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SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION

BY

JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE (MARIETTA HOLLEY)

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CH. GRUNWALD

1904

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Transcriber's note: These are the captioned halftone illustrations.
There are several other uncaptioned line drawings.]

He showed 'em in a careless way as much as fifteen dollars in cash

Josiah's good nater returnin' with every mouthful he took

It is the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and to

"I hain't Theodore. I'm President of a Gas Company."

She laid her pretty head in my lap, sobbin' out, "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

Good land! I couldn't sort 'em out and describe them that passed by in an hour. Frontispiece

SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION

CHAPTER I.

I had noticed for some time that Josiah Allen had acted queer. He would seem lost in thought anon or oftener, and then seemin'ly roust himself up and try to act natural.

And anon he would drag his old tin chest out from under the back stairway and pour over musty old deeds and papers, drawed up by his great-grandpa mebby.

He did this last act so often that I said to him one day, "What under the sun do you find in them yeller old papers to attract you so, Josiah?"

But he looked queer at me, queer as a dog, as if he wuz lookin' through me to some distant view that interested him dretfully, and answered evasive, and mebby he wouldn't answer at all.

And then I'd see him and Uncle Sime Bentley, his particular chum, with their heads clost together, seemin'ly plottin' sunthin' or ruther, though what it wuz I couldn't imagine.

And then they would bend their heads eagerly over the daily papers, and more'n once Josiah got down our old Olney's Atlas and he and Uncle Sime would pour over it and whisper, though what it wuz about I couldn't imagine. And if I'd had the curosity of some wimmen it would drove me into a caniption fit.

And more'n a dozen times I see him and Uncle Sime down by the back paster on the creek pacin' to and fro as if they wuz measurin' land. And most of all they seemed to be measurin' off solemn like and important the lane from the creek lot up to the house and takin' measurements, as queer lookin' sights as I ever see, and then they would consult the papers and atlas agin, and whisper and act.

And about this time he begun to talk to me about the St. Louis Exposition. He opened the subject one day by remarkin' that he spozed I had never hearn of the Louisana Purchase. He said that the minds of females in their leisure hours bein' took up by more frivolous things, such as tattin' and crazy bed-quilts, he spozed that I, bein' a female woman, had never hearn on't.

And my mind bein' at that time took up in startin' the seams in a blue and white sock I wuz knittin' for him, didn't reply, and he went on and talked and talked about it.

But good land! I knowed all about the Louisana Purchase; I knowed it come into our hands in 1803, that immense tract of land, settlin' forever in our favor the war for supremacy on this continent between ourselves and England, and givin' us the broad highway of the Mississippi to sail to and fro on which had been denied us, besides the enormous future increase in our wealth and population.

I knowed that between 1700 and 1800 this tract wuz tossted back and forth between France and Spain and England some as if it wuz a immense atlas containing pictured earth and sea instead of the real land and water.

It passed backwards and forwards through the century till 1803 when it bein' at the time in the hands of France, we bought it of Napoleon Bonaparte who had got possession of it a few years before, and Heaven only knows what ambitious dreams of foundin' a new empire in a new France filled that powerful brain, under that queer three-cornered hat of hisen when he got it of Spain.

But 'tennyrate he sold it in 1803 to our country, the writin's bein' drawed up by Thomas Jefferson, namesake of our own Thomas Jefferson, Josiah's child by his first wife. Napoleon, or I spoze it would sound more respectful to call him Mr. Bonaparte, he wanted money bad, and he didn't want England to git ahead, and so he sold it to us.

He acted some as Miss Bobbett did when she sot up her niece, Mahala Hen, in dressmakin' for fear Miss Henzy's girl would git all the custom and git rich. She'd had words with Miss Henzy and wanted to bring down her pride. And we bein' some like Miss Hen in sperit (she had had trouble with Miss Henzy herself, and wuz dretful glad to have Mahala sot up), we wuz more'n willin' to buy it of Mr. Bonaparte. You know he didn't like England, he had had words with her, and almost come to hands and blows, and it did come to that twelve years afterwards.

But poor creeter! I never felt like makin' light of his reverses, for do not we, poor mortals! have to face our Waterloo some time durin' our lives, when we have fought the battle and lost, when the ground is covered with slain Hopes, Ambition, Happiness, when the music is stilled, the stringed instruments and drums broken to pieces, or givin' out only wailin' accompaniments to the groans and cries of the dyin' layin' low in the dust.

We marched onward in the mornin' mebby with flyin' colors towards
Victory, with gaily flutterin' banners and glorious music. Then come the
Inevitable to crush us, and though we might not be doomed to a desert
island in body, yet our souls dwell there for quite a spell.

Till mebby we learn to pick up what is left of value on the lost field, try to mend the old instruments that never sound as they did before. Sew with tremblin' fingers the rents in the old tattered banners which Hope never carries agin with so high a head, and fall into the ranks and march forward with slower, more weary steps and our sad eyes bent toward the settin' sun.

But to stop eppisodin' and resoom. I had hearn all about how it wuz bought and how like every new discovery, or man or woman worth while, the Purchase had to meet opposition and ridicule, though some prophetic souls, like Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Livingstone and others, seemed to look forward through the mists of the future and see fertile fields and stately cities filled with crowds of prosperous citizens, where wuz then almost impassable swamps and forests inhabited by whoopin' savages.

And Mr. Bonaparte himself, let us not forgit in this proud year of fulfilled hopes and achievement and progress how he always seemed to set store by us and his words wuz prophetic of our nation's glorious destiny.

I had knowed all about this but Josiah seemed to delight to instruct me as carefully as a mother would guide a prattlin' child jest beginnin' to walk on its little feet. And some times I would resent it, and some times when I wuz real good natured, for every human bein' no matter how high principled, has ebbs and flows in their moral temperatures, some times I would let him instruct me and take it meekly like a child learnin' its A-B abs.

But to resoom. Day by day Josiah's strange actions continued, and at intervals growin' still more and more frequent and continuous he acted, till at last the truth oozed out of him like water out of a tub that has been filled too full, it wuz after an extra good meal that he confided in me.

He said the big celebration of the Louisana Purchase had set him to thinkin' and he'd investigated his own private affairs and had discovered important facts that had made him feel that he too must make a celebration of the Purchase of the Allen Homestead.

"On which we are now dwellin', Samantha," sez he. "Seventy-four acres more or less runnin' up to a stake and back agin, to wit, as the paper sez."

Sez I, "You needn't talk like a lawyer to me, Josiah Allen, but tell me plain as a man and a deacon what you mean."

"Well, I'm tellin' you, hain't I, fast as I can? I've found out by my own deep research (the tin trunk wuzn't more'n a foot deep but I didn't throw the trunk in his face), I've discovered this remarkable fact that this farm the very year of the Louisana Purchase came into the Allen family by purchase. My great-great-grandfather, Hatevil Allen, bought it of Ohbejoyful Gowdey, and the papers wuz signed the very day the other momentous purchase wuz made.

"There wuz fourteen children in the family of old Hatevil, jest as many as there is States in the purchase they are celebratin' to St. Louis.

"And another wonderful fact old Hatevil Allen paid jest the same amount for this farm that our Government paid for the Louisiana Purchase."

"Do you mean to tell me, Josiah, that Hatevil Allen paid fifteen millions for this farm. Will you tell me that? You, a member of the meetin' house and a deacon?"

"Well, what you might call the same, it is the same figgers with the six orts left out. Great-granther Allen paid fifteen dollars for this piece of land, it wuz all woods then."

"Another of these most remarkable series of incidents that have ever took place on this continent, Thomas Jefferson wuz a main actor in the Louisana Purchase. He has left this spear some years ago, and who, who is the father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"

I didn't say nothin', for I wuz engrossed in my knittin', I wuz jest turnin' the heel of his sock and needed my hull mind.

"And," sez he, smitin' his breast agin, "I ask you, Samantha, who is the father of Thomas Jefferson to-day?"

I had by this time turned the heel and I sez, "Why, I spoze he's got the same father now he always had, children don't change their fathers very often as a general thing."

"Well, you needn't be so grumpy about it. Don't you see that these wonderful coincidences are enough to apall a light-minded person. Why, I, even I with my cast iron strength of mind, have almost felt my brain stagger and reel as I onraveled the momentous affair.

"And I am plannin' a celebration, Samantha, that will hist up the name of Allen where it ort to be onto the very top of Fame's towerin' pillow, and keep it in everlastin' remembrance.

"And I, Samantha," and here he smote himself agin in the breast, "I,
Josiah Allen, havin' exposed these circumstances, the most remarkable in
American history, I lay out to name my show the Exposition of Josiah
Allen. And I've thought some times that in order to mate mine with the
St. Louis show, as you may say, I'd mebby ort to call myself St.
Josiah."

"Saint Josiah!" sez I, and my axent wuz that icy cold that he shivered imperceptibly and added hastily, "Well, we will leave that to the future to decide."

"But," sez he firmly, spruntin' up agin, "if the nation calls on me to name myself thus I shall respond, and expose myself at my Exposition as Saint Josiah."

Sez I anxiously, "I wouldn't expose myself too much, Josiah. You remember the pa that took his weak-minded child to the ball, and told him to set still and not speak or they would find him out.

"And they asked him question after question and he didn't say a word, and finally they begun to scoff at him and told him he wuz a fool, and he called out, 'Father, father, they've found me out.'"

Josiah sez snappishly, "What you mean by bringin' that old chestnut up I cant see."

"Well," sez I, "I shan't sew the moral on any tighter." But he kep' on ignorin' my sarcastick allusion.

"To keep up the train of almost miraclous incidents marchin' along through the past connecting the St. Louis and the Allen Purchase like historical twins, I'm goin' to spend on the Exposition of Josiah Allen jest the amount paid for the other original purchase, and I may, for there is no tellin' what a Allen may do when his blood is rousted up, I may swing right out and pay jest the same amount St. Louis is payin' for her Exposition."

"Fifty millions!" sez I with emotions of or—or to think I had a pardner that would tell such a gigantic falsehood, and instinctively I thought of a story I'd hearn Thomas Jefferson tell the evenin' before.

He said three commercial travelers wuz talkin' before an old man from the country whose loose fittin' clothes were gently scattered with hay-seed. The first one told with minute particulars of a Western cyclone that had lifted a house and sot it down in a neighborin' township. The next one said that he wuz knowin' to the circumstances and how the cyclone swep back and brought the suller and sot it down under the house. And the third one remembered vividly how the cyclone went back the second time and brought the hole the suller left and distributed it round under the new site.

The old man listened with deep interest, and said he wuz glad he'd had the privelige of hearin' 'em, for their talk had cleared up a Bible verse he'd long pondered over.

They wuz astounded to think their talk had awakened religious meditations. But the old gentleman said their conversation had cleared up that passage where it said:

"Annanias come forth."

He said it wuz now plain to him that it meant that these three drummers should stand before Annanias, the Prince of Liars, he takin' his place behind 'em, the fourth in the rank of liars.

But this is neither here or there I only mention it as comin' into my mind instinctively and onbeknown to myself as I hearn Josiah Allen's remark, it came and went, as thoughts will, like a lightning flash, even as I wuz repeatin' the words agin in wonderment and horrow.

"Fifty million dollars!"

"No, I said to you, Samantha, that in our conversation we would leave out the orts, fifty dollars wuz what I meant. But as I said this is what I've thought when my brain wuz fired with ambition and glory of histin' the name of Allen up where it ort to be and will be. But when my blood has quieted down and I took a dispassionate view of the affair I have thought it would be more in keepin' with the old traditions of the Allen family, to spend jest fifteen, I can do a noble job with Uncle Sime's help and Ury's, with exactly the same sum that wuz paid for these purchases."

I see he wuz jest bound to ignore the millions. But I knowed it wouldn't do any good to keep twittin' him of it. And then he went on to describe more fully the Exposition of Josiah Allen that he'd been plottin' for weeks and weeks. He said that he and uncle Sime had used up two hull pads of writin' paper at a cost of five cents each, plannin' and figurin'. But he didn't begrech the outlay, he said. He wuz layin' out to have the lower paster used as a tentin' ground for the hull Allen race, and the Gowdeys if he decided they wuz worthy to jine in, he hadn't settled on that yet. The cow paster wuz to be used for Equinomical and Agricultural displays and also Peaceful Industries and Inventions, and the lane leadin' up to the barn from the lower paster he laid out to use as a Pike for all sorts of amusements, pitchin' quaits, bull-in-the-barnyard, turnin' hand-springs and summer sets, etc., etc.

Sez I coldly, "It would draw quite a crowd to see you and Deacon Gowdey standin' on your two old bald heads turnin' a summer set."

"Oh, I laid out to have younger people in such thrillin' seens, Ury and others." And then he went on to describe at length his Peaceful Industry Show.

I couldn't sot still to hear it only I felt I wanted to know the worst and cope with it as a surgeon probes to the quick in order to cure.

He thought he could git Aunt Huldy Wood, who wove carpets, to set up her loom for a few days under the big but-nut tree, and be weavin' there before the crowds. He said she wuz a peaceful old critter and would show off well in it. And Bildad Shoecraft, another good-natured creeter, he could bring his shoe-making bench and be tappin' boots. He could not only show off but make money at the same time, for he spozed that many a boot would be wore down to the quick walkin' round viewin' the attractions. And Blandina Teeter he spozed she could run my sewin' machine under the sugar maple. And he thought mebby I would set out under the slippery ellum makin' ginger cookies or fryin' nut-cakes, in either capacity he said I wuz a study for an artist and would draw crowds.

"The wife of Josiah Allen fryin' nut-cakes, what a sound it would have through the world."

"No, Josiah," sez I, "I shan't try to fry nut-cakes in a open lot without ingregients or fire."

"Well, mebby you'd ruther be one of the attractions of the Pike, Samantha. I hain't goin' to limit you to one thing. As the pardner of the originator of this stupengous scheme you are entitled to respect. There is where Napoleon, the other great actor in these twin dramas, missed it, he didn't use his wife as he ort to. But jest see the wonderful similarity in these cases. He had two step-children; the wife of Josiah had two; I am smaller in statute than my wife; so wuz Napoleon."

"You spoke of your Peaceful Inventions, Josiah," sez I, wantin' to git his mind off, for truly I begun to fairly feel sick to the stomach to hear his talk about himself and the Great Conqueror.

"Oh, yes, Samantha, that in itself will be worth double the price of admission."

