Josiah thought it ort to been the other way. He sez, "That men wuz so used to hammer and nails;" and he sez, and stuck to it, that, "No woman livin' ever druv a nail home without splittin' her own nail in the effort, and bendin' the nail she driv sideways."
But I sot him down in my mind as representin' Old Prejudice, and I did not dain a reply to him. Only I merely said—
"Wall, she did drive the nail in straight, and she clinched it solid with the golden words of her address."
Yes, Mrs. Palmer has stood up on a high mount durin' the hard years past since the Fair wuz thought on.
She has stood up so high that she could see things hid from them on the ground.
She could see over the hull world, and could see that, like little children of one family, the nations wuz all havin' their own separate work to do to help their Pa's and Ma's—their Pa Progress, and Grandpa Civilization, and their Ma and Grandma Love and Humanity.
She could see that some of the children wuz dark complexioned, and some lighter, and some kinder yeller favored, and some wuz big, and some wuz small.
They differed in looks and behavior, as every big family will, and she could see that they had their little squabbles together, a-quarrelin' among themselves over their possessions, their toys and their rights—they wuz jealous of each other, and greedy, as children will be; and they had their perplexities, and their deep troubles, and their vexations, as children must have in this world, and some wuz fractious, and some wuz balky, and some wuz good dispositioned, and some wuz cross and mean, and had to be spanked more or less.
But she could see from her sightly place that the hull of the children wuz a-movin' on, some slower and some faster, movin' on, and a-gittin' into line, and a-fallin' into step, to the music of the future.