I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in lots of things if I'd been 'round.
Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went on and had his way, as men will.
But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his life for.
He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on, shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a little.
In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood the statute of Peace.
My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this glorious Exposition, sez to me:
"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin' her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her sky high."
I sithed, but almost onbeknown to myself looked at the Cross, and hoped that that divine light would go ahead through the wilderness of world warfare makin' a safe path, so Peace could git down from her high monument bime-by and walk round some through the world without gittin' her head blowed off.
Smilin' and gleamin' jest beyond wuz the bright sunny waters on which little boats painted in bright colors with gay awnin's wuz glidin' about here and there, and bursts of melodious song come from the gayly attired boatmen anon or oftener. And furder on wuz the Grand Basin, a large beautiful piece of water, and back on't down a green hill seventy feet high leaps and bounds and gurgles and sings three glitterin' cascades, each one seemin' to start out from a splendid buildin' up on the hill.
The ones on the side smaller, but the middle one a grand and stately palace called Festival Hall, and jinin' these three buildin's together are what they call the Collonnade of States. A impressive row of snow-white pillows, and on them pillows, settin' up in the place of honor, are big statutes of female wimmen, fourteen in number, symbolic of the original States of the Louisiana Purchase.