Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition

by Marietta Holley

"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.