"Then you expect to ask pay, Josiah?"

"Certainly, why not? Do they not ask pay at the twin celebration?

"But you spoke of inventions; I shall let the rest of the Allens show off. Lots of 'em have invented things, but of course my inventions will rank number one. There is my button on the suller door I cut it out of an old boot leg. Who ever hearn of a leather button before, and it works well if you don't want to fasten the door tight. Then there is that self actin' hen-coop of mine that lets a stick fall down and shuts the door when the hen walks up the ladder."

"But no hen has ever clim the ladder yet, Josiah."

"No, perhaps they hain't yet, but I'm expectin' to see 'em every day, 'tennyrate paint that coop a bright red and yaller and it will attract a crowd.

"And then there is that travelin' rat trap of brother Henzy's, you know his grandmother wuz an Allen, I shall mayhap let him appear. And then there is all my farmin' implements and the rest of the Allen's I lay out to be just to all, and let 'em all come and show off in my Agricultural show.

"But of course there has got to be a head to it; Napoleon wuz the head of the other Purchase, and I'm the head of this. In short, Samantha, I am It."

Oh, how full of pride and vain glory he wuz, and I knowed such feelin's would have to be brung down for his spiritual good. I realized it as he went on,

"I tell you, Napoleon and I would have made a span, Samantha, if he could been spared till now."

Oh how shamed I wuz to hear such talk, but I sot demute for reasons named, and he sez agin, "I thought mebby you would want to be one of the attractions of the Pike, Samantha; I lay out to have livin' statutes adornin' the side of the lane leadin' up from the beaver medder to the horse trough."

"Livin' statutes!" sez I, coldly, "I don't know what you mean by them."

[Illustration]

"Why, I thought for a few cents I could git a lot of children and old folks to be white-washed for a day or two and pose as statutes. It would be a new thing and a crackin' good idee, for livin' statutes that can wink, and bow, and talk, and walk round some, I don't believe wuz ever hearn on before."

"No indeed," sez I, "but I can tell you, Josiah Allen, I've played many strange parts in the role of life at your request, but I tell you once for all I shall never, never be whitewashed and set up for a statute, you can set your mind to rest on that to once."

"Mebby you'd ruther be a Historical Tabloo, Samantha; I lay out to have beautiful ones, and I thought I wouldn't confine myself to the States, but would branch out and have the foreign nations represented figuratively.

"A naval battle between Russia and Japan would draw; if I could fix some floats on the creek my stun boat could represent Russia, and Deacon Huffer's Japan, I jest as lives mine would be blowed up and sunk as not, 'tain't good for much. And if I did have that I would have the Russian Bear set on the shore growlin', and the Powers furder back lookin' pleasantly on. You might be a Power, Samantha, if you wuzn't a female."

"No, thank you, Josiah, I don't hanker after the responsibility for good or evil that ort to hang onto a Power."

"I'd be the Russian Bear myself, Samantha, with our old buffalo robe, only I've got everything else to do; I could grasp holt of things and squeeze 'em tight and growl and paw first rate."

"I wouldn't try to take that Russian Bear's job of graspin' and growlin' and pawin' onto me, Josiah, if I wuz in your place; it would tucker anybody out."

"The Eagle of France," sez he dreamily, "could be represented in reduced form, as artists say, by Solomon Bobbett's old Bramy rooster with some claws tied on. And Scotland, the land knows there is thistles enough along the cow path to represent her if they're handled right. And for Ireland I might have two fellers fightin' with shelalays, Ury could make the shelalays if he had a pattern."

I knit away with a look of cold mockery on my face that I spose worried him, for he sez, "I wish I could git you interested in my show, Samantha. Mebby you'd want to represent Britanny scourin' the blue seas, you always thought so much of the Widder Albert. You could enact it in the creek where the water is shaller. You've got a long scrubbin' brush, I always thought you looked some like Britanny, and you do scrub and scour so beautiful, Samantha."

"No, Josiah, you'll never git me into that scrape, not but what Britanny may need help with her scrubbin' brush. But I shan't catch my death cold makin' a fool of myself by tacklin' that job."

"Oh, you could wear my rubber boots. But I shall not urge the matter, I only thought we two countries are such clost friends and I wanted you to have the foremost character, but I can probable git someone else to enact it. But the strain is fearful on me, Samantha, to have everything go on as it should."

His looks wuz strange. I could see that he wuz all nerved up, and his mind (what he had) wuz all wrought up to its highest tension; I knowed what happened when the tension to my sewin' machine wuz drawed too tight—it broke. And my machine wuz strong in comparison to some other things I won't mention out of respect to my pardner. I felt that I must be cautious and tread carefully if I would influence him for his good, so I brought forth the argument that seldom failed with him, and sez I:

"If I hadn't no other reason for jinin' in these doin's, cookin' has got to be done and how can a statute or a Historical Tabloo bile potatoes and brile steak and make yeast emptin's bread perked up on a pedestal or posin' in the creek, and you know, Josiah, that no matter how fur ambition or vain glory may lead a man, his appetite has got to be squenched, and vittles has got to be cooked else how can he squench it."

And to this old trustworthy weepon I held in all his different plans to inviggle me into his preposterous idees and found it answered better than reason or ridicule. But even this failed to break up his crazy plan. His hull mind (what he had) wuz sot on it.

CHAPTER II.

I felt dretful and how I wuz goin' to break it up and git his mind off I couldn't tell; I talked it over with the children. They wuz goin' to be mortified to death by the idee if carried out and they told me in confidence and the woodhouse kitchen, "It must be stopped!"

And I sez, "How is it goin' to be stopped? I've handled every weepon I know how to lay holt on. I've pompied him, cooked the very best of vittles, argued with him, eppisoded, but all to no use, he's as sot as a hen turkey on a brick bat, and I've got to the end of my chain."

Sez Tirzah Ann, "Have you tried readin' historical novels to him?"

"No," sez I, "I don't dast to be too hash with him, your pa's health hain't what it wuz, I dassent take too hash measures."

Sez she, "Have you tried readin' poetry?"

"Yes," sez I, "I have read Pollock's Course of Time most through to him, and the biggest heft of 'Paradise Lost,' and I read the last named with deep feelin', I can tell you."

"Didn't it do any good?"

"Not a mite," sez I. "He would choke me off in the soarinest passages to boast about some crazy side-show at his Exposition."

Tirzah Ann sithed and sez, "I don't know what can be done."

Thomas J. is more practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? Or in the house?"

"Id'no," sez I. "He can't plow or reap in February or pick gooseberries or wash sheep. But I know what ort to be done in the house, I tried my best to git him at it in the fall, I do want a furnace and hot water pipes put in to heat the house. We most freeze these cold days, and it is too much for your pa when Ury is away to tend to the fires."

"That's just the thing!" sez Thomas J., "get him interested in that and he will forgit all about the Allen Exposition by the time it is done."

But I sez in a discouraged way, "If I couldn't git him at it in the fall
Id'no how I'm goin' to now."

"But it is worth tryin'," sez Thomas J., "for his scheme must be broke up, and if you git your furnace in now it will be all ready for another fall."

"Well," sez I, "I can try." And so I begun that very night on a new tact, or ruther the old tact in a new way, I told him how sot Thomas J. wuz on our havin' a furnace and hot water pipes put in.

Josiah thinks his eyes of his only son, and I see it kinder moved him, but he wouldn't give his consent, and sez:

"What do you want hot water pipes and a furnace for in the summer?"

Sez I pintin' to the snowy fields, "Do you call this summer, Josiah? And Thomas J. sez it will be so nice to have it all ready in the fall. And I do wish, Josiah, you would hear to me."

"Well, well, I am hearin' you, hain't I, and been hearin' for a year back, I hain't deef as an adder!" And he jammed his hat down over his ears and went to the barn. But there wuz a sort of a waverin' expression to his linement that made me have hopes.

Well, when I had, with the children's help and an enormous expenditure of good vittles and eloquence, brought him round to the idee, I found I had another trial worse than the first to contend with. Instead of hirin' a first rate workman who knew his bizness, he wuz bound, on account of cheapness, to hire a conceited creeter who thought he could do anything better than anyone else could.

He knew how to milk, Jabez Wind did, and how to clean stables, and plough and hoe corn. But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them who had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him because he wuz so much cheaper.

And I sez, "You'll sup sorrow yet, Josiah Allen, with your tendency to save and scrimp. Jabez Wind don't know nothin' about such work; he hain't got any shop or tools and I don't want him meddlin' round my house. We want the rooms warmed good and we don't want a big noise and racket, as I've hearn they make sometimes, I couldn't stand it with such noise and cracklin' goin' on day and night."

"Oh," sez Josiah, "that's one great beauty of Jabezeses invention, it is perfectly noiseless, not a murmur or gurgle from one year's end to the other, and so easy to tend. Jest twice a year, he sez, to put a pail of water in the upper tank, two pails of water a year to insure summer warmth, no dirt, no noise, not much like luggin' in wood from mornin' till night, breakin' your back cuttin' and splittin' it and litterin' up the house."

The idee of the perfect stillness did tempt me, I so love comfort and quiet, and also not havin' to sweep up after chips and kindlin' wood. But yet how did we know these things wuz so? And agin I sez, "How do you know he can do all this? He hain't got any tools."

Sez Josiah, "He's got idees if he hain't got tools. A man can borry tools, but he can't dicker for such idees as Jabez has got. See the things he's undertook."

Sez I, "Anybody can undertake things; his idees hain't made him rich or famous. That air ship of hisen he wuz goin' to sail to Europe on, rared up and spilt him in his uncle's back yard. And his automobile, when he sot off on it and headed it for the road it backed up and took him down that steep hill back of the barn into the creek, where it kep on ploughin' up dirt and slate stuns till his uncle stopped it by main force and lifted Jabez out from under it drippin' like a water rat. And his machine for perpetual motion, his ma uses it now for clothes bars," sez I. "What has he ever done to merit your encomiums?"

"Well," sez he, "he's bound to succeed this time. His idees are some like the hardware man's at Jonesville only Jabez'es are more deep and not nigh so expensive." I never liked Jabez Wind and shouldn't if I'd seen him settin' swingin' his legs off the very top of Fame's pillow. He wuz oncongenial to me, made so from the beginin'. I never knew any particular hurt of him, but he seemed so much like his own sir name, so puffed up and onsubstantial. He wuz middlin' well off to start with, or his ma wuz, but he had used up all her property in his different enterprises.

Now I dote on inventors, they wear a halo in my partial eyes. They're the greatest men of our day, and I mentally kneel at their feet, but gold always has counterfeits. The real inventor, made by the Deity to carry out his plans, is modest, silent, broodin' over his great secrets, away from the multitude where angels minister to him. But Jabez wuz loud, boastin', arrogant, his pert impudent face proclaimin' the great things he wuz goin' to do, but never did. He wuz in love, too, or what he called love, with a girl that wuz a prime favorite of mine, sweet little Rosamond Nickleson, she and I wuz such great friends she often used to come and stay a week at a time with me.

When Jabez Wind came to Jonesville, Rosy wuz about the same as engaged to a good sensible young farmer, Royal Nelson, who lived three milds above Jonesville on the old stage road. He wuz a stiddy, likely young man, who owned a nice farm well stocked, wuz good lookin', good appearin', but ruther bashful and retirin', which made him some times in company a little awkwud in his manners, and most offish where he wanted to please most. But he had a good mind, and his heart wuz pure gold, and he loved Rosy with the deep earnest love, such undemonstrative men often cherish for the one woman in the world for them. His calm gray eyes would light up with the pure light of deathless love when they rested on the sweet face of little Rosy. And he wuz always tryin' to help her in some way, lookin' out for her interest, he seemed to love to protect and wait on her in a way that argued well for the future, but mebby it wuz this constant and almost slavish devotion that made her slight him, she had got so used to his stiddy love that she didn't appreciate it as she'd ort to.

He had paid attention to Rosy for most three years. I thought mebby he wuz such a manly chap he didn't want to hurry her, she wuz so young, but everybody spozed they wuz as good as engaged when Jabez Wind come to Jonesville to live with his uncle, old Kellup Wind. He lost his wife, and Miss Wind, his brother's widder, come to keep house for him and brung Jabez with her. I hurn it wuz the bargain she wuz to have two dollars a week and Jabez'es board. That showed me what he wuz, a young man twenty-five years old hangin' on to his mother's apron strings to support him, or ruther hangin' onto her hard workin' fingers, she wuz a good housekeeper.

Well, Jabez made such a splurge in the social pool of Jonesville society, he made such florid eloquent boasts of the wonderful things he wuz goin' to do in the near future; his clothes wuz so showy, and his looks so showy (shaller I called it), with beady shiny black eyes, red cheeks, mustache and whiskers naturally red like his hair, but dyed black, and he played the fiddle so sweet, the girls said, and he sung comic songs so bea-eu-ti-ful, and he danced so light that he become a general favorite in Jonesville society and the girls all seemed to seek after him. But from the first he singled out Rosy as the object of his special patronizin' affection. She wuz well off, her pa left her a good property in money besides bein' so pretty and good herself.

And she, girls are so queer, the best of 'em, from the very fact that his affection wuz so patronizin' and down stoopin' to her, and kinder oncertain, for onlike Royal he would have spells of slightin' her and waitin' on other girls, why mebby for this very reason she seemed to be carried some distance away with him, and believed all his grand idees and looked forward to the realization of his stupendious schemes, high soundin' schemes, which had took him no furder than the middle of the creek and his uncle's back yard.

His uncle didn't believe in him no more than I did, but stood it with him on account of Karen, bein' a man that loved domestic comfort, and havin' lived in dirt, on pan-cakes and canned meats durin' different rains of incompetence materialized in hired girl form, before Karen come. But Karen worshipped Jabez, his highest mounts of future eminence seemed too low for his footstool in her adorin' eyes, somehow the very loftiness of his airs to her, his own mother who supported him and bought his clothes, seemed to render him more precious in her eyes. Wimmen are queer, queer as dogs.

Well, Jabez knew I wuz onwillin' to have him tackle the job of warmin' our house with his new water pipe invention, because I had spoke my mind about it when he and Karen had been over to spend the evenin', and Karen come over the next mornin' ostensibly to borry a cup of molasses, she wuz lookin' wore out, she'd worked so hard the day before, doin' a big washin' and bringin' the water from the creek, and I sez, "Why didn't Jabez bring it for you?"

