Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

And the man sez, "On the Midway Plaisance."

And Josiah sez, "Where is that?"

And the man pinted out the nearest way, and nothin' to do but what we must set out to find that wheel, and go up in one.

I counselled caution and delay, but to no effect. That wheel had got to be found to once, and both on us took up in it.

I dreaded the job.

Wall, the Plaisance begins not fur back of the Woman's Buildin'. It is a strip of land about six hundred feet wide and a mild in length, connecting Washington Park with Jackson Park, where Columbus has his doin's, and it comes out at the Fair Ground right behind the Woman's Buildin'.

Josiah jest wanted to rush along, clamorin' for the wheel, and not lookin' for nothin' on either side till he found it.

But I wuz firm in this as a rock, that if I went at all I would go megum actin' and quiet, and look at everything we come to.

And wuzn't there enough to look at jest in the street? Folks of all nations under the earth. They seemed like the leaves of a forest, or the sands of the sea, if them sands and leaves wuz turned into men, wimmen, and children—high hats, bunnets, umbrells, fans, canes, parasols, turbans, long robes, and short ones, gay ones, bright ones, feathers, sedan chairs, bijous, rollin' chairs, Shacks—or that is how Josiah pronounced it. I told him that they wuz spelt S-h-e-i-k-s.