I didn't argue with him, for I never took to volcanoes much—I never loved to git intimate with 'em. But it wuz a sight to behold, so Miss Plank said—she went in to see it. She said, "It took her breath away the sight on't, but she's got it back agin (the breath); she talked real diffuse about it. But to resoom. The Chinese Village wuz jest like goin' through China or bein' dropped down onbeknown to you into a China village.
Two hundred Chinamen are here by a special dispensation of Uncle Sam.
And next to China is the Captive Balloon. I had wondered a sight what that meant.
Josiah thought that somebody had catched a young balloon, and wuz bringin' it up by hand, but I knew better than that. I knew that balloons didn't grow indigenious.
And it wuz jest as I'd mistrusted—they had a big balloon here all tied up ready to start off at a minute's notice.
You jest paid your money, and you could go on a trip up in it through the blue fields of air. I told Josiah "that it wouldn't be but a few years before folks would ride round in 'em jest as common as they do in wagons." Sez I, "Mebby we shall have a couple of our own stanchled up in our own barn."
"You mean tied up," sez he, and I do spoze I did mean that.
But now to look up at the great deep overhead, and consider the vastness of space, and consider the smallness of the ropes a-holdin' the balloon down, I said to myself, "Mebby it wuz jest as well not to tackle the job of ridin' out in it that day."
Jest as I wuz a-meditatin' this Josiah spoke up, and sez, "I won't pay out no two dollars apiece to ride in it."
And I sez, "I kinder want to go up in it, and I kinder don't want to."