"Oh, he wuz so busy with his inventions I couldn't bear to disturb him," sez she, holdin' her hand to her achin' side, "my son is the greatest genius in the world and folks will admit it yet, he's a young man of a thousand."

Sez I, "I should think more on him, Karen, if he should go to work and take care of you instead of you at your age workin' so hard to take care of him."

She married when she wuz quite well along in years and wuz gittin' old now and hadn't ort to work so hard. But her pale face lit up, "Oh, he will take care of me luxuriously when he's completed some of his inventions."

"But," sez I pityin'ly, "you know they hain't worked yet, any on 'em. You hung your washin' yesterday on the remains of his Perpetual Motion, and his motor carriage bein' dug up from the creek, his uncle uses it as a hen coop."

"Oh, but they will be successful, they will."

"I hope so, but I feel it my duty to tell you that I feel dubersome about it, dretful dubersome."

"But," sez she, "the New Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank is goin' to make us independently rich. He's takin' the plans now of Luman Heath's kitchen stove and riggin' up the machinery; Luman is to pay him lavishly, you know Luman's wife is my own cousin."

I see how it wuz, Karen's friends, to please her, wuz willin' to offer up their sure comforts and solid foundations as a sacrifice on the altar of friendship and the thought come over me, mebby I'd ort to. But it did seem as if I couldn't.

Sez Karen, "If it is a success at cousin Luman's, as it is dead sure to be, Jabez is goin' to take it to the St. Louis Exposition."

"He thinks the foreign powers will want to treat with him for it. But I told him I would ruther he would let our Government have it. But 'tennyrate he won't let the Powers git the better of him in the contract and control it and enrich themselves at his expense. He will get his onparelled idees patented before he takes it to St. Louis, it wouldn't be safe not to. I spoze the papers will be full of it."

Such talk didn't seem to move me a mite, but it impressed Josiah dretfully and he sez, "I shall have this new invention stand next to my hen coop at the Exposition of St. Josiah."

I shuddered and turned the subject round quick as I could. Well, Karen labored with me over two hours, dwellin' in particular on the perfect stillness of the heatin' apparatus, and agin as before that thought tempted me awfully, for I'd hearn the cracklin' snappin' sounds that sometimes comes from steam heat and dreaded to have it reproduced in my home, and seein' my looks Karen amplified on the idee, How sweet it would be in December to set down in a rockin' chair in the still warmth of a day in July and go through the winter in that luxurious lovely way. She talked till she had to go home almost on the run, for she said Jabez'es mind worked so hard it exhausted his body completely so she had to have the most nourishin' food ready for him at the very minute or he would break right down. But to the last she praised up Jabez'es work. But I wouldn't say a encouragin' word furder than this, "I feel dubersome about it, Karen, dretful dubersome."

That afternoon Rosy come over to stay all night, and she too tackled me on the subject. He had asked her to, always hangin' onto some woman for help. But with her too I used the same tick-tacks I had with Karen, I said mildly after each modest plea for his great genius, and how well he would do the work, "I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."

Then she, too, sweetly spoke of the summer warmth, and the entire absence of noise, and agin that thought tempted me, but I sez, "How do you know, Rosy, that it will be entirely noiseless?"

"Oh, I know it will, Jabez sez so. He is sure to succeed, and it will help him so to have your influence, he expects to publish a book of the greater eulogies from noted people on this new invention, and he intends to have your name head the list. When you say this perfectly noiseless machine heats your house too warm in the coldest weather, what a help it will be to him, and your name will be first," she repeated agin.

"He'd better have the President and Cabinet come first," sez I dryly, dry as a chip in dog days.

"No, he spoke about that, but thought he would have them come next to yours, and I approved of it," sez she affectionately, "and so did his ma.

"He will git out the book as soon as he comes home from the St. Louis
Exposition with all the big eulogies he gits there on his inventions."

I groaned to myself and got up quick and went into the buttery and took a drink of cold water, I felt so kinder sickish. Well at modest intervals she would politely and gently tackle me about it, at the table and while she wuz washin' dishes, but I held firm, though very considerate and tender to her. I mogulated my axent low and gentle and looked mild at her over my specs, as I washed and she wiped, but my words wuz ever the same.

"I feel dubersome about it, Rosy, dretful dubersome."

At last Josiah's temper riz up and he vowed he wouldn't dally any longer, sez he, "I earned this money by the sweat of my brow and I'm goin' to use it as I'm a minter, and I'm a minter have these water pipes put in by Jabez Wind." (He got the money by sellin' a colt, Id'no as there wuz any great sweat about it).

But he wuz bound to have it done, and he did. And for reasons named I dassent cross him too fur and put my foot right down on the plan. And the children sez, "Better anything, mother, than his celebration. If he don't tear the house down over your head let him go on." (Let him! I guess I had to let him.)

Jabez come on with all his riggin'. He'd borrowed tools of the hardware man at Zoar, another of Karen's cousins, and obtained the furnace and pipes on credit, I spozed.

I made all the preparations I could in case of disaster. Took up the carpets in that part of the house, took down the curtains and moved the furniture, used all the precautions I could to escape with life and limb if possible, and insure the safety of my dear but misguided pardner, and then I sot down in the parlor bedroom, the furthest I could git without goin' upstairs, and let the tide of events sweep by me or sweep me away, and I didn't know which it would be. I had to be downstairs anyway, for (though Philury helped), I had to stand with my hand on the hellum, so to speak, and see to everything. What made it worse, too, it come on the coldest snap we'd had all winter.

Well, one of the main arguments by Jabez and Josiah wuz the speed with which this work wuz to be accomplished. The hull thing wuz to be done and we settin' down fannin' ourselves inside of three days, but for over four weeks our house wuz a perfect pandemonium of noise and confusion.

Iron pipes lay round in every direction, screws and vises, nuts and hammers, wrenches and irons of all shapes and descriptions strewed the house from top to bottom, and ashes, dirt and dust wuz rampant, and Jabez rennin' up and down stairs, to and fro, talkin' loud about what a success he wuz makin' of it and how everything wuz workin' jest as he wanted it to, and boasted in particular every time he come acrost me, ashakin' with the cold, how perfectly still and noiseless it wuz goin' to be, and how luxurious and almost enervatin' would be the warmth. And I sez, rubbin' my cold hands and pullin' my heavy woolen shawl closter round me, "It would be a little different than it is now if it wuz still, or if it wuz warm." And agin I shivered in the frigid air and sez:

"You guaranteed we wouldn't be torn up here over three days, and it wuz four weeks yesterday."

"That is because I have took such extra precautions to have it perfectly noiseless. Never," sez he impressively, "from one year's end to the other will you ever hear a sound from that apparatus, not the least murmur or echo of a sound."

"Well, I hope not," sez I, "and I hope to gracious it will be finished some time, for I'm most freezin' and Josiah is takin' cold, as I can see."

"No I hain't nuther," sez Josiah, his voice soundin' real wheezy and husky out from under his heavy wool comforter.

Sez I, "You be cold, Josiah Allen, your nose is blue this minute."

"Well, what if it is! I always liked that color anyway, I'd ruther have it blue that red as madder," sez he glancin' at my most prominent feature.

Sez I, "It is the bitter cold that has turned our noses, Josiah Allen, and when is it goin' to end?"

"It is going to end to-morrow mornin', at seven A.M. we start the fire, and then," sez he proudly, "I will set down in perfect summer heat, calm and happy, and you, too." For I spoze my oncomplainin' misery appealed to his latent manhood; and it had been latent in him for some time. But he wuz driv most beyend his strength, and the cold wuz almost Klondikey, I could make allowance for him. Well, the next day passed, and the next and the next, and finally, jest four weeks and four days after he had guaranteed to have it finished, Jabez hautily announced, and Josiah proudly proclaimed, a fire could be started. Karen wanted to be with us in the first trial of the heat, so she appeared on the seen, so triumphant and overjoyed it fairly made her worn haggard face look considerable brighter.

Rosy had come to spend the day and stay all night, invited by Karen to witness her son's triumph. But I onbeknown to anybody, feelin' I needed a strong arm and cool brain to depend on, had beset Royal Nelson to come and stand by me that day and night, I didn't say Rosy wuz to be there for fear he wouldn't come, for I could see by his white cheeks and sad, yet cool lookin' eyes, that he'd about gin her up. He said to once that he would come, and his sad eyes kinder laughed as he added, "I will stand by you in your affliction."

Well, Jabez, with his face gay and joyous and his tongue waggin', weighted down with big, boastful words, headed the procession down suller; Josiah and Ury filled up the furnace and built the fire, Jabez seemin'ly willin' they should do the work, he's so lazy. Rosy, Karen and I remained upstairs, Philury and I tryin' to mop and sweep up some of the dirt, and before long I hearn a buggy drive up, and see it wuz Royal Nelson, and in a few minutes he come in lookin' solid and reliable as ever.

Well, the upper tank had been filled, and at the welcome news the fire wuz beginnin' to burn bright we all went upstairs watchin' to see the grateful heat come up, and some of our hands wuz on the pipes every minute, when a low hollow rumblin' wuz hearn down in the suller, growin' louder and louder every minute till it got to be perfectly terrific, and Jabez run down there, his coat tails almost layin' level in his haste, and Josiah most fallin' over him, and Royal follerin' on more tranquil lookin' but excited all through I could see.

Ury stayed by us a spell, but as the deep hollow noise strengthened to a loud roar, accompanied by a strange rushin', gurglin' sound, comin' nearer and nearer, he seized Philury by the arm and rushed her outdoors through the snow, not stoppin' till they got to the barn, then he leggo of her and stood in the barn door to reconnoiter. It wuz a awful and skairful seen. I couldn't blame Ury, but like Sara of old, I felt that I must stay by my stuff, and Rosy and Karen hung to each other, and both hung onto me, all on us tremblin' like three popple leaves.

Finally, jest as the three men come hurryin' back into the room to rescue or die with us I spoze, the boilin' water gin a louder, angrier roar, and riz up out of the tank three feet into the air and poured and steamed and deluged all over the floor. Well wuz it I took up the carpet. But Josiah Allen, to prove he feared no danger, had insisted on leavin' the dressin' gown he worshipped hangin' up in the clothes press where the tank wuz. Alas! alas! as he brung it out drippin' and steamin' from the fiery bath, where wuz the once gay colors? Them tossels and red palm leaves on yeller ground that had so lately been the light of his eyes and desire of his heart? Who could tell which wuz palm leaves and which wuz yeller ground? And as for the red tossels, their glory had departed forever. Josiah groaned aloud as he bore it out leavin' a watery wake of red and yeller all the way to the kitchen, where I follered him and told him, so strong is woman's love in the hour of trouble, "Dear Josiah, I am sorry for you, but I told you jest how it would be."

He dashed it onto the floor and hollered out, "You didn't tell me nothin' about it! you never said the word dressin' gown! and I'd like to know what you're sorry about, it is nothin', only a valve has bust or sunthin'."

"Yes," sez I sadly, "I guess it is a sunthin'." Here he kicked aginst the suller door so hard one of the panels has been shaky to this day, and run down there, Jabez follerin' him, while I seized a dipper and a twelve quart pail and hurried up to the flooded deestrick, which we commenced to bail out like a sinkin' boat, Royal, Karen and Rosy helpin' me, and Ury havin' his first fears squenched by the overflow of water (which he expected he said would blow off the hull ruff and top story of the house), he and Philury laid to and helped.

CHAPTER III.

Well, Jabez said it wuz the sudden change from cold to hot water that had caused the overflow, so we put the biler on the kitchen stove and the caldron kettle in the woodhouse, and het water bilin' hot and filled the empty tank, Josiah groanin' loud as he lugged it up and sayin' when he thought I didn't hear him, "Oh, gracious Heavens! is this two pails a year?"

Then we all gathered in the front chamber agin watchin' events to come, Jabez boastin' louder than ever how like a charm it would work, and Karen opholdin' him. But Josiah looked anxious as I could see. When agin that loud angry roar begun in the suller, and agin Ury ketched Philury round the waist, for she wanted to stand her ground, but he yanked her down stairs and half way acrost the back yard. He loves her dearly and thinks it a man's place to protect his pardner. He didn't go so fur this time, but had almost onbeknown to himself sought safety for his dear Philury in flight.

Agin Jabez and Josiah and Royal rushed down suller. The dretful roar ended in a higher more steaminer volume of water than before, agin we laid to and bailed it out, our ranks bein' reinforced anon by the returnin' Ury and Philury, and anon furder by Josiah, Royal, and Jabez. Jabez didn't boast quite so loud now, and I wuz glad to see that Rosy kinder cuddled up closter to Royal as she wielded the dipper, as if she thought him a refuge in time of storm.

Well, from that time, about three in the afternoon, till ten P.M. the programmy wuz stidy over and over. Fillin' the tank, low snortin' and rushin' of the waters up and down, chasin' along the pipes in every room, hammerin', kickin', shootin', like enraged artillery, at last thundering like the most skairful clap of thunder and then with a fearful roar the volume of water would mount up and pour into the spare room and drizzle down into the settin' room below, takin' off the plasterin' in spite of our very best efforts to bail it out. Over and over agin wuz the wearisome and soul tuckerin' job carried out, varied every time by Ury ketchin' Philury and fleein' with her, but the distance shortened every time, till at last he fled with her no furder than the top of the kitchen stairs. Karen's horrow struck, mortified looks, Jabez'es entire absence of boastin', which in itself wuz dog queer, and Rosy's instinctive turning to Royal for protection, which wuz gladly granted.

Over and over the seen wuz enacted, Jabez every time turnin' some screw or valve or sunthin' and prophesyin' every time it would go right the next time, but said it with feathers droopin', so to speak, more humble like and doubtful. My poor pardner as he lugged up two heavy pails of water at half-past nine P.M., I hearn him say:

"Oh, gracious, Peter! is this two pails a year? This makes more'n a hundred pails I've carried up to-night myself besides Ury's and Jabezs'es." It wuzn't so, he hadn't carried up more'n thirty or forty twelve quart pails. But yet I pitied him. Well, that also thundered and deluged and guyzered out onto the floor accompanied by the drips and drizzles into the settin' room, Ury's flight with Philury, Karen's mourns, and Josiah's groans, for he had lost his pride and openly groaned and jawed at Jabez and sez to him:

"You dum fool you! you don't know beans from a broom stick! I wouldn't trust you to make splinters to do up a dog's leg!" And Jabez jawed back again, and Josiah sez, "I'll make you pay heavy damages for this job, and I've as good a mind as I ever had to eat, to give you a good floggin' with a rawhide." And as he grew madder and madder he went on:

"This is your perfectly noiseless apparatus is it?" sez he pintin' down towards the thunderin' roar, "this is your summer heat, hain't it?" pintin' to the shiverin' crowd. "This is your freedom from labor-two-pails-a-year job! one hundred pails of water have I lugged upstairs to-night if I have a pint! Now," sez he, makin' towards him, "do you start out of this house before I fall on you and rend you." Karen screamed and rushed between 'em and fell onto Jabez and dragged him off with her, he seemin' glad to go.

Well, we let the fire go down as low as we could without goin' out, and went to bed shiverin' and half froze, but with soap stuns and hot-water bags we made out to git through the night. In the mornin' a sorry seen greeted us, coldness, discomfort, broken plasterin' and dirt, and no prospect to all appearance of havin' any better times. The only gleam of light I could see in the hull prospect wuz that Josiah in his excitement and wretchedness had seemin'ly forgot that he'd ever mentioned the Exposition of St. Josiah.

Well, right after breakfast Karen come over lookin' as if she hadn't slep' a wink and sez she, "Jabez lay awake all night studyin' on it and he knows now where he made the mistake, he pinted one small lead pipe up where it ort to been pinted down, he can make it all right in an hour."

Well, Josiah, so sure it is that the hottest love soonest cools, vowed that Jabez should never step his foot into the house agin. And I wuz glad enough to see that Rosy agreed with him.

But I wuz naterally made more megum, and thought, any port in a storm, and a hour won't be much anyway. If we've stood all this dirt and confusion for five weeks we could stand it a hour longer.

"Well," sez Josiah, "I shall go into the woods for a jag of maple, I won't see him, I dassent, for I should fall on him and destroy him if I did."

So he went after a load of maple wood and Jabez come and tinkered and hammered and pounded and then sayin' with some of his pride returned into his port:

"It will go now like clock work."

He filled the tank and lit the fire agin with Ury's help. But I wuz glad enough that Josiah wuz absent, for this time the noise wuz so skairful that when Ury ketched Philury round the waist and absconded with her, he didn't stop till they had ploughed through the snow clear past the old hen house.

I, too, ketched Rosy by the arm and run and stumbled along most to the barn before I remembered myself and regained my faculties, so to speak, it wuz so turrible this time the loud, angry, roarin', hissin' noise.

Karen nobly stood by Jabez, who I must say stood by his job in that respect, but I guess they went out into the hall, I thought I ketched a glimpse of 'em, as I havin' regained my faculty, run in. We got in jest after the deluge poured out agin, higher, louder and more steaminer than ever, and when what few scraps of plaster remained on the settin' room had fell victims to the bilin' flood. Well, we let the fire go down agin and cowered over the kitchen stove that day, and agin went shiverin' to bed. That night the weather moderated, and with a low fire in the furnace, and the heat from the kitchen stove, we kep' middlin' warm. We cleaned up the plaster, mopped the floor and wuz comparitively comfortable for three days. The fourth night the fire in the furnace riz up onbeknown to us in the night, and the first we knew we wuz waked up by what we thought a loud clap of thunder overhead, accompanied by a loud roar, and shakin' of the walls, and Josiah started up in bed and sez, "Is the house struck, Samantha? Who ever heard of thunder at this time of year? Or is it a earthquake?"

But I gittin' holt of my conscientiousness quicker than he did, sez, "Josiah Allen, it is that heatin' apparatus." And to confirm my words we hearn the angry loud roar and the water splurgin' out over our heads and drizzlin' down through the laths in the next room. Even as I spoke Rosy come down stairs in her pretty pink wrapper, and sez she half asleep, but wholly afraid, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, I do wish Royal was here! what a fearful time!" sez she.

And if you'll believe it, so onselfish is a woman's heart, even in the midst of her deepest tribulations, and so kinder sentimental, her words sent a faint ray of joy over my heart, some like the pale light of a star shinin' out over a wild western tornado. But before I could reply Ury come runnin' down stairs holdin' Philury, faithful critter that he wuz, and Josiah yelled at him: "Do you go over to Kellup Wind's and bring that cussed fool over here, and if he don't take out that invention of his under ten minutes I will have the law on him, and whip him within an inch of his life!"

It wuz half-past three and we all got up, and I got breakfast by lamp light. Ury come back and said Jabez had been studyin' for the hull of the last three days and said he wuz absolutely sure now he knew what ailed it, it wuz the little piece of pipe that led to the tank, it wuz set in the wrong place, it would take about twenty minutes to fix it so it would be entirely right. Josiah hollered out, "Be we goin' to be used by that dum fool to try his experiments on? Let him take it out or I will take it out and throw it at him!"

But Karen had writ a note to me, pleadin' with me as a sister in the meetin' house, to let Jabez have this sole chance, and I showed this note to Josiah and sez, "For Karen's sake mebby we'd better let him try it."

"For Karen's sake!" he yelled out, "why should we pompey her? It is all her fault. What did she let him live for when he wuz a babe? She is to the bottom of it, if it hadn't been for her lettin' him live we shouldn't be in this state, up at midnight, hungry as bears, cold as frogs, and our house a wreck!"

But how true it is the noisest grief is soonest squenched. At last he gin in and Jabez attacked it agin, and tinkered and puttered at it all day, I watchin' Josiah clost for fear he would surround Jabez and fall on him and demolish him in his anger. But all the difference his work made it seemed as if the noise wuz a little louder and the flood more tumultious and rushin' if it could be tumultiouser and rushiner. And by my advice Jabez fled out of the suller door and streaked it for home cross lots, for I feared that my beloved pardner might be led by his righteous wrath, even into salt and buttery.

Jest as Jabez streaked it home, I watchin' him from the buttery window and also keepin' my pardner at bey in the milk room, I see a buggy drive into the yard, and wuz I not glad to see the manly form and calm quiet face of Royal Nelson. After he drove his handsome span of grays into the horse barn he come in and I see his linement looked considerable brighter and happier, brightenin' still more as he met Rosy's sweet smiles and cordial words.

She wuz sick of Jabez, sick as lobely could make her. And her old love and leanin' on Royal Nelson had come back in full force. Her fancy for Jabez had been light and transitory as his sir-name. And as I see their happy means as they met, I felt that even the wreck and ruin about us wuz mebby not too dear a price to pay for their future happiness. The first thing Royal and Ury did, Josiah helpin' 'em, wuz to take out the furnace and pipes, the hull caboodle on 'em, and then went over to Jonesville and bought a new furnace and got a good responsible man to put it in that very day. They telephoned to that hardware man to Zoar to come and take away the remains of that invention, and how he settled with Jabez I never knew, for Karen hushed it up, but I know there is a coldness between 'em and they don't speak.

Well, the places all bein' made in the walls, and this man bein' a good workman, who had learnt his trade, that night about eight P.M. the hull job wuz done, and stillness and genial warmth made the place seem almost like Heaven compared to what it had been. The next day a man come and plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too voylent wrath upon his nerve.

Our noses had regained their natural color, and on the third day Rosy with a last warm kiss and sweet smile on me and visey versey went home, Royal carryin' her in his new covered buggy, drawed by them two handsome gray horses. They wuz engaged, and their plans all made, they wuz to be married in the summer and go to the St. Louis Exposition on their weddin' tower.

And I thought, as I see 'em drive off, happy as a king and queen in the bright moonlight, how true it is our brightest joys often come through darkest tribulations. Rosy's and Royal's happiness wuz enough in itself to pay me abundantly for my tribulations. And then my settin' room new plastered and Josiah would never consented to tear it off, and it wuz lumpy and streaked and broken, and here it wuz new plastered over smooth as glass.

Oh! thinkses I how thankful I ort to be and how I ort to forgit the troubles of the night in the joys of the mornin'.

And crownin' blessin' of all Josiah had seemin'ly forgot all about the Exposition of Josiah Allen. He hadn't mentioned it for days and the children and I wuz full of hope, it wuz broke up. But, alas! in this world how little you can tell what is broke and what hain't.

And the news Josiah brung home, what comfort there wuz in the thought—I like Karen and felt to rejoice with her. It seemed that Luman Heath, not havin' heard of our afflictions, had let Jabez go on with his work the very next day after he finished here. And the Perpetually Gushing Hot Water Tank wuz the death blow to Jabez Wind's inventive ambition, and alas! proved almost the death blow to Luman Heath's beloved ones, the hull family circle on 'em.

He attached it to the kitchen stove, which wuz a perfect steamer to burn and heat up. And fixed it so that instead of the hot water goin' acrost the room to the kitchen sink as he meant to have it, it jest squirted right up into the air bilin' hot, so they had a perfect fiery geyser there in their kitchen. Jabez run for his life, it had hit him in the face.

They wuz Methodist folks with lots of children well brung up and they never thought of havin' such doin's in their house, but the bilin' crater pourin' down hot water come so sudden and onexpected onto 'em that three of the little children wuz scalded most to-death as they sot on the floor readin' Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Luman, bald-headed, too, the fiery flood descended onto him while he wuz tryin' to bear his wife, who fell into hystericks, into the settin' room, he wuz hit on top by the bilin' torrent and blistered right on his bare head as big as your hand.

He laid his wife down half faintin', told the screamin' children to look out for her and keep out of the kitchen, hollered for the hired man to go after a doctor, and fell back into a kind of spazzum. He bein' a good man who wouldn't swear, or rare round kep in his feelin's more. The children got over it before he did, bad as they wuz scalded, they screamed and yelled and let off considerable steam that way. But he wuz bed sick for weeks holdin' onto his wrath and bein' too good to jaw and kick Jabez, the doctor said made it worse than if he had kicked some.

But to resoom backwards. The hired girl wuz the coolest of any of 'em, she went into the kitchen with a waterproof and umbrella, and tried to turn the nozzle of the Perpetual Gushing Hot Water Tank out-doors, and havin' to use both hands, and bein' smart and quick witted, she put the coal scuttle on bottom side up, and though blinded by it and some scalded, she made out to turn the fury of it out through the kitchen winder where it steamed and squirted and poured out bilin' water onto the flower beds and acrost 'em into the road, scaldin' passers by, and bein' a perfect horrow and mystery to 'em. It wuz big and powerful, there hain't no doubt of that.

Well, owin' to the hired girl's courage, by the time the doctor got there the tank wuz emptied, and the torrent had subsided into a drizzle. Luman Heath didn't prosecute Jabez, bein' such a good man, and how I honor him for it, how I honor him for not actin' and swearin'. The doctor may say what he wants to, he wuz noble to bear it as he did. I have seen kickin' and actin' in times of trial, and how I honor a man who can refrain, and he got well as quick, I believe, as though he had acted.

But as I wuz sayin' the greatest relief that come to the community from our trials wuz as follers. Take it with his doin's at our house and Luman Heath's, Jabez Wind had evidently had enough of inventions. He hired out for a year the very next day after the eppisode, to work for twenty dollars a month on a farm, house rent, wood, and cow furnished. Kellup Wind is goin' to live with a daughter, and Karen is blissful at thought of keepin' house for Jabez. Good creeter! I hope she will have a little rest now. I said I meant to go and see her jest as soon as she wuz settled.

Well, for two days my feelin's of joy and thankfulness wuz onclouded. But alas, poor mortals! that plant the flowers of their happiness on earthly sile, they must see 'em wither before their face and eyes anon or oftener like Jonah's gourd.

The third day, whilst I wuz settin' happy and calm in my frame in my warm peaceful settin' room often liftin' my eyes contentedly to the satin smooth ceilin'.

What wuz my emotions of grief and horrow to see Josiah rise up, haul out his tin trunk where he'd carefuly stored away the plans of the St. Josiah Exposition, and go to studyin' 'em agin with renewed vigor, sayin':

"I hope to gracious I can have my mind clear now to go on and plan my
Exposition; this dum work has set me back turribly."

I let my work fall into my lap and gin vent to some sithes, so deep they wuz almost groans, whilst the bitter waters of disappintment trickled over my hopes and drownded 'em out. Had I got to go through another siege of argument and persuasion and extra vittles? Could my too hard worked oratory hold out, and also my provisions?

I see the children next day and told 'em how it wuz, that their Pa seemed more sot on his plan than ever, and talked more excited and earnest about it than I had ever seen him. For it did seem as if his deep ambitions dammed up for a time by furnaces and Jabezeses, had broke loose into a wider, deeper current than ever. He talked incessantly about it day and night, laid on his plans, and reached out onto new ones.

The children sez to me agin: "Mother, it must be stopped at all hazards!"

And agin I wep', and sez to 'em: "How can it be stopped?"

Tirzah Ann looked completely squelched and could do nothin' only weakly ask: "If I spozed I could git him to play on a accordeon, she kinder thought that some time she'd hearn of some man, somewhere havin' his mind soothed by one."

"Accordeon!" sez I. "You couldn't git his mind offen that plan if you gin him one of the golden harps we read about."

Tirzah Ann subsided, only sayin': "We would all be the town's talk, and it would probable kill her with mortification."

Thomas J. sot still with his brow knit in deep thought and sez "I will try one thing more."

I never knew exactly how Thomas J. worked it, or what he paid 'em, but I know that a day or two after, the prices them livin' statutes asked Josiah for bein' whitewashed, wuz sunthin' perfectly exorbitant, and so with the Powers and the Peaceful Inventors. He never could stood it with his closeness.

Thomas J. didn't appear outwardly, but wuz the power behind the thrones, so I spoze. When Josiah wuz taxed with these fearful expenses (they writ it in letters to him) his plan tottled ready to fall. And of course I stood ready and follered it up with eloquent arguments, tenderness and the very best of vittles. Neither on 'em could carried the day alone, but all together conquered. He gin in. The plan tottered over and fell onto him, and my pardner, to continue the metafor, lay under the ruins as squshed and mute as if he wuz never goin' to git up agin.

But when his wild emotions of ambition and vanity and display wuz all broke up a settled melancholy hovered down onto him and draped him like a black mantilly. He seemed all onstrung, and all my efforts to string him up agin seemed vain.

I strove to hide my apprehensions under a holler veil of calmness and even hilarity; I give him catnip with a smile on my lip but deep forebodin' in my mind, and the same with thoroughwert. But catnip didn't nip his ambition and thoroughwort wuzn't thorough enough to restore his cheerfulness.

I encouraged him to go to the lake fishin' with Deacon Henzy, though I'd suffered more than I had ever told from similar occasions. Deacon Henzy loves hard cider and keeps a kag on tap durin' the summer, he sez it is for his liver, but liver or no liver it hain't right.

I hain't goin' to make no insinuations about their doin's though sister Henzy has approached me on the subject time and agin, she hain't so clost mouthed as I am. But I will merely say that when they got back their two breaths didn't smell as two deacon's breaths ort to smell. But I didn't say nothin' about it outside and shan't, I use tack. I spoke on't to Josiah at the time, yes indeed I hearn the call of Duty and obeyed.

But as I wuz sayin', though it trompled on all my feelin's and forebodin's I urged 'em to go agin and they went. And I shan't tell how their breaths smelt when they got back—it hain't best, only simply sayin' that Josiah took an empty pint fruit can with him that mornin' when he went over to the Deacon's to start, and I never inquired what he took it for, so fur will a female let even her principles be outraged when the life of her beloved companion is at the stake—I tried to think he wuz goin' to take milk in it.

But the small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me, only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! the very idee on't!

But I kep' mum and dressed the fish myself and fried 'em in butter, only hopin' I wouldn't lose 'em in the fryin' pan, but Josiah didn't seem to relish 'em no better than he would side pork, and agin I felt baffled, and rememberin' the fruit can, a element of guilt also mingled with the baffle. Biled vittles with a bag puddin' which he loved almost to idolatry I put before him in vain; I petted him; I called him "dear Josiah" repeatedly; I fairly pompeyed him, but no change could I see, I felt turrible.

He still kep' a runnin' down and I didn't know when he would stop runnin' and I shuddered to think where he might run to. At last in spite of Josiah's onwillingness I sent for Doctor Bombus. He come and took his wrist in hisen and Josiah sez kinder mad actin': "What do you want to feel of my polt for? My polt beats all right!"

He looked at his tongue, Josiah stickin' it out as if he wuz makin' a face at him. He inquired about symptoms, all of which Josiah answered snappishly, the examination over, the doctor walked the floor back and forth with one hand under his coat tail and the other in his breast in deep thought and then said:

[Illustration]

"My diagnosis denotes no diametrical and insurmountable difficulties but I would recommend a temporary transition or in other words a change of climate."

"Change of climate!" muttered Josiah, "I guess anybody that lives in this state gits changes enough, from torrid to zero in twenty-four hours lots of times—I'd like to know where you wintered!"

"Nevertheless and notwithstanding," sez Doctor Bombus, blandly ignoring Josiah's muttering impatience, "I can but recapitulate my former prescription, a temporary translation from surrounding environment."

And he gathered up his saddle bags and went out, bagoning me out into the hall as he did so. And then he advised me to take him to the St. Louis Exposition.

But I sez, "I dassent, I'm afraid it would open his woonds afresh, he knowed all the circumstances that had caused his sickness." But he wuz a Homeopath and believed in takin' the same kind of medicine backward and forward as it were, sunthin' as the poem runs:

Tobacco hic when you're well will make you sick,
Tobacco hic will make you well when you're sick.

I told him I thought it wuz a hazardous undertakin', and I hardly dast, but he informed me in words more'n two inches long that he could do nothing more for him, and if I didn't foller his advice it would be at my own peril.

CHAPTER IV.

I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that mind.

Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a assault of such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.

But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.

I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin, they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well off and a willin' creeter.

[Illustration]

Josiah didn't seem to care either way, but languidly remarked that if he did go he wanted a sky blue neck-tie. That wuz the first sign of interest he had took in anything, and I hailed it as a good omen but got the tie as dark a blue as I dast.

Blandina Teeter, formerly Allen, is a widder with a tall spindlin' figger pale complected, with big light blue eyes that ruther stand out of her head, and a tall peaked forehead with light hair combed down smooth on both sides with scalops made in it by hand. She is good natered to a fault, you know you can kill yourself on milk porridge, and though folks don't philosophize on it you can be too good to be comfortable.

She is a natural lover of mankind, nothin' light in it, jest a deep meetin' house love. She wuz born that way onbeknown to her I spoze, and so I d'no as I ort to blame her for her soft ways. I hadn't seen her for some years and had kinder forgot how soft and squshy she wuz in her nater, and I declare for't when I got her and Josiah both together, had marshaled my forces, as you may say before my mind's review, I didn't know how I wuz goin' to git 'em to St. Louis and back agin hull. It did seem to me that if I got through all right with Josiah, she wuz that soft and meller she would spile on my hands anyway.

But she wuz the only one on his side available in the position of second chaperone to Josiah and so I took my chances.

She had been a widder some years; Teeter had used her shameful, spent her property and throwed her round considerable, but still she kep' up her perennial love and passionate adoration of man. And thinkses I it will work well anyway with her Uncle Josiah, for lovin' all mankind as she did from infancy to age, I knowed that bein' the only male in the party she would keep her eye on him.

Blandina wuz more than willin' when I explained matters to her. She said she felt that men wuz such precious creeters that too much care could not be took of 'em, and that it would give her the greatest pleasure to surround her Uncle Josiah with all the care that a most devoted affection could dictate.

She's an awful clever critter, it hain't good nater that she lacks. But there is sunthin' wantin' in her, I believe it is common sense.

But we sot out, I with considerable misgivin' at heart, but calm and cool on the outside, clad as I wuz in dignity and a gray braize delaine dress and a bunnet of the same color, I also wore my costly cameo pin fastened in my linen collar. Some gray lisle thread gloves and a rich Paisley shawl completed my toot a sembly.

Blandina had on a soft yellerish dress, I guess it wuz lawn it looked most as soft as she did, and a hat that kinder drooped 'round her face trimmed with crushed strawberry roses. She also wore some open-work mitts, and a lace long shawl that had been her ma's.

Josiah had on his pepper and salt costoom, and in my partial eyes he wuz beautiful, but, oh, so sad, so deprested. Would the gloom ever be lifted from his beloved liniment? So my heart questioned itself as we helped ourselves out of the Democrat, Ury tendin' to the trunks.

It wuz a Monday mornin', for I felt that I wanted to tackle this job jest as I would a three weeks' washin', the first day of the week. Ury shook our hands firmly but sadly, promisin' to the last to see to things and not let the cows into the garden, and keep the buttery door shet up nights, for though the cat is not a habitual snooper, yet she will sometimes snoop.

The car wuz crowded, mebby folks had hearn of our goin' and wanted to ride a spell with us. 'Tennyrate Josiah and I had to be separated at the outset of our journey, he settin' with a man acrost the aisle; Blandina got a seat with an aged gentleman while I sot down with a pale complected woman in deep mournin'. Or at least what mournin' she had wuz deep. She wore a thick crape veil and black cotton gloves. But her dress wuz chocklate delaine. The mournin' wuz borryed, she told me most as soon as I sot down.

She wuz on the way to the funeral of her father. He had lived with her, but died while he wuz on a visit to her sister. She wuz feelin' dretful and said she didn't know what she would do without him; she took on real bad, and I sez, "Yes, losin' a pa is an awful loss."

"Yes," sez she, "pa wuz a dretful good man. I don't see what we're goin' to do without him; we shall miss him so makin' line fences. He knew all about where they ort to stand."

I wuz kinder took back. But then come to think it over I see it wuz better to be missed in line fences than not at all. She got out at the next station, and my own pardner took the vacant seat by my side, and on and on we wuz whirled from the peaceful shores of Jonesville to the pleasures and dangers of the great city.

As I said, I wanted to get to St. Louis the first of the week, but Josiah took it into his head that he wanted to visit his nephew, Orange Allen, who lives in the Ohio, and under the circumstances it wuz not for me to cross him in anything that wuz more or less reasonable. So we stopped there and had a good visit. He keeps a dairy farm and owns forty cows besides a wife and three young children; he is doing well. His pa havin' a horticultural and floral turn of mind, named his two boys Lemon and Orange. His girls are Lily, Rose and Violet. Lily is dark complected and so fat that she looks like a pillar with a string tied in the middle, and Rose and Violet are as humbly as they make but respectable. Folks ort to be more cautious in namin' children, but they're all married quite well, and we had a good visit with 'em, stayin' most of the time at Orange's.

And I see with joy that the shadder on my pardner's face lifted quite a little durin' our stay there, but of course this belated us and we didn't git to St. Louis till Saturday late in the afternoon. St. Louis is a big sizeable place. Mr. Laclede cut the tree for the first log-house in the forest where St. Louis now stands in 1764. America had several cities all started at that time, but St. Louis jest put in and growed, and now it is the fourth city in the United States. It's an awful worker, why it produces more in its factories than is produced by the hull of thirty-seven States, jest think on't! And it has thirty-two million folks to buy the things it produces. Twenty-seven railways run into it; the city rules itself and leads the world in many manufactures. They say it is the richest community in the world, and I couldn't dispute it, for they seemed jest rollin' in riches all the while I wuz there; wuzn't put to it for a thing so fur as I could see.

It is noted for its charities; it has the biggest Sunday-school in the world, two thousand three hundred and forty-four children in one school—jest think on't! Its Union railroad station is the finest in the Universe, so they say, and jest the buildin' covers twenty acres. And it has the greatest bridge over the greatest river in the world.

But everything has its drawbacks, the water there hain't like Jonesville water; I don't say it to twit 'em, but it is a solemn truth, the water is riley, they can't dispute it. I'd love to hand 'em out a pailful now and then from our well, and would if I had the chance—how they would enjoy it.

Blandina and I wanted to go to once to Miss Huff's, a woman we used to know in Jonesville who keeps a small boardin' house.

But Josiah, who had seen pictures on't, wanted to go to the Inside Inn. He said they'd advertised cheap rooms, it would have a stylish sound to tell on't in Jonesville and it would be so handy and equinomical for we wouldn't have to pay entrance fees. So to please him, which wuz the main effort of us two chaperones, we went there. We wuz tired to death that night anyway, and wanted a quiet haven and wanted it to once, for truly when Josiah pinted out the elegant buildin's that we passed I looked coldly on 'em, and said that there wuzn't one that looked so good to me as a goose feather piller would. And I had made up my mind that I wouldn't take a note or act as a Observer at all till Monday mornin'. So I faced the crowd and the Fair ground as not seein' 'em as it were, carryin' out my firm idee to begin' the job as Observer and Delineator the first day of the week.

The Inside Inn we found wuz a buildin' as big as the hull of our neighborhood and I d'no but part of Loontown and Zoar, it wuz immense. And everywhere you'd look you would see this sign pasted up:

"Pay In Advance! Pay In Advance!"

Josiah acted real puggicky about it, he said he believed they had hearn we wuz comin' and got them signs printed for fear we would cheat 'em out of their pay or wuzn't able to pay. And he sez, "I'll let 'em know I am a solid man and have got money!" And he took out his little leather bag where he keeps the most of his money and showed 'em in a careless way, as much as fifteen dollars in cash.

I told him it wuz venturesome to show off so much money, but he said he wuzn't goin' to have 'em insinuatin' in this mean underhanded way that we couldn't pay our bills.

Blandina would pay her own bills, but then she's got plenty and Josiah said, "Let her pay for herself if she wants to." And I said:

"Well, I spoze it will make her feel better to pay her way."

"Yes," he sez, "and it makes me feel better too."

A young chap took our satchel bags and went to show us our room, and we went through one long hall after another, and walked and walked and walked, till I thought we should drop down. And finally Josiah stopped in his tracks and faced the feller, and sez he:

"Look here, young man, what do you take us for? We hain't runnin' for mail carriers, and we hain't niggers trainin' for a cake walk. We'd love to git a room and set down some time to-day!"

"Yes, sir," sez the man, "we are most to your rooms." And he turned and begun to go down stairs, and we follered him down two flights and started for a third one, and then Josiah faced him agin:

"What in Tunket ails you, anyway? Because we come from the country we don't propose to be put down suller amongst your cabbages and turnips! I want you to take us to some good rooms; I've paid in advance, dum you! and I'm goin' to stand for my rights."

"Yes, sir," sez the man, "they're good rooms."

And I knowin' we wuz three to one and if he wuz leadin' us off into a trap to git Josiah's money we could overpower him, I wunked for Josiah to keep still, but he wouldn't, but kep' on mutterin' whilst the man led us down two more flights, and into some quite good rooms, only if you'll believe it there wuz a tree growin' right up through our room as big as Josiah's waist.

And that made Josiah as mad as a hen agin, and he told the man, "We've been imposed upon ever since we entered this house. You knew we lived on the outskirts of Jonesville, and you've took liberties with us that you wouldn't if we had come from the heart of the village. But I'll let you know we're knowed and respected, and Jonesville will resent it to think you've put us in with trees, tryin' to make out we're green, I spoze."

But the man wuz up two flights of stairs by this time. And I quelled Josiah down by sayin' we would try to make the best on't. The hotel is built on a side hill, that's why we had to come down stairs; there are four stories more in the back than in front, and they wouldn't let 'em cut down all the trees so they had to build right round 'em.

But I ruther enjoyed it, and hung my mantilly up on it, there wuz some nails that somebody had left in it, and the tabs hung down noble. And as I told Josiah, "Trees are kinder sociable things anyway."

"Sociable!" he groaned. "We don't need trees in order to be sociable." And sure enough, on both sides on us wuz goin' on private conversations that we could hear every word on. It wuz a very friendly place.

Well, I het up my little alcohol lamp and made a cup of tea and we had lots left in our lunch basket. So I called Blandina, her room wuz only jest a little ways from ourn, and we had a good lunch and felt recooperated.

We slep' as well as we could considerin' the size and hardness of the mattress and pillows, and the confidences that wuz bein' poured into us onbeknown from both sides.

The house is built dretful shammy. Why I hearn that a man weighin' most three hundred took a room there, and comin' in one evenin' dretful tired from the day's tramp on the Fair ground leaned up heavy aginst the wall to pull off his boots, and broke right through into the next room.

And that room wuz occupied by a young married couple. You know it wuz dretful fashionable to marry and go to St. Louis on your tower. So they'd follered Fashion and the star of Love and wuz havin' a first rate time.

They had been there several days, and this evenin', he thinkin' his eyes of her, and feelin' very sentimental as wuz nateral, wuz readin' poetry to her, she settin' the picture of happiness and contentment with her feet on a foot-stool, her pretty hands clasped in her lap, and her eyes lookin' up adorin'ly into hisen as he read:

"Oh, beautious love, sweet realm of joy,
No wild alarm shall ere thy sweet calm break."

When crash! bang! down come the partition with a half dressed man on top, brandishin' aloft a boot and screamin' like a painter, as wuz only natural. He broke right into Love's Sweet Realm and skairt 'em into fits.

She fell to once into highstericks, and he, when he recovered conscientiousness threatened to lick the man, and everybody in St. Louis, and made the air blue with conversation that the Realm of Love never ort to hearn on, and wouldn't probable for years and years if it hadn't been for this contrary temps.

I hearn this, but don't say it is so; you can hear most anything and it held us in all right.

The next day, bein' Sunday, Josiah thought it would be our duty to stay on the Fair ground and see the Pike, etc. But I sez: "Josiah, we will begin this hefty job right, we will go to meetin'."

So we went out into the city and hunted up a M.E. meetin' house and hearn a good sermon and went into class meetin' and gin testimonies both on us. And Blandina bein' asked to by a man went forward for prayers and sot for a spell on the sinners' bench. She's been a member for years, but she's such a clever creeter she wants to obleege everybody.

Well, havin' done our three duties we went back peaceful and pious in frame and went to walk in of course to our own temporary home. But what do you think! that misuble, cheatin' man at the gate asked us to pay to git in. We hearn afterward that this wuz a dishonest man and wuz sent off.

"Pay!" sez Josiah. "Pay to come home from meetin'? Did you want us to hang round the meetin' house all day and sleep on the steps? Or what did you want?"

The man kep' that stuny look onto him and sez, "Fifty cents each."

Josiah fairly trembled with rage as he handed out the money, and sez he in a threatenin' way, "You hain't hearn the last of this, young man. Square Baker of Jonesville will git onto your tracks, and you'd better have a tiger after you than have him when he's rousted up. Pay for comin' home from meetin', it is a disgrace to the nation! Call this a land of liberty when you have to pay for comin' home from meetin'!"

And sez he, as he took his change back, "Do you know what you're doin'?
You're drivin' Samantha and me away from this place, and Blandina." And
sez he, with an air of shootin' his sharpest arrer, "We shall go to Miss
Huff's to-morry."

And so we did. Blandina and I wanted to go there in the first place, so we felt well about it. We had fulfilled our duties as chaperones to the fullest extent, and had also got our own two ways in the end, which is always comfortin' to a woman.

We found Miss Huff settled in a pleasant street in a good comfortable home, not so very fur away from the Fair ground. She's a widder with one son, young and good lookin', jest home from school; and a aged parent, toothless and no more hair on his head than on the cover of my glass butter dish. And I'll be hanged if I knowed which one on 'em Blandina paid the most devoted attention to whilst we wuz there, but nothin' light and triflin'.

She is likely, her morals mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could bend round considerable without breakin'.

And Miss Huff had also a little grand-niece, Dorothy Evans, whose mother had passed away, and Miss Huff bein' next of kin had took into her family to take care of. Dretful clever I thought it wuz of Miss Huff. Dorothy's mother, I guess, didn't have much faculty and spent everything as she went along; she had an annuity that died with her, but she had been well enough off so she could hire a nurse for the child, an elderly colored woman, Aunt Tryphena by name, who out of love for the little one had offered to come to Miss Huff's just to be near the little girl.

And Dotie, as they well called her, for everyone doted on her, wuz as sweet a little fairy as I ever see, her pretty golden head carried sunshine wherever it went. And her big blue eyes, full of mischief sometimes, wuz also full of the solemn sweetness of them "Who do always behold the face of the Father."

I took to her from the very first, and so did Josiah and Blandina. The hull family loved and petted her from Miss Huff and her old father down to Billy, who alternately petted and teased her.

To Aunt Tryphena she wuz an object of perfect adoration. And Aunt Tryphena wuz a character uneek and standin' alone. When she wuz made the mould wuz throwed away and never used afterwards. She follered Dorothy round like her shadow and helped make the beds and keep the rooms tidy, a sort of chamber-maid, or ruther chamber-woman, for she wuz sixty if she wuz a day.

Besides Aunt Tryphena Miss Huff had two more girls to cook and clean. She had good help and sot a good table, and Aunt Feeny as they called her wuz a source of constant amusement and interest; but of her more anon.

We got to Miss Huff's in the afternoon and rested the rest of that day and had a good night's sleep.

In the mornin' Josiah, who went out at my request before breakfast to buy a little peppermint essence, come in burnin' with indignation, his morals are like iron (most of the time).

He said a man had been advisin' him to take the Immoral Railway as the best way of seein' the Fair grounds as a hull before we branched out to see things more minutely one by one.

"Immoral Railway!" he snorted out agin.

"I hope you didn't fall in with any such idee, Josiah Allen." And I sithed as I thought how many took that kind of railway and wuz whirled into ruin on't.

"Fall in with it! I guess the man that spoke to me about it thought I didn't fall in with it. I gin that feller a piece of my mind."

"I hope you didn't give him too big a piece," sez I anxiously; "you know you hain't got a bit to spare, specially at this time."

Oh, how I watched over that man day by day! I wanted the peppermint more for him than for me. I laid out if he seemed likely to break down to give him a peppermint sling.

Not that I am one of them who when fur away from home dash out into forbidden paths and dissipation, but I didn't consider peppermint sling wrong anyway, there hain't much stimulant to it.

Well, we started out for the Fair in pretty good season in the mornin', Billy Huff offered to go and put us on the right car, so he walked ahead with Blandina, Josiah and I follerin' clost in their rears. Blandina looked up at him and follered his remarks as clost and stiddy as a sunflower follers the sun. She had told me that mornin' whilst I wuz gittin' ready to start that he wuz the loveliest young man she had ever met, and a woman would be happy indeed who won him for her consort. And I said, as I pinned my collar on more firmly with my cameo pin, that I presoomed that he would make a good man and pardner when he growed up.

And she said, "Difference in age don't count anything when there is true love." Sez she, "Look at Aaron Burr and Lord Baconsfield," and she brung up a number more for me to look at mentally, whilst I wuz drapin' my mantilly round my frame in graceful folds.

But I told her I didn't seem to want to spend my time on them old ghosts that mornin', havin' such a big job on my hands to tackle that day as first chaperone to Josiah, and I got her mind off for the time bein', by the time I had fastened on my mantilly so the tabs hung as I wanted 'em to hang.

CHAPTER V.

Josiah wuz for goin' into the show by the entrance nighest to Miss Huff's, but I said, "No, that may do for other times, but when I first enter this Fair ground as a Observer" (for in our visit to the Inside Inn we wuz only weary wayfarers, too tired to observe, and the Sabbath we felt wuz no time to jot down impressions). No, this day I felt wuz in reality our dayboo, and I sez impressively, "I will not go sneakin' in by any side door or winder, I'm goin' to enter by the main gateway."

Josiah kinder hummed:

"Broad is the road that leads to death
And thousands walk together there."

But when he found we could go in there at the same price he didn't parley further, and Billy took us to the car that would leave us where I wanted to be.

The main entrance is in itself a noble sight worth goin' milds and milds to see, a long handsome buildin' curvin' round gracefully some in shape like a mammoth U only bendin' round more at the ends, and endin' with handsome buildin's, and tall pillars decorate the hull length and flags wave out nobly all along on top.

Mebby it wuz meant for a U and meant Union, a name good enough for entrance into anything or anywhere. And if it wuz I approved on't, and would encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so if they'd asked me beforehand. Union! a name commandin' world-wide respect, writ in blue and gray on millions of hearts, sealed with precious blood.

The centre of the long buildin' peaks up and arches over you in such a lofty and magnificent way that you feel there some as Miss Sheba must have felt when she went to visit Mr. and Miss Solomon or the Misses Solomon, I spoze I ort to say, he had a variety of wives, though it is nothin' I ever approved on, and would told him so if I'd had the chance.

But good land! Mr. Solomon never had any sights to show Miss Sheba approachin' this Fair, I wouldn't been afraid to take my oath on't.

We riz the flight of steps which hundreds and hundreds could rise similtaneously and abreast, paid our three fares and went in. And when you first stand inside of that gate the beauty jest strikes you in your face some like a great flash of lightnin', only meller and happifyin' instead of blindin'.

And the vastness of it as you look on every side on you impresses you so you feel sunthin' as you would if you wuz sot down on the Desert of Sara, and Sara wuz turned into vistas of bewilderin' beauty towards every pint of her compass.

There wuz broad, smooth paths leadin' out on every side all on 'em full of folks from every country in the world, and clad in every costoom you ever see or ever didn't see before. Folks in plain American dress side by side with dark complected folks wropped up seemin'ly in white sheets, jest their black-bearded faces and flashin' eyes gleamin' at you from the drapery. Then there would be mebby a pretty young girl with a rose-bud face under a lace parasol. Two sweet-faced nuns in sombry black with their pure white night caps on under their clost black bunnets and veils, and follerin' them some fierce lookin' creeters in red baggy trousers embroidered jackets and skull caps with long tossels on 'em; Persians mebby, or Arabs.

As Josiah looked at these last I hearn him murmur as if to himself, "Why under the sun didn't Samantha put in my dressin' gown with tossels, and the smokin' cap Thomas J. gin me, I could showed off some then."

But I pretended not to hear him for my eyes wuz fastened on the passin' pageant. Smart lookin' bizness men with handsome well-dressed wives and children, then a Injun with striped blanket, beaded moccasins and head-dress of high feathers. Then a American widder, mebby a plain one, and mebby grass; then some more wimmen. Then some Chinamen with long dresses and pig-tails follered by some gawky, awkwud country folks; some more smart-lookin' Americans. Some English tourists with field-glasses strapped over one shoulder. Some Fillipinos in yellerish costoom. Then a kodak fiend ready to aim at anything or nothin' and hit it; then some Scotchmen in Tarten dress and follerin' clost some Japans, lots and lots of them scattered along. Then some brown children and their mothers, the children dressed mostly in a sash and some beads, and some more pretty white children dressed elaborate, and some niggers, and some soldiers, and some more wimmen, and more folks, and some more, and some more, in a stiddy and endless stream.

Good land! I couldn't sort out and describe them that passed by in an hour even, no more than I could sort out and describe the slate stuns in Jonesville creek, and you well know that wagon loads could be took out of one little spot.

Josiah said to me, "Why jest to look at this crowd, Samantha, pays anybody for comin' here clear from the Antipathies."

Sez I, "Josiah, you mean the Antipodes."

"I mean what I say!" he snapped out, "and les's be movin' on, no use standin' here all day."

He don't love to be corrected. But truly that immense and strangely assorted crowd constantly comin', constantly goin' and changin' all the time wuz a sight well worth comin' from Jonesville to see, even if we didn't see a thing more. But, oh, what didn't we see! what a glorious sight as our eyes left the crowd and looked 'round us. Why the wonder and beauty on't fairly struck you in the face some like a flash of lightnin' only more meller and happifyin'.

There you are in the beautiful Court of St. Louis. And right in the centre sets Saint Louis himself on a prancin' horse, holdin' up a cross, I wuz glad to see that cross held up as if in benediction over all the immense crowd below, it seemed as if it begun the Fair right, jest as it begins the week right to go to meetin' Sunday.

I always sot store by Saint Louis. Leadin' them Crusades of hisen to protect Christians and free the Holy Land from lawless invaders. How much I thought on him for it. Though I could advised him for his good in lots of things if I'd been 'round.

Now his marryin' a girl twelve years old who ort to been in pantalettes and high aprons, I should tried to break it up, I should told him plain and square that I wouldn't have heard for a minute to his marryin' our Tirzah Ann at that age. She shouldn't married him if he'd been King Louis twenty or thirty instead of nine. But I wuzn't there and he went on and had his way, as men will.

But he acted noble in lots of things, made a wise ruler and a generous one, lived and died like a hero. And I was glad to see him riz up in such a sightly place, holdin' up the cross he wuz willin' to give his life for.

He looked first rate, he wore a sort of a helmet and had a cloak on, shaped some like my long circle cape, only it didn't set so good, and I wuz sorry they didn't have my pattern to cut it by. Hisen kinder curled up at the back, they ort to cut it ketterin'. Two noble statutes stood on each side on him, kinder guardin' him as it were, though he didn't need it as long as he clung to the cross. Scattered all along by the side of the broad paths wuz little green oasises, on which the splendor-tired and people-tired eyes could rest and recooperate a little.

In front of you quite a little ways off on each side stood immense snow-white palaces each one on 'em seemin' more beautiful than the last one you looked at, full of sculptured beauty and with long, long rows of pearl white collumns and ornaments of all kinds. Beyond, but still as it were in the foreground, as it ort to, high up on a lofty pedestal stood the statute of Peace.

My pardner, who for reasons named, wuz inclined to pick flaws in this glorious Exposition, sez to me:

"What's the use of sculpin' Peace up on so high a monument and showin' her off as if she wuz safe and sound, and then histin' cannons up right by her throwin' balls that will travel twenty milds and then knock her sky high."

I sithed, but almost onbeknown to myself looked at the Cross, and hoped that that divine light would go ahead through the wilderness of world warfare makin' a safe path, so Peace could git down from her high monument bime-by and walk round some through the world without gittin' her head blowed off.

Smilin' and gleamin' jest beyond wuz the bright sunny waters on which little boats painted in bright colors with gay awnin's wuz glidin' about here and there, and bursts of melodious song come from the gayly attired boatmen anon or oftener. And furder on wuz the Grand Basin, a large beautiful piece of water, and back on't down a green hill seventy feet high leaps and bounds and gurgles and sings three glitterin' cascades, each one seemin' to start out from a splendid buildin' up on the hill.

The ones on the side smaller, but the middle one a grand and stately palace called Festival Hall, and jinin' these three buildin's together are what they call the Collonnade of States. A impressive row of snow-white pillows, and on them pillows, settin' up in the place of honor, are big statutes of female wimmen, fourteen in number, symbolic of the original States of the Louisiana Purchase.

I wanted to go right up to Festival Hall the first minute, it didn't seem fur it wuz through such seens of bewilderin' beauty, but a bystander standin' by said it wuz half a mild.

But Josiah kinder nudged me and said, "Mebby we'd better take the Immoral Railway. With you by my side, Samantha, I feel I can face its dangers."

Sez I, "Where has your principle gone that you had this mornin',
Josiah?"

"I have got it, Samantha, jest the same; I hain't used none this time o' day. But I thought I would kinder love to tell the brethren I'd rid on it." And before I could parley with him he asked that same bystander, a good lookin' iron gray man,

"Where is the Immoral Railway?"

"The Intre Moral Railway starts there," sez he, pintin' to a place quite nigh to us.

"Intre Moral," sez I to myself; "that is a good name." And as we wended our way to it through the crowds of folks of every name and nation I sez to myself, "I'd love to ride on it." For havin' naterally so scientific and deep a mind I love to trace back words like little rivulets, to their source, and see where they spring from. For meandering through the ages they gather lots of foreign stuff and take queer turns.

Intre Moral, I took it that that meant extra moral. I liked the sound on't, and we got on and rode quite a spell, and see everything we could, and when we went clear 'round on that, we got onto a big ortomobile and rid 'round on that so's we could see the hull Fair as it were in one picture, before we examined its glories more minutely one by one.

[Illustration]

And I should have took sights of comfort viewin' the magnificent seens spread out and growin' and changin' every minute if I hadn't had to kep' one eye onto Josiah Allen all the time, or as you may say two eyes, one my own gray orb and the other the eye of my specs. The seen wuz so hugely grand, so magnificently stupendous, and the mind that it wuz my duty as first chaperone to guard wuz so small I sez to myself, could it be bombarded by that immense grandeur and not utterly collapse. But Blandina wuz on the other side on him, so I didn't feel as I should had the responsibility devolved on me alone.

But he bore it well. He looked off on the seen grander than anything Fairy Land ever dremp on or ever will, I believe. And then he looked pensively at my silk bag where I'd stored all the cookies and nut-cakes it would hold, to keep up his strength between meals.

And so gradually I dropped my agonizing anxiety and let my eyes drink in the onequalled beauty of the seen as we went by the tall glorious palaces towerin' up in white magnificence. Past sparklin' water spaces filled with gay pleasure craft full of happy white-robed voyagers. Past the spans of arched bridges leadin' from one seen of glory to another, past tall white shafts carryin' up to the listenin' Heavens deeds of glory and valor.

Past white statutes more beautiful than poet's dreams, risin' up from green velvet lawns or marble terraces. Broad highways would dawn on our vision, anon vistas of incomparable beauty way off, way off as fur as we could see would open up other views jest as fair. Anon the columned walls of some nearby palace would seem to close in the view, and then agin the fur vision, and anon the blue waters flowin' on and on. And scattered all over the ground roamed the happy people, men, wimmen and children of every name and nation, clothed in every garb that folks ever wore under the sun, and some, it seemed to me, made up jest for that occasion, as Eve started her new fashion of fall dress, only this wuzn't made of leaves, no indeed! fur from it.

But I believe the foreign costoom we see most of all wuz the Japan. And all through the Fair that nation seemed to show off in the very first rank. Well, I wuz willin', I always kinder liked 'em, they're so polite and courteous to everybody, and as for makin' storks and folks settin' on nothin' and lookin' perfectly comfortable settin' on it, they go fur ahead of anybody else, and they have lots of other noble qualities. In cleanin' house time, now I have fairly begreched the ease and comfort of them Japanese housewives who jest take up their mat and sweep out, move their paper walls a little mebby and there it is done.

No heavy, dirt-laden carpets to clean, no papered walls and ceilings to break their back over, no trumpery brickaty brack to take care of and dust and make life a burden. Kind hearted, reverent to equals and superiors—trained to kindness and courtesy and reverence in childhood when American mothers are ruled and badgered by short skirted and roundabout clad tyrants.

I set store by the Japans and am glad to hear how fast they're pressin' forwards in every path civilization has opened; science, art and the best education. And wuz glad to see so many of 'em here. They could give Uncle Sam a good many lessons if he wuz willin' to take 'em. But good as he is he is a heady old creeter, and won't be driv into anything and has a powerful good opinion of himself.

But to resoom forwards. After we'd gone the complete 'round of the Intre Moral Railway and ortemobile we got out agin on the Plaza not fur from where we embarked, and at my request we took a boat. Josiah chose one of the handsomest ones with the front end kinder bowin' up and a bright-colored awnin' over it; they called it a gondola.

The gondolier had bold flashin' black eyes and a gay suit that struck Josiah's fancy, and I knowed by his looks he wuz meditatin' on what Might Have Been. I felt that he wuz in fancy rowin' a boat up our creek in a red coat and green hat with yeller feathers mebby, carryin' sister Submit Tewksbury or sister Gowdey, sailin' towards his own Exposition of St. Josiah. There wuz a sad pensive look on his liniment that belonged to ruined hopes and blighted emotions.

Blandina whispered to me she thought the gondolier a image of beauty and wondered if he had a companion; she said she believed he would be devoted to a wife if he had one that looked up to him.

I answered her like one talkin' onbeknown to herself, two of my eyes and my spectacles furtively watchin' the liniment of my beloved pardner, and my speritual eyes feastin' on the perfect loveliness of the seen. Broad smooth waters how beautiful they were, dotted with craft similar to ourn and freighted with happy voyagers dartin' here and there, and some of the boats wuz the queerest shapes, one on 'em looked jest exactly like a big white swan, and there wuz one, if you'll believe it, that looked like a sea serpent, I wouldn't have rid in it for a dollar bill, though Josiah said he'd love to tell Deacon Henzy that he'd straddled the old sea serpent and rid to shore on it.

But I sez, "Good land, Josiah, you don't ride on the outside on it, there is a place fixed inside somewhere for passengers."

But most of the boats wuz handsome. Anon the water lay smooth and fair about us, and fur off we could see immense fountains risin' right up out of the glassy surface, sprayin' up and glitterin' down floods of rainbow glory.

Agin we landed on terry firmy I a feelin' as if we wuz roamin' through Fancy's fields, for it seemed as if cold Reality never could have planned anything approachin' what wuz all round us. For as you draw nigh the glittering Cascades you fairly stop bewildered by the beauty, and most want to shet your eyes on it, not knowin' what path to choose where all are so bagonin' full of allurements and the hull world seemin' to be allured there by 'em. On one side the glory of the waters dashing, sparkling, bounding along down, with fountains sprayin' up every little while, and white statutes smilin' down on us nigher by. On the other side green verdure and beyond and on every side the glory of the water, and above us the most magnificent buildin' in the world flanked on each side with the long Colonnade of States.

And speakin' of statutes, jest think of the sculptured groups we passed by that eventful day, more'n I could describe in a month of Sundays. Louis and Clark, the very men I'd read about in Gasses Journal, how I wished their eyes could see and their ears hear me. How interested and proud they would have been to hear me tell how even as a child I loved to hear mother Smith read about their journeyin's into the new and onexplored country, findin' swamps and stumps and savages, where now wuz smilin' gardens and palaces. Then there was Robert Livingstone, and Franklin, noble high souled old creeter, I always loved him in a meetin' house sense, drawin' down lightnin' and so forth—he wuz the very Pa of electricity as you may say.

And James Monroe, and Boone, and Settin' Bull, yes there wuz Settin'
Bull settin' or ruther standin' right in that great company. And all on
'em mute and onafraid, onmindful of the presence of a Samantha and
Josiah, I felt to pity 'em.

But the noblest meanin' statute of all in my eyes wuz right in front of the main Cascade. There stood a immense statute of Liberty, raisin' the veil of Ignorance and protectin' Truth and Justice. Ignorance don't want her eyes oncovered, she'd 'drather keep on blind as a bat. But Liberty hain't goin' to mind her, she wuz bound to git the bandages off; I wanted to encourage her in it and I waved my hand towards her and smiled in lovin' greetin'. Josiah thought I wuz flirtin', and asked me anxiously if I'd got sight of any man from Jonesville. I wouldn't dain to reply to him—at my age! and with my reputation to carry round! The idee!

Well, when we stood on the stun balcony over the spot where the central cascade gushes out, what a seen lay spread out before us. You can look off two milds one way and most a mild another. And wuz there ever in the world milds so crowded full of beauty and each beauty differin' from the other as one star differs from another in glory. Eight magnificent palaces are in full sight, their walls bathed by the blue waters, and beyond 'em, interspersed by green foliage, wuz a perfect wilderness of towers, minarets, domes, banners, battlements.

I hain't goin' to describe what I looked down on, for I can't. No, if I had a big book of synonyms to the words Grand and Glorious and used every one on 'em tryin' to describe that seen I couldn't begin to do justice to it, and so what is the use of tryin' with the Jonesville vocabulary.

And if I can't describe it, don't for pity sake ask Josiah Allen to, for you might know that if I couldn't he wouldn't stand no chance. But I hearn him gin a sort of gaspin' sithe as he looked, and Blandina I believe forgot for a few minutes her passionate though chaste, overrulin' passion.

As magnificent as the hull of St. Louis Exposition is, it naterally has one spot handsomer than the rest, a particular beauty spot as you may say. Why every house has it. The beauty of my parlor kinder branches out, as you may say, from my new rep rocker, a lovely work of art that cost over six dollars. I keep it in the sightliest place, where the eye of man can fall on it at first. And the central beauty spot of the Fair wuz centered in the place I have been talkin' about.

I'd hearn that it wuz some the shape of a fan and we had talked it over between us, whether it would look like my best paper fan I carry to meetin' Sundays, or my big turkey feather fan. But, good land! they dwindled down so in my mind while I stood there that I might be said to never have sot my eyes on a turkey's feather, or a turkey or anything. It is a spectacle that once seen is never forgot.

The central spot, or handle of the fan (in allegory), is occupied by Festival Hall and on either side stretches out the beautiful Collonnade of States with its lovely and heroic female wimmen settin' up there as if sort o' takin' care of the hull concern. I spoke to Blandina about it, how pleased I wuz to see my sect settin' up so high in the place of honor, and she sez:

"Oh, Aunt Samantha, I cannot rejoice with you, it rasps my very soul to see men slighted! What would the world do without men?"

"Well," sez I, wantin' to please her, "men do come handy lots of times. But," sez I reasonably, "the world wouldn't last long if it wuzn't for wimmen." But to resoom.

At each end of the Collonnade, peakin' up a little higher, is a sort of a round shaped buildin', beautiful in structure, where food can be obtained. And knowin' the effect on men of good food I knowed this wuz a sensible idea, for no matter how festivious a man may be, and probably is in Festival Hall, yet his appetite stretches out on both sides on him jest as it wuz depicted here. And female wimmen stand between him and starvation most of the time. I considered the hull thing highly symbolical and loved to see it.

But jest think of a magnificent picture containin' all that is most beautiful in land and water, extendin' in a graceful, curvin' way three thousand feet. Why that's as fur as from our house over the Ebenezer Bobbettses, and I d'no but furder, and every foot and inch of it perfectly beautiful. How much land do you spoze is took up by this central spot of beauty? Now if I should ask sister Sylvester Gowdey, who always thinks she knows everything worth knowin', if I should say, "How much land do you spoze, sister Gowdey, is took up by jest this central beauty spot of the Fair?" I'll bet she'd say, "Mebby half an acre."

But I'd say, "Melissy, it occupies six hundred acres."

I d'no as sister Gowdey would believe me, but it's so, the livin' truth. Why, the three Cascades are three hundred feet long. Beautiful in the daytime as a dream of Paradise! fancy it in the evening when thousands and thousands of colored lights lend their glowin' charm to the seen. Why you almost cover your eyes from the bewilderin' glory on't. And as I said to Josiah, "We shall never see another seen so beautiful till we see Jerusalem the Golden descend before our rapt vision." And he bein' kinder fraxious, sez:

"I hain't seen that yet, nor you nuther."

"By the eye of Faith I have, Josiah."

"Well, tain't no time or place for preachin', we better be gittin' along!"

Right under the main Cascade we went down into a beautiful grotto all lighted up, with one hull side of the room made of fallin' water. I never expected to step into such a place. I have felt perfectly satisfied when I've papered over my dining-room with paper a shillin' a roll, and it did look well. But what wuz it to this? Refreshments are served down there clost to the sparklin' liquid side of the room, and Josiah wantin' to go the hull figure, set down and eat a nut-cake which I gin him.

They say stimulants can be obtained down here. And mebby they can, them that seek can generally find, there wuz a serpent in Paradise; but I didn't see any, I spoze the noble look on my face would dant any dealer in such pizen from displayin' it to me. And it ain't likely that Josiah with two chaperones would set eyes on any.

CHAPTER VI.

The two side cascades represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Josiah sez in a kinder patronizing way, "They're likely Cascades, but I can't see in what way they represent oceans."

And I sez, "It hain't for you to know everything, Josiah, you hain't expected to. Such knowledge would be more than you with your small frame could stand up under."

"Oh, keep throwin' my size in my face. It's a pity I hain't a giraffe, then mebby I'd suit you." And he added snappishly, "I'll bet you can't tell yourself how they look like oceans."

And I sez, "I wuz never any hand to tell all I knew, I always thought it wuz best to keep one story back."

But to tell the truth I couldn't see how they represented oceans, only they wuz both water, but so is a teacupful of water, or a spunful. Another way they differed from the ocean, the water hain't there all the time, only once in awhile. Josiah, bent on findin' fault, sez:

"Pretty oceans they be! Dry land most all the time."

But I sez, "I've always wished the Atlantic would dry up long enough for me to go over afoot or with the old mair, like the Israelites over the Red Sea, I'd start to-morry." I'm afraid of deep water. Why half the time I'm afraid of our creek and dassent go acrost the foot bridge.

But the water wuz there when we see 'em, and the Cascades wuz beautiful as a dream and more beautiful than lots of mine, specially when I'm tired out.

As to representin' the two oceans, I spoze it means them beautiful golden tinted statutes, the Spirit of the Atlantic and the Spirit of the Pacific that stands at the head of the Cascades.

Well, we hung round there a long time, and finally at my request we went into Festival Hall and sot down a spell and rested. And I thought as I sot there I'd like to ask Sister Gowdey how big she thought this buildin' wuz. She would never dream it covered two hull acres, but it duz, three or four thousand people can set in it, and its organ is the biggest in the world, more than ten thousand pipes in it and each pipe as full of music as an egg is of meat.

The two pipes havin' the lowest notes a small horse can walk through or two good-sized men standin' side by side. So you can imagine the streams of melody that can float through them immense channels. It has one hundred and forty stops, every one on 'em that will stop if told to quick as a wink.

It took a train of ten cars to bring it from Los Angelus where it wuz made. You can imagine how its music fairly shakes the ground and carries you off your feet, seemin'ly like the very music of the spears.

Good land! what's Tirzah Ann's organ compared to it? And I thought that wuz as good as any they make, the agent said it wuz; we paid over sixty dollars for it.

And who do you think dedicated this most beautiful structure that wuz ever built, to the music of the biggest organ in the world'? Why, it wuz woman, my own female sect. I tell you it made me proud to think on't. It wuz told me by one that wuz there that it wuz filled with wimmen on that occasion, and as many men as could git in after the wimmen wuz seated.

Jest think on't, oh, my sect! who have been used to sneakin' up back stairs to look down on men seated in state at banquet tables, or peak from the gallery at the Capitol to see 'em nobly engaged in makin' laws to govern her, tellin' her how to spend the money she earned herself, and how long to send her to jail, and where and when to hang her, and etcetery; while she could only jest peak at 'em. Oh, my soul! wuzn't it a agreeable state of affairs the doin's here at Festival Hall? As I said to Josiah as we sot there, "Don't it show my sect is lookin' up?"

And he said he never found wimmen backward in lookin' up, he said he never see a place that would dant 'em and stop their tongues from waggin'. He made light of the great incident and would been glad to had men dedicate it; indeed he jest the same as told me he felt the Exposition had stood in its own light in not havin' a certain leadin' man in Jonesville, who wuz way up in political and moral life, havin' held the offices of path-master and deacon. "But," sez he, with some bitterness of sperit and speakin' skornfully:

"What if wimmen did dedicate it? They can git up dressed in their silks and shiffoniers, and talk, talk, but they can't vote no matter how well off they be. They've got to pony up and pay taxes and toe the mark in law jest as men tell 'em to."

"Why," sez he, warmin' with his subject, "we men can set on you in juries and you can't help yourselves, and hang you and so forth. And you W.C.T.U. wimmen would have to let your tax money go to pay for drinkin' shacks if we men of Jonesville, and the world, took it into our heads to make you. Why," sez he, lookin' more and more big feelin' as he went on, as why shouldn't he, as he recounted men's glorious advantages,

"Nate Flanders, who is most a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him and git him ready for the pole, he callin' on his wife, Nancy, to put on every identical garment and tell where it went, and when they got him to the pole he wouldn't vote because Nance wuzn't there to tell him which ticket to vote. She'd jest kep' that voter alive for years, and been head and hands for him, but she couldn't vote and he could."

Everybody has seen hosses run off the track when they wuz goin' too fast; Josiah wuz so engaged in runnin' wimmen's pride down, he didn't realize where he wuz gallopin' to. "And there wuz Jane Ellis who lost her husband and two boys through drinkin', she had to let her tax money be used to help nominate a license man, who opened a liquor saloon right under her nose, and the last boy she had took to drinkin' and killed himself last week drunk as a fool."

"I'd be ashamed to boast of that, Josiah Allen, I'd be ashamed on't."

"Well," sez he, lookin' kinder meachin', "I didn't say I approved of that, I only said it to prove how weak and triflin' a thing woman really is in the eyes of the law." And the rubber-like self-esteem of a male, havin' sprung back in full force, he went on:

"Why, Miss Corkins, up to Zoar, that pays bigger taxes than any man in town, earnt it all herself too in the millionary bizness, why, that snub-nosed nigger that drives for her can vote, and she can't. And then I'd talk about dedicatin' the biggest buildin' in the world, singin' hims on the biggest organ and lettin' a few men into the back door—I wouldn't feel so big about it if I wuz you.

"Why, we men jest throw such little compliments in the way of females to keep you contented, jest as I throw crumbs from the table to Bruno to home and pat him on the back. He knows he can't come to the table. We men jest hang onto the ballot; wimmen hain't goin' to git holt of that in a hurry and boss us round, no indeed!"

Oh, how obstrepolous and important he did talk and act! And Blandina lookin' up so admirin' at him and agreein' to every word he said, jest for all the world like an anty, seemed to rile me worse than anything else. But as long as I couldn't dispute a word he said, knowin' it wuz as true as gospel, I kep' demute, and hoped he would take it for a dignified silence that wouldn't dain to argy.

Well, we had our lunch in a box and a bottle of cold tea, and we eat it, and rested quite a spell, Josiah's good nater returnin' with every mouthful he took, till by the time we got ready to start out agin, he wuz as clever a critter as I want to see.

I wanted to tackle the Palace of Arts next, as it wuz quite nigh by considerin'. The Fair grounds are so immense that you have to travel quite a distance to git anywhere. But Josiah said he wanted to see sunthin' that wuz of practical use, ondervaluin' beauty, the great Power, as some do. He wanted to see sunthin' solid, such as mines and metals. And of course Blandina jined in with him, and though that is what I wanted of her, as second chaperone, it provoked me time and agin; queer, hain't it?

So as that too wuz quite nigh by, we went to the Palace of Mines and Metals. It wuz a beautiful buildin', the walls covered with ornamental carvin' and ornaments, and two tall pillars standin' up each side of the entrance as if they wuz two Genis jealously guardin' the Under World from intrusion. But we got by 'em. And what didn't we see there? Everything that wuz ever dug out of the earth, and the way it wuz discovered, mined and made useful to man.

Gems, precious stuns, granite, marble and all the processes for cutting and polishing. Minerals of all kinds, natural mineral paints and fertilizers, cement, luminants and waters. Asbestos, mica, coal, coal oil and all the machinery for refining and storing it. Displays for natural gas, petroleum; everything relating to lighting mines; safety lamps; oils; electricity; acetyline. Most interestin' display in geology; all kinds of rocks; crystal; clay; ores; nickel and all the metals for making iron and steel and makin' 'em right there before you. Explosives used in the Under World. Everything relating to the workin' of salt mines; oil wells; metals, photographs; maps, illustrating how these riches of the earth wuz deposited, and all the machinery for collecting and making them useful to man.

And there wuz a place where we could see a miner's cabin, and miners at work, blasting, draining, driving tunnels, drilling, traveling underground. A gold mill; a New Mexican turquoise mine; a lead, zinc and copper mine, all working there before us; and a coal mine discovered there on the Exposition grounds, an underground railway connected these two mines. And all sorts of mineral waters, queer things they be flowin' side by side out of the same ground as different as water and wine. And there wuz a foundry and mint for makin' money.

Imagine a buildin' coverin' nine acres full of such interestin' sights, and thirteen acres out-doors. For you must remember that it wuz not only the riches of America's Under World, but the wealth of England, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Japan and in fact every foreign nation. Josiah reveled in it, and so did Blandina vicariously. And I enjoyed it too, for I always wuz wonderin' what wuz goin' on under my feet, and now I had a glimpse on't.

Well, we stayed there a long time and went from there into Manufactures Buildin', when who should we meet but Uncle Giles Petigrew, a M.E. deacon who used to live in Zoar but who had moved to St. Louis some years before. We used to know him well. He wuz a old man when he left Zoar, and had lost four wives a runnin' before he left there, and of course I didn't know how many he'd lost since he come West, I see he wore a mournin' weed, and mistrusted he'd lost another, and so it turned out. It beats all what bad luck he has had. He wuzn't to blame for any one on 'em, 'tennyrate them that passed away at Zoar, and I spozed it wuz jest the same here. Never pizened any of 'em, or divorced 'em or anything, it wuz jest his bad luck.

He seemed real glad to see us and wuz dretful chipper for a man most a hundred; he got hold of my hand and shook it as if he never would leggo, and went right on confidin' in me about his lost companion, what a treasure she wuz, and what a loss.

And I sez, "Your wives wuz real nice wimmen, most all on 'em wuz, or them that I knowed."

"Oh, yes," sez he, "and these blows that has fell on me has most onmanned me."

And I sez in pityin' axents, "You won't try to git another wife, will you, Uncle Giles?"

"Yes, I shall, as long as the Lord keeps a takin', I shall—is that woman with Josiah a widder?"

I answered evasive, and kinder stepped in between him and Blandina, I didn't want her to hear what he wuz sayin', I dassent. It wouldn't been best for her to married a man most a hundred. And I knowed her soft nater made her a willin' martyr to widower's wiles. Age made no difference to Blandina. And I dassent venter to let him git nearer to her. So I bid him a hasty good-by and linked my arm into hern and led her away. She lookin' back and sayin', "How agreeable and willin' a lookin' man that wuz," and I hurried her on fast to Manufactures Buildin'—stoppin' by the way to see the beautiful Sunken Garden.

The display in Manufactures is so large that they fill two immense palaces, Manufacturers and Varied Industries, and you'd git lost you couldn't help it, amongst the bewilderin' and endless native and foreign displays, only the aisles are divided off into streets and squares, all the same width, so you can git 'round first-rate. And if you had ten or fifteen years you could spend here you might possibly see most of the displays of your own native land and all the foreign countries. These two palaces cover twenty-eight acres, as big as Luman Gowdey's farm that he gits a good livin' on, and the hull twenty-eight acres are full of interestin' sights. You can walk nine miles in it right ahead—as fur as from Jonesville way up to Zoar, and back agin.

And jest think of every single thing that wuz ever manufactured from a hatpin to a rose-wood bedstead, and from a needle to a piano, and there it wuz in plain sight if you could git to it, for truly you got bewildered amongst the endless displays. Furniture, upholstery, all sorts of cloth, silk, wool and cotton that wuz ever woven, all kinds of silver and gold, and pearl and jet and shell and ivory articles that wuz ever used, clocks, watches, jewels, embroideries, laces, carpets, curtains, wall paper, stationery, hardware, glass and crystal, furs, bronze, ironware, leather goods, stained glass, artists' supplies, tailor shop, rubber store, toy store.

But good land! what is the use of tryin' to name 'em over? I couldn't do it if I had a blank book as big as a dictionary and writ it full. But you can jest think of everything manufactured you ever see, or ever didn't see and there it wuz, and more and more and more, and I might fill pages with "mores," but what use would it be.

But one of the best things we see at the hull Fair wuz there in the Palace of Varied Industries. For to the thinkin' mind, the countless display of articles, the marvels and magnificence of this Exposition is not its main value, but its educational worth, its power to inspire and teach the people of the world better ways of living and working, how to make the most and best of life for themselves and others. And among the educational exhibits one of the most interestin' to my mind is the one I speak on in the Varied Industries Palace.

The company that displays this has other interestin' exhibits at different places at the Exposition, but here they have a display that I wish the head of every big concern that employs labor could see and study and take to heart. This company employs thousands of men and wimmen in makin' a machine that wonderfully simplifies labor.

But where the real educational value comes in hain't in the machine itself, or the makin' on't, though that's interestin', but the way this company treats its employees.

You sit in a neat little theatre, fitted up with easy seats, and electric fans and every comfort, and right in front of you, throwed onto a big screen, are pictures from real life showin' Capital and Labor dwellin' together like a lion and a lamb, and the child Justice leadin' 'em.

Here you see and hear in the interestin' talk of the lecturer pictures from the old time, when the company first begun its work up to the gigantic plant and immense buildings of to-day. You see a woman tryin' to warm some coffee over a radiator, they say the president of the company see that, and it first made him think of furnishin' a lunch room with a kitchen and every convenience for his employees.

You see pictures of the women employees goin' to their work a half hour later than the men, so the cars won't be so crowded. You see 'em at their recreation time of fifteen minutes, at ten in the forenoon and three in the afternoon, goin' through their physical exercises, or some other recreation to brighten 'em up for the rest of the day.

Then you see 'em at their clubs and classes, or playing tennis or baseball, or in the big auditorium built for their use, listenin' to some great orator or fine musician. These employees are not drudges, but joy is labor and labor is joy.

Then there is a picture showing a street of the homes of these employees, pretty houses with windows and doorways covered with vines and bright blossoms, makin' a picture of what some say is the most beautiful street in the world.

And there are pictures of noted people who have been there to study and learn their methods, folks from foreign countries, who will carry the blessed and beautiful example seen here to other lands. In one view is a Prince and Princess who went there to learn their ways, lookin' admirin'ly on. In another is a Cardinal givin' his benediction to thousands of the happy workers.

It is a sermon better than is often preached, what you see there in that little theatre. It is Love and Labor and Beauty and Joy walkin' hand in hand. I wuz highly tickled with it, and spent a glad hour here.

But Josiah and I thought we'd seen enough for one day, and would go home. But Blandina wanted to look over the articles of men's wearin' apparell a little more; I don't see what comfort they wuz to her but she said, "They brought back memories." And I spoze they did make her think of Teeter and mebby his possible successor. But one thing, I believe, that made her want to stay, we met Billy Huff jest as we wuz comin' out of the buildin', and Blandina proposed that she should stay a little longer with him and I gin a willin' consent, more willin' it seemed to me than Billy wuz, though he couldn't refuse to escort home a guest of the house.

But Josiah and I went home and both on us used some anarky on our tired limbs, and he cleaned the mud offen our shoes, for truly it wuz faithful and stuck by us.

It had rained the night before and that made it dretful muddy, Josiah acted real grouty about it and sot there mutterin' and complainin' about the mud till I got kinder wore out and sez:

"For mercy sake! I guess you've seen mud before, Josiah Allen. Think of our Jonesville streets after a heavy rain."

"Well, they never wuz so muddy that I lost the old mair in 'em, and a man told me to-day that they lost a elephant here the other day, it went right down in the mud out of sight, and they never see hide or hair of him agin."

"Don't you believe that, Josiah Allen; it hain't no such thing, I hearn all about it, the elephant didn't go clear in. He didn't go more than half in, they could see his back all the time and they got him out all right."

"Well, that's furder in the mud than the old mair ever went enough sight, and I never could have faced my country agin, if the streets had been so muddy at my Exposition."

"Don't be pickin' flaws all the time, Josiah. There is enough of beauty and grandeur here to satisfy any common man."

"But I hain't a common man, Samantha, and never wuz called so."

"Well, oncommon then, there is enough beauty here to satisfy an oncommon man."

That seemed to molify him, and he gin in that it wuz a pretty good show. But in many things inferior to what hisen would have been if he'd carried it out. But I discouraged all such morbid idees and led his mind off onto sunthin' else.

That evenin' whilst Josiah went out to mