I wuz kinder took back. But then come to think it over I see it wuz better to be missed in line fences than not at all. She got out at the next station, and my own pardner took the vacant seat by my side, and on and on we wuz whirled from the peaceful shores of Jonesville to the pleasures and dangers of the great city.
As I said, I wanted to get to St. Louis the first of the week, but Josiah took it into his head that he wanted to visit his nephew, Orange Allen, who lives in the Ohio, and under the circumstances it wuz not for me to cross him in anything that wuz more or less reasonable. So we stopped there and had a good visit. He keeps a dairy farm and owns forty cows besides a wife and three young children; he is doing well. His pa havin' a horticultural and floral turn of mind, named his two boys Lemon and Orange. His girls are Lily, Rose and Violet. Lily is dark complected and so fat that she looks like a pillar with a string tied in the middle, and Rose and Violet are as humbly as they make but respectable. Folks ort to be more cautious in namin' children, but they're all married quite well, and we had a good visit with 'em, stayin' most of the time at Orange's.
And I see with joy that the shadder on my pardner's face lifted quite a little durin' our stay there, but of course this belated us and we didn't git to St. Louis till Saturday late in the afternoon. St. Louis is a big sizeable place. Mr. Laclede cut the tree for the first log-house in the forest where St. Louis now stands in 1764. America had several cities all started at that time, but St. Louis jest put in and growed, and now it is the fourth city in the United States. It's an awful worker, why it produces more in its factories than is produced by the hull of thirty-seven States, jest think on't! And it has thirty-two million folks to buy the things it produces. Twenty-seven railways run into it; the city rules itself and leads the world in many manufactures. They say it is the richest community in the world, and I couldn't dispute it, for they seemed jest rollin' in riches all the while I wuz there; wuzn't put to it for a thing so fur as I could see.
It is noted for its charities; it has the biggest Sunday-school in the world, two thousand three hundred and forty-four children in one school—jest think on't! Its Union railroad station is the finest in the Universe, so they say, and jest the buildin' covers twenty acres. And it has the greatest bridge over the greatest river in the world.
But everything has its drawbacks, the water there hain't like Jonesville water; I don't say it to twit 'em, but it is a solemn truth, the water is riley, they can't dispute it. I'd love to hand 'em out a pailful now and then from our well, and would if I had the chance—how they would enjoy it.
Blandina and I wanted to go to once to Miss Huff's, a woman we used to know in Jonesville who keeps a small boardin' house.
But Josiah, who had seen pictures on't, wanted to go to the Inside Inn. He said they'd advertised cheap rooms, it would have a stylish sound to tell on't in Jonesville and it would be so handy and equinomical for we wouldn't have to pay entrance fees. So to please him, which wuz the main effort of us two chaperones, we went there. We wuz tired to death that night anyway, and wanted a quiet haven and wanted it to once, for truly when Josiah pinted out the elegant buildin's that we passed I looked coldly on 'em, and said that there wuzn't one that looked so good to me as a goose feather piller would. And I had made up my mind that I wouldn't take a note or act as a Observer at all till Monday mornin'. So I faced the crowd and the Fair ground as not seein' 'em as it were, carryin' out my firm idee to begin' the job as Observer and Delineator the first day of the week.
The Inside Inn we found wuz a buildin' as big as the hull of our neighborhood and I d'no but part of Loontown and Zoar, it wuz immense. And everywhere you'd look you would see this sign pasted up:
"Pay In Advance! Pay In Advance!"
Josiah acted real puggicky about it, he said he believed they had hearn we wuz comin' and got them signs printed for fear we would cheat 'em out of their pay or wuzn't able to pay. And he sez, "I'll let 'em know I am a solid man and have got money!" And he took out his little leather bag where he keeps the most of his money and showed 'em in a careless way, as much as fifteen dollars in cash.