Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

And, like all high stations, that back seat in the democrat and that noble old mair had brung down envy onto me and mean remarks.

It come straight back to me—Miss Lyman Tarbox told she that wuz Sally Ann Mayhew, and she that wuz Sally Ann told the minister's wife, and she told her aunt, and her aunt told my son-in-law's mother, and Miss Minkley told Tirzah Ann, and she told me—it come straight—

"That Josiah Allen's wife looked like a fool, and acted like one, a-settin' up a-ridin' whenever she went anywhere, while them that wuz full as likely walked afoot!"

I took them remarks as a tribute to my greatness—a plain acknowledgement of my superior means of locomotion and transportation.

They didn't break the puff ball of my vanity and pride, and let the wind out—no, indeed!

But alas! alas! as I entered the Transportation Buildin', and looked round me, there wuz no gentle prick to that overgrown puff ball to let the gas out drizzlin'ly and gradual—no, there wuz a sudden smash, a wild collapse, a flat and total squshiness—the puff ball wuz broke into a thousand pieces, and the wind it contained, where wuz it? Ask the breezes that wafted away Cæsar's last groans, that blowed up the dust over buried Pompeii.

The buildin' itself wuz a sight—why, it is 960 feet long, and the cupola in the centre 166 feet high, with eight elevators to take you up to it; the great main entrance wuz all overlaid with gold—looked full as good as Solomon's temple, I do believe—and broad enough and big enough for a hull army of giants to walk through abreast, and then room enough for Josiah and me besides.

But it wuz on the inside of it that my pride fell and broke all to pieces, as I looked round me and down the long distance behind and before me.

I knew—for I had been told—that one fourth of all the savin's of civilized man is invested in railroads, and when I thought of how dretful rich some men and countries are, and kings and emperors, etc., I felt prepared to do homage to a undertakin' that had swallowed up one fourth of all that accumulated wealth.