift
+strides they wuz makin' along the road that leads upwards. And to see
+'em workin' away right before us at all the industrial trades, to see
+inteligence in the eyes that had held savagery, to hear the inteligent
+conversation in place of gutteral axents, I wuz highly tickled.
+
+And I sez to Josiah and Molly, "I hope Uncle Sam will do well by all the
+folks he's gardeen over, the Indians, Negroes, Philippinos and all, I
+believe he means well by the hull on 'em, but he has so much on his
+hands he don't know which way to turn, and I spoze it will be some time
+before he gits 'round to do what he wants to for all on 'em, and," sez
+I, "they had better in the mean time try to git along and do all they
+can for themselves, it will be best for 'em anyway."
+
+I wuz walkin' along with my Josiah in a quiet part of the grounds, if
+any of 'em can be called so, 'tennyrate there wuzn't many round when I
+hearn some workmen passin' along say, "There is the President."
+
+And lookin' round eagerly and anxiously I see a good-lookin' man with
+eye glasses settin' on a bench readin' a paper. And I knowed to once
+that it wuz our Teddy, so dear to the heart of them that set store by
+manliness, fearlessness, bravery, bright badges from Heaven's mint
+shinin' on the breast of a man faithful to wife, children and country.
+He didn't look exactly like his pictures, but I knowed pictures didn't
+always favor their originals, specially in newspapers. I wuz highly
+tickled to see him, for I had some errents for him, and wanted to advise
+him for his good, and I advanced with outstretched hand and sez "Mr.
+President, I am delighted to see you!"
+
+He shook hands and said polite, "You have the advantage of me, mom."
+
+"Yes," sez I, "folks see your face in the papers." I mentioned my name
+and then went right on to say, "I wanted to tell you the first thing, I
+hadn't nothin' to do with that slightin' piece about you you probable
+read in the Jonesville Auger. The Nation knew I had writ for it, and for
+the Gimlet, and I wuz awful afraid you'd think it wuz me, and be mad at
+me, but I'm as innocent as a infant babe. Keturah Snyder writ it, and
+she's been through with trials enough to make her bitter but bein' so
+mad she sez things she can't prove. Now she thinks you could kep' her
+from bein' turned out of the Jonesville post-office and you could keep
+the price of meat down. No use arguin' with her, she sez you had it in
+your power to squelch some of the Trusts, and didn't do nothin' but
+talk.
+
+"And that Post-Office scandal, she said she spozed you wuz goin' to make
+public samples of them stealers, but it all squizzled out, nothin' done
+about it, only jest talk. And you remember she said in her piece, 'she
+wuz turned out of the post-office for borryin' five cents from the
+Government, and bein' backward with another five, ten cents in all, and
+them post-office clerks in Washington stealin' hundreds of thousands and
+nothin' done.'" Here Theodore tried to say sunthin', and knowin' he wuz
+such a fluent talker I wuz bound to git my explanation in before he
+begun, for I wouldn't interrupted him for the world after he got to
+goin'.
+
+Sez I, "I wanted you to know jest what reason she had for bein' so mad
+and writin' it, for I knowed you wouldn't feel so mortified about it.
+The way on't wuz, she wuz in the Office, and hadn't baked that week
+owin' to the cat tippin' over her yeast, she's so petickular she won't
+use boughten, and a hull load of company driv up onexpected at leven
+forty-five. The baker come and not havin' a cent of change by her, and
+he refusin' to trust her jest out of meanness, she knowin' she wuz to
+have some money paid her in the mornin', jest borrowed five cents from
+Uncle Sam. I don't say it wuz right, she'd better made biscuit, but I
+say she wuz punished pretty hash for that and two other small things,
+for bein' half distracted by her cares, she forgot to cancel three
+letters, the first mistake she'd made in the three years she'd been in
+office. One wuz a drop letter, so Uncle Sam wuz only out five cents.
+Well, you know Theodore, that when trials come, they come as Shakespeare
+said, 'Not as single spiders but hull battles on 'em,' or words to that
+effect.
+
+"Right on top of that Baker come the Inspector. He discovered the
+deficit of ten cents, and also that other incident, where I got mixed up
+in the Jonesville P.O. Scandal. Keturah had to have help in the office
+once in awhile, and two men wanted to work for her, Nate Yerden and Sam
+Pendergrast. She didn't like Nate, and she did like Sam, and I don't
+spoze it made much difference in her feelin's, but Sam kep' sheep and
+did gin her yarn for a pair of stockin's, and jest out of pure kindness
+I colored it for her in my indigo dye tub.
+
+"I never thought of committin' any sin, let alone one with such a big
+name, Misprision of Treason and Maladministration of Justice, I believe
+he called it. Why, for a spell I thought I should have to be shot up,
+Josiah wuz skairt to death, and told him he never hearn of such crimes,
+and sez he, 'I'll bet you can't find 'em in the Velosipeder.'
+
+"He meant the Encyclepeder, but poor man he wuz most crazy. I emptied
+out my blue dye and don't know as I shall ever set up another. And
+Keturah raveled out her stockin's and gin back the yarn, I got off with
+the awfulest talkin' to I ever had, and warnin's never, never to trifle
+in such a heedless and wicked way with Public Matters and the sacred
+rights of the people. But Keturah, poor thing! wuz jest turned right out
+of office root and branch. She knowed what high influence duz in
+politics, and she got Thomas Jefferson to argy with the Inspector and
+tell him jest how it wuz. But he said the dignity of a great Nation wuz
+at stake and out she must go.
+
+"Keturah wep' and cried, and reminded him the yarn wuz gin back and how
+small the sum wuz. And he said, 'A straw showed which way the wind
+blowed, and the Nation must trust its public servants implicitly, or
+where would be the safety of the people.'
+
+"Then Keturah sassed him and said if a straw showed the direction of the
+wind in Jonesville, how wuz it with the dead loads and stacks of straw
+in Washington, sez she, they're so heavy with rottenness and corruption
+they can't blow. You'll remember that powerful figger of speech in the
+article. I told her it would make you mad as a hen and I spoze it did.
+And I felt it my duty to molify you and tell you that a honester creeter
+never lived than Keturah, and it wuz only these extronnery circumstances
+that made her borry the ten cents. And workin' out by the day and eatin'
+codfish as she duz, makes her more morbid, kinder salts her blood I
+believe, and she lays it to you onjustly, for meat bein' so high that
+she can't buy any.
+
+"Ive told her time and agin it wuzn't your fault. But she sez you might
+hold in the Trusts some if you wuz a minter.
+
+"She sez you had 'em in your power once and could made a sample on 'em
+but didn't, and so, sez she, I've got to live on codfish, and the flour
+trust is bringin' up flour so Id'no but I'll have to eat saw-dust bread.
+You remember them powerful metafors in the Auger. I wanted to explain
+all this and I also had some errents of my own."
+
+He made another effort to speak, but knowin' his remarkable eloquence,
+and that I wouldn't try to git a word in after he begun, I should enjoy
+his talk so, I kep' on:
+
+"I want to be open and above board, Theodore, jest as you are nachelly.
+And that other piece you remember that come out about the same time in
+the Jonesville Gimlet I'll tell you plain that I approved on it, though
+I didn't write it. You remember it begun with this quotation:
+
+"'They enslave their children's children
+Who make compromise with sin.'
+
+"And it went on to talk about our great dignified Nation bein' a pardner
+in Saloons, ruinin' men, breakin' wimmen's hearts, starvin' children,
+committin' theft, murder, adultery, arson, helpin' on fights, death and
+ruin, jest goin' in snux, as you may say with all this for the money got
+out of it; it said that though there wuz many great evils to face and
+overthrow, there wuz none that brutalized the race and agonized the
+hearts of the people like this, and though all sin left its mark, no
+other sin changed a man so into the loathsome body and soul wrecks, that
+drunkenness did, and all for a little money.
+
+"It wuz a powerful piece, and as full of facts as a brick is of sand. It
+told jest how much money Uncle Sam got out of every drunkard he made. My
+memory hain't what it wuz, Theodore, and I can't tell exactly jest how
+much money it would be in Uncle Sam's pocket to make your four bright
+good boys drunkards, and finish up the job and land 'em in the
+drunkard's grave, via the saloon and gutter. But if you stood by and see
+it goin' on before your face as so many thousands of proud and lovin'
+fathers have to, you would think a million dollars of such blood money
+wuz too cheap, yes indeed!
+
+"That tells the hull story, Theodore, I could throw statistics at you
+till you wuz black and blue, about our country spendin' for what is
+useless and ruinous to soul, body and estate, one billion four hundred
+millions a year, and about the hundred thousand drunkards that stumble
+along into the staggerin' slobberin' ranks every year, and drop into the
+drunkard's grave. I could eppisode eloquent to you about all this but
+what's the use; you're real smart and you know all about it. You've seen
+on every side on you the beast drivin' out the angel in man, you've seen
+the staggerin' army march by you to ruin. You've seen the saloons spring
+up by the thousands on every side, for the purpose of makin' drunkards,
+you've seen wives murdered by them that promised to protect 'em, you've
+seen children driv to starvation and the streets by it; you've seen
+Poverty drive Prosperity out everywhere the curse fell. And you've seen
+nothin' good come from it, nothin' at all, only the money that Uncle Sam
+takes with one hand, and pays out with the other, for law's machinery to
+punish the criminals he makes, and prisons, jails, reformatories, poor
+houses, orphan's homes, cheap coffins, etc.
+
+"No use my tellin' you all this for you know it, but you love your boys,
+and I want you to promise me to do by other boys as you'd want me to do
+by yourn if I see the Saloon tryin' its best to entice 'em, and see
+their bright innocent eyes beginnin' to enjoy the deathly glitter on't.
+You'd want me to slam that door to and keep 'em out. Put my shoulder
+blade agin it, prop it up with all the strength I could git holt on in
+law and gospel, so they couldn't git in. And that's what I want you to
+do, Theodore, I want you to help keep out other children jest as dear to
+their fathers and mothers as your children are to you. And you know that
+you and their mother would ruther see 'em lay dead at your feet, than to
+see 'em enter that door with the doom of the place on 'em.
+
+"It's a heavy door, Theodore, loaded down with greed and lowest
+passions, you can't shet it alone, nor I can't, but I would feel guilty
+as a dog if I didn't try my very best. Public Opinion backed by Law is
+what has got to slam that door to and lock it. But you and I can help,
+and you can do more than I can, and I want you to promise me to do all
+you can."
+
+Agin I see he wuz strugglin' for speech, and I hurried to git my last
+words in, "I believe you want to do right, and I will encourage you by
+tellin' you that Josiah is goin' to vote for you, though we hain't got
+nothin' agin Mr. Parker. He's close-mouthed, which is a good quality,
+though it can be carried too fur.
+
+"A neighbor of ourn had warned her girl to not be too familiar with the
+hired man, a good Christian he wuz too. And once when her ma wuz gone he
+asked her where the milk pail wuz, and she wantin' to be on the safe
+side wouldn't say a word. That wuz bein' too cautious, and a good many
+think he's been a little too mute about some things, he didn't tell jest
+where his politics wuz. But then the tongue is a onruly member and has
+to be curbed in, and I guess he means well. And Mr. Davis, too, of
+course he's gittin' along in years. But jest think of Methusaler, Mr.
+Methusaler's folks would call Mr. Davis nothin' but a child."
+
+Here he blurted right out, "I hain't Theodore, though I've been took for
+him before, I'm President of a Gas Company."
+
+I wuz mortified for most a minute, but come to think it over I knowed
+such seeds of truth as I'd been a scatterin' couldn't help but do good
+even if the sile wuzn't so rich as I'd spozed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Well, the next week we had a busy time, Josiah and Molly and I went
+mostly together, Blandina most always meetin' Professor Aspire Todd
+somewhere nigh the entrance, I guess it wuz planned, but 'tennyrate I
+wuz willin', plan or no plan.
+
+And we visited every interestin' spot from Morocco to the Model City and
+from Physicial Culture Hall to Nevada.
+
+There wuz a meetin' that scientific folks held there, and its main aim
+seemed to be to make light of the religion of Christ. It madded Josiah
+dretfully, and he sez, "I feel it my duty as a deacon to go and give in
+my testimony and break up such wicked doin's."
+
+Sez I, "Josiah you let 'em alone. You couldn't break it up, nothin' but
+the power of the God they deny could do it. But we'll punish 'em by not
+goin' near 'em. That will mortify 'em and mebby make 'em see where they
+stand, denyin' the power that gives em the breath they spend in such
+folly." So when Sunday come agin we went to the same M.E. meetin' house
+and hearn a splendid sermon on what the Christian Religion had done for
+the World. And we visited Lincoln's Cabin and I had probable fifty
+emotions a minute all the time I wuz there thinkin' of that wise,
+child-hearted man and what he did for humanity.
+
+And I had about the same emotions in Grant's Log Cabin. Noble creeters,
+both on 'em! They wuz cramped for room in these humble homes, and wuz
+probable put to it for comforts. But they have room enough now, the
+Great World claims 'em, and they will walk down the ages together
+crowned with the love and reverence of the people.
+
+And Josiah wanted to see the Boer War, and though a war wuz nothin' I
+wanted to see I felt I musn't cross him. And all the while I sot there
+seein' them contendin' armies contend I wuz thinkin' of poor Oom Paul
+and his brave fight for liberty, and at last losin' all and dyin'
+broken-hearted in a strange land.
+
+But onbeknown to myself these words come to me:
+
+"The mills of the gods grind slowly
+But they grind exceedingly small."
+
+I can't look ahead and see jest what they're grindin' out for this brave
+people and them that conquered 'em, nor Josiah can't.
+
+And I took solid comfort in the Hall of Lady Managers seein' how well
+they managed. In this Exposition there is no seperate place fenced off
+for wimmen's exhibit. They carry the idee here that good work is equally
+valuable when done by man or woman. They claim that works of art,
+invention, manufacture, etc., are as sexless as religion, and you know
+our Lord said plain of men and wimmen, "Ye are one in Christ."
+
+I wuz glad enough to see it, it seems to bring us nigher to the day of
+justice and true liberty for all. That glorious day hain't dawned yet
+(wimmen are still classed in law with idiots, criminals and lunaticks).
+But by standin' on tip-toe I can catch a faint glow in the East showin'
+that the day is goin' to break in rosy splendor bime-by.
+
+I cant begin to tell jest where we went or what we see, enough
+'tennyrate I felt to last me through life, but time hurried on jest as
+usual and brought the last days of our stay here.
+
+I told Josiah that I never would go home without seein' President
+Francis and thankin' him for the treat he'd gin us.
+
+Josiah didn't want to go but I sez, "David will expect it of me, it's
+only showin' him common politeness. You know I brought the children up
+to always thank the folks that entertained 'em. And such a entertainment
+as this! Do you spoze I am goin' to slight and mortify him by not
+noticin' it and thankin' him? No, indeed!"
+
+Josiah argyed and said that "he guessed if everybody follered David up
+and thanked him he would have his hands full."
+
+"But," I sez, "Other folks can do as they're a mind to, I shall do my
+duty," so I went up to his office follered by a onwillin' Josiah, and
+advanced towards him where he sot alone at his desk.
+
+He's a dretful handsome man, sometimes smart men are humbly, and it is a
+treat to find one that combines beauty, smartness, and faculty, for it
+took more than smartness alone to plan this show, it took faculty and
+tack, sights and sights of tack. For as I told him, after I'd introduced
+myself and shook hands cordially with him, sez I:
+
+"I couldn't leave without thankin' you for the great treat you've gin
+us, and to tell you how I appreciate what you've done for us." Sez I,
+"I'm a housekeeper and know what it is to fix up for company and how
+much work it is to git two or three rooms and the front steps and door
+yard all right for half a dozen folks for jest one afternoon, and then
+to clear up and ornament as you have more'n twelve hundred acres, and
+have so many visitors come right onto you and settle down for a six
+months' stay, I don't see how you stand it.
+
+"Why last winter I had six of the relation on my side and on hisen,
+snowbound to our house for a week, and I thought I should go distracted
+tryin' to keep the house clean, and suit 'em all in vittles, and some on
+'em jealous thinkin' I gin the others a better bed, and the other
+relation comin' in to see 'em and kinder disputin' and twittin' 'em as
+relation will, and kinder jealous of me because they wuz visitin' me
+instead of them, and my folks callin' me extravagant in vittles--I had a
+dretful time. And what wuz it compared to what you're goin' through with
+fifteen thousand visitors settlin' right down on you for a six months'
+visit, some on 'em smart and high headed, some not knowin' putty, some
+good-natered and easy to please, some quarrelsome, some awful petickular
+and fussy about their vittles, some that will eat dogs, some too dressy,
+some that will go most naked, and hundreds of millions comin' and goin'
+all the time, and more than thirty millions of your own folks
+complainin' and sassin' you as your own folks will. Payin' out fifty
+millions and mebby called extravagant for it--why what a time you're
+havin'!
+
+"And I wanted to tell you how I appreciated what you're goin' through,
+and thank you from the bottom of my heart for givin' me and Josiah such
+a great treat, and also Blandina.
+
+"And if you ever come to Jonesville I want you to feel free to come
+right to our house and stay as long as you can. Though of course I can't
+do for you what you've done for me, but I'll kill a hen and make a bag
+puddin', and do the best I can."
+
+He thanked me real polite and said "if he wuz ever in Jonesville he
+should certainly come and see me."
+
+And I sez, "How I do wish it wuz so you could come this fall. We're
+goin' to have a big Harvest Entertainment for the benefit of the Grange,
+and you do have such a talent for gittin' up sunthin' interestin', your
+advice would be onvaluable about ornamentin' the hall and givin' 'em all
+a equal show. Of course every mother wants her children to speak the
+openin' piece, and every man wants the best place to show off his
+squashes and rutabagers. Pomona wants the hall trimmed one way, and
+Cerius 'tother way, whilst Flora and Hygea are settin' on the fence. I
+d'no how it will turn out and whether or not it will lead to bloodshed.
+
+"If we only had your faculty and your tack to fall back on what a boon
+it would be, for you must have gone through with as much agin with
+everybody wantin' the best place.
+
+"But I know it is too much to ask of you with all this doin's on your
+hands, millions of visitors comin' and goin' and thousands of help to
+look after, and I shan't say a word to you about it, only wishin' you
+could be there to enjoy it with us when it is ready.
+
+"And now thankin' you agin for all you've done for us I will bid you
+adoo." And I shook hands with him almost warmly.
+
+He seemed glad and relieved about sunthin' as we took leave, I guess it
+wuz because I thought so high on him.
+
+And bein' wunk at by me, Josiah Allen advanced and held out his hand and
+said, "how de do," and "good-bye," at the same time, and I sez to kinder
+smooth it over, "In this world, Mr. Francis, it is hail and farewell
+time and agin."
+
+And then we bowed ourselves out, I'd told Josiah to be sure and not turn
+his back. And we got along first-rate, only onfortinat'ly jest as we got
+to the door we backed into the Chinese Minister and his party who wuz
+jest comin' in.
+
+But then, as I told Josiah as we went down the steps when he wuz blamin'
+me for this _contrary temps_, as men always will blame their pardners
+for most everything, I sez:
+
+"China is used to bein' backed into by foreigners, I guess they'll
+overlook it."
+
+I didn't bandy words with Josiah, I knowed I'd done my duty and that
+kep' me serene. When you're follerin' a star you don't mind the bite of
+a nat.
+
+The last week of our stay in St. Louis Aunt Trypheny on leavin' the Fair
+ground one day wuz struck by the twenty-mule team that perambulates the
+ground, was knocked down and carried to an emergency hospital on the
+Fair ground. The head doctor there wuz Miss Huff's nephew, and she got a
+little room for her till she could be moved with safety.
+
+The day before we went home Josiah went down into the city to do a few
+errents for the bretheren, Blandina had gone with Aspire Todd to visit a
+sister of hisen (they wuz engaged), and I had been to work gittin' ready
+to leave the next mornin', and Molly and I wuz goin' in the afternoon to
+take a last look at the Fair, and she come into my room as I wuz gittin'
+my bunnet on with her hands full of the most beautiful flowers she could
+get, and proposed that we should go and see Aunt Pheeny and cheer her up
+a little.
+
+Sweet creeter, I hadn't thought on't. The hospital wuz quite a distance
+off from where we had laid out to go, and I knowed I would be tired as a
+dog anyway. But not wantin' to be behind hand in good works I said I
+would go with her, and I selected some of the nicest of the fruit I had
+bought to take home to the grandchildren, and put in my silk bag for
+her, and put on my mantilly and told her I wuz ready. And then that dear
+child proposed we should take Dorothy with us, knowin' Aunt Trypheny
+would ruther see her than any Emperor or Zar, and I gin my consent to
+that, and we sot off, Dotie happy as a Queen at goin' with us.
+
+Well, Aunt Pheeny wuz glad enough to see us, specially Dorothy. But we
+found her blissful in mind anyway for she told us the first thing her
+Prince Arthur had been there to see her and had been gone only a few
+minutes, and she showed us a couple of gold pieces he had gin her, big
+enough to bear witness to his goodness of heart as well as his wealth.
+She said with her linement all aglow (she never liked her) that his
+mother had died two months ago leaving him a free man, he had stayed
+with her and devoted himself to her because he thought it wuz his duty,
+and since her death he had been on a long journey, it seemed, she said,
+as if he wuz hunting for something or other, though what she didn't
+know. And he had promised her that some time in the future she should
+come and live with him, and sez she, with her characterestic irreligion,
+"If I had my choice to live with him or in heaven I wouldn't look at
+heaven." The idee! We give her the fruit and flowers and asked her if
+she had everything for her comfort, and she said:
+
+"Yes, indeed! 'tain't much here like the ironfirmary I wuz sent to in
+Chicago. I wuz jest as white as you are, Miss Molly, when I went there,
+and them iggorent doctors jest turned my skin black as tar; I wuz so
+mortified when I come to my senses and found what they'd done and I wuz
+a nigger, I jest leaped out o' bed and rushed right out into the street,
+I wuz so mortified. But 'twuzn't no use, I wuz a nigger, and so I've
+been ever since."
+
+And all the time she wuz tellin' this, Dotie's little white arms wuz
+'round her neck and she was pattin' the black cheeks. And as she
+finished she said lovingly, "Pheeny is nice! Pheeny is pretty! Pheeny
+has got white teef!" And indeed they did glisten like ivory in the
+blackness of her face as she held the baby clost to her heart with broad
+smiles.
+
+Well, we made quite a long call and cheered her up considerable by
+listenin' to some more of her most eloquent and unlikely fabrications,
+and then bid her good-bye. A man's gray kid glove lay on the table and a
+little book, and she said Prince Arthur had forgot them.
+
+Well, jest as we passed out of the long corridor, Dotie, who wuz looking
+back, cried out, "There is Pheeny's Prince Arthur!" And refused to stir
+another step till she went back to see him. She said Aunt Pheeny had
+showed her his picture and that wuz the Prince that could do anything.
+Aunt Pheeny I spoze had filled her mind full of stories of his
+perfections, she said he'd gone back to git his glove and book, and she
+would wait and see him.
+
+I wuz in a hurry and wuz for goin' on, but Molly, sweet-natured thing,
+said we might sit down on the bench for a few minutes and then Dotie
+would be willing to go. So we sot down and Dotie begun to state with
+much excitement her reasons for wanting to stay, sez she:
+
+"Billy has been bolsting to me that he see a Prince to the Fair, a real
+live meat Prince. He wuz bolsting about it, and said Aunt Pheeny didn't
+have no Prince, but I see his picture my own self, and I'll let Billy
+know that Aunt Pheeny did have a nice live, meat Prince and I see him.
+And there he comes now!" sez she, she wuz a little in advance of us and
+could see furder. And sure enough we hearn a quick light step coming
+down the corridor, it come nigher and nigher, a handsome elegant-looking
+young man turned the corner right by us, Molly looked up--and had the
+desire of her heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He left his friend's house and Molly, thinking his duty kept him by his
+mother, and he had decided it was wrong to ask a young happy girl to
+enter the shadow of selfish invalidism with him. He didn't say jest
+that, but I knowed it from what he didn't say as well as from what he
+did. The minute he wuz free he had flown to his friends where they had
+met. The house wuz closed, the family in Europe, he didn't know where,
+he had tried in vain to find her, and wuz jest on the eve of departing
+for Europe that afternoon to try to find his friends hoping to get a
+clue of her. Had she not gone to the hospital that day, had she come a
+little earlier or a little later, had she not humored Dorothy by
+waiting, they would not have met. That's what worldlings might say, but
+I didn't say it even to myself. She wuz safe, she could not have been
+either too early or too late. She had like a little child, asking its pa
+for a gift, asked her Lord for the desire of her heart and jest as he
+promised, he brought it to pass, usin' that bare corridor jest as he
+might the Valley of the Nile, or the Rocky Mountains if necessary. The
+hull world is but a tiny doorstep leadin' up to the shinin' pavilion of
+divine love.
+
+They wuz led towards each other, she couldn't miss her way, he couldn't.
+The broad ocean rolled between 'em and mountain and valley, but they wuz
+both led by the hand like two little children out May-flowering with
+their ma--they _had_ to meet.
+
+Well, Josiah met us, accordin' to promise in front of Festival Hall, and
+we stayed to the illumination, Dotie havin' gone home with Miss Huff
+before dark.
+
+Molly and Arthur stood on the high terrace with light fallin' all 'round
+'em and before 'em, their faces needin' no light, so bright wuz they
+with heart sunshine. Josiah and I sot a little in the shadder, but where
+we could see plain. And one by one like brilliant jewels dropped from an
+endless storehouse of glory, lights sprung out along the front of the
+stately white palaces, adown the broad avenues they shone in gleamin'
+lines and clusters, and starred with brilliance all the long glorious
+vistas. Broad beams of crimson, gold and azure changin' every minute
+fell on the cascades, the flowers gleamed out from the emerald grass
+like jewels of every color.
+
+Music riz softly from the lagoon, the great organ pealed out in
+triumphant notes, and my heart boyed up on waves of beauty and melody
+follered the strains heavenward as if it didn't ever want to come back
+agin to earth and Jonesville.
+
+But as my eye fell on Josiah's face I knowed that where the star of Love
+went it wuz my duty and joy to foller it. He wuz gittin' worrisome and
+wanted to go, and so I sez:
+
+"Beautiful! beautiful! Ivory City, farewell!"
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS
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