“Certainly,” said her nephew; “just as well as not. There are only about a hundred and sixty, I believe.”
And that was the first time my aunt knew that she was in a big city instead of the little town she had left thirty years or so before. But I don’t think her nephew was very polite to an old lady. She saw a good many of the churches, among them Dr. Wayland Hoyt’s, which she said she liked the best of all. It is the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, and cost two hundred thousand dollars. It will seat about fifteen hundred people. I thought the Pansies would like to hear about it, because Dr. Hoyt wrote one of our “Regret” letters for us.
Minnie Andrews.
PUBLIC LIBRARY.
My uncle is a lawyer and lives in Minneapolis. He says the City Hall is just splendid. It cost three million dollars. Its great tower is three hundred and forty-five feet high, and there are only two others in the United States which can get above that. There isn’t any danger that this building will ever burn up, for it is made fire proof. I wonder why they don’t make all buildings fire proof? Then we would not have to buy engines, and pay firemen, and keep great splendid horses doing nothing all day long but wait for fires. This City Hall which I began to tell you about is three hundred feet square, and fills up a great block on four streets. I should like to see it. My uncle has a photograph of it, and it looks magnificent. I am going to be a lawyer, and I shall have an office in Minneapolis.
Harry Denning.
My father was acquainted with Governor Washburn, who gave three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for the Washburn Memorial Orphan Asylum in Minneapolis. My father has been there to see the asylum. He says it is in a beautiful place, with lovely trees and plants in the grounds. There were fifty-seven orphans there when father visited it. I am glad they have such a nice place. I would like to be rich, like Governor Washburn, and give lots of money to something. I think I shall be, and I shall found an orphan asylum somewhere, but not in Minneapolis, because they don’t need another.