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."

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."

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.

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?"

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