Samantha at the World's Fair

by Marietta Holley

We didn't stay long here, though, for Bizer and Josiah said that the air wuz that bad they wuz chokin', and that they couldn't stan' it.

And Selinda and I a-feelin' that chokin' a pardner wuz the last thing we wanted to undertake, we went through it at a pretty good jog, and anon we found ourselves in Turkey; and here I found the Turkeys had done first-rate.

Why, one piece of their hand-wrought lace wuz worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. While I wuz a-admirin' of it, Josiah whispered firmly—

"Don't go to thinkin' of that old night-cap in sech a time as this."

And I whispered back, "I hain't no more idee on't than you have of buyin' that old tent to take down to the lake with you a-fishin'."

That very old battle-tent wuz all hand work, embroidered in gold and silver and silk in nateral figgers, and they said it wuz worth five millions of dollars—

And a silver bedstead the Sultan is a-goin' to give to his daughter as a part of her settin' out when she marries wuz worth four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

You can from this form some idee of the value of the other enormous exhibits.

And the most beautiful horses you ever see, right from the Sultan's stable, wuz a-prancin' round. And one hundred Beoudins with camels and dromedaries added to the picteresqueness of the seen.