“So be I,” says he, “but it won’t do to be a blockin’ up the path, and actin’ baulky; it will make talk. Less go along and do as the rest do.” So we walked along. And as my dumbfounder began to leave me, and I recovered the use of my tongue, my first words was:
“Josiah Allen, if I was as young as I once was, and knew I’d live to die of old age, I’d come right here to this village and live, and go through this buildin’ and see the biggest heft of its contents. But at my age, there haint no use of tryin’ to see a half or even a quarter of ’em.”
Says Josiah, “You know Tirzah Ann wanted you to remember what you see here and describe it to her.”
“Good land!” says I, “I might jest as well undertake to divide off the sands of the sea, set ’em off into spans and call ’em by name, and describe the best pints of each on ’em;” says I almost wildly: “if I should undertake the job I should feel so curious that I shouldn’t never git over it, like as not;” says I, “Josiah Allen, when anybody tackles a subject they want a place to take holt, or leggo; it makes ’em feel awful not to have neither.”
Why, if you’d lift up your head a minute to kind o’ rest your eyes, you would see enough to think on for a hull natural life. Havin’ in all the emergencies of life found it necessary to stand firm, and walk even, and straight forred, I laid out to take the different countries on the north side, and go through ’em, and then on the south side, go through ’em coolly and in order, and with calmness of spirit. But long before I had gone through with the United States, my mind was in a state it had never been in before through my hull life. I thought I had felt promiscous in days that was past and gone, but I give up that I never knew the meanin’ of the word before. Why, if there had been a pain of glass put into my mind, and anybody had looked into my feelins through it, they would say if they wasn’t liars that they see a sight long to be remembered; though if they had went to dividin’ off my feelins and settin’ ’em in a row and tellin’ ’em to set still, they would truly have had a tegus time. Why I haint got ’em curbed in, so’s to keep any order now, when I go to thinkin’ about that Main Buildin’.
Instead of travelin’ right through it with dignity, they are jest as likely as anyway to begin right in the centre of that grand buildin’; see that great round platform with broad steps a leadin’ up to it on every side, and that railin’ round it, a fencin’ in the most entrancin’ and heavenly music that ever a earthly quire discoursed upon—music that would rest you when you was tired, and inspire and elevate you into a realm of Pure Delight when you wasn’t. And seein’ way up and up to the ruff, little railins all ornamented off, tear after tear of ’em, and folks in ’em a lookin’ down onto the endless crowd below; and lions and eagles, and stars and stripes, and the honored forms and names of George Washington and B. Franklin up there, to make us feel safe and good. And then all of a sudden entirely unbeknown to me, my mind will work sometimes one way, sometimes the other. Sometimes it will give a jump clear to the west end, and see ornaments, and glass cases, and shinin’ counters with wimmen standin’ behind ’em, and tall jars big enough to preserve my Josiah hull in, if it was the fashion to preserve pardners.
And it wont think things out with any order, or hardly decency; sometimes the next thing after a pulpit I’ll think of a dragon; and then mebby I’ll think of a thermomiter with the quick silver a tryin’ to git out at the top to walk out to cool itself, and the next thing a Laplander covered with fur, and a sled; it beats all. There is no use tellin’ what I did see, but I could tell what I didn’t see in half a minute. I can’t think now of but one thing that I didn’t see and that is butternuts, though truly, I might have seen bushels, and not sensed ’em.
Why, along at first when I was a beginnin’ my tower through the United States, I would be fearfully surprised at the awfully grand and beautiful things; but before noon I got so that I wasn’t surprised at nothin’, and Josiah couldn’t make me, though he hunched me several times, a tryin’ to surprise me, and couldn’t. Why, I’d think I had come to an end of the grandeur and glory; it must be there couldn’t be any more, and I’d git my specks all ready to rest off for a minute—when I’d kinder grope round a little, and out I’d come again into another room full to overflowin’ of splendor and beauty. Why, once I come out into a room that had six high pillows in the form of palm trees with long scalloped leaves towerin’ clear up to the ruff, which was ornamented off with vines and flowers, and the counters was all covered with raised work, representin’ the gatherin’ of flowers and the extraction of their perfumes, and two noble silver-plated gold-tipped fountains, sprayin’ out sweetness; why, no posy bed I ever smelled of could compare with that room.
And then there was a beautiful pavilion all trimmed off with flowers; and in the centre, one of the likeliest lookin’ fountains I ever did see, with four different perfumes a jettin’ out, and round each spray a design showin’ what kind it was. And each one was more perfectly fragrant and beautiful than the other (as it were). I told Josiah I wished Shakespeare Bobbet could jest step in here; I guessed he never would use peppermint essence again on his handkerchief. When he used to come to see Tirzah Ann, he always would scent up high with peppermint or cinnamon; he smelt like a apothecary.
But I kep’ a lookin’ round, and oh, such sights of pianos and organs as I did see; it beat all. Why, there was one parlor organ with twenty-eight stops to it. Says I, “Josiah Allen what do you think of that?” Josiah had seen so much he was a gittin’ cross, and he said he had heerd folks play when he would have been thankful to have had one stop to it, if they had used it. And such iron and steel works; why we see a rod over a mile long. And there was one lock that they said had four billion changes to it. Josiah told me he had jest as good a mind as he ever had to eat, to stop and count ’em, for he didn’t believe there was three billions in it if there was two. And there was safes, large enough to lock up my Josiah in—who is indeed by far the most valuable ornament I possess—and teeth, and artificial eyes. There was one big black eye, that Josiah said he would buy if he was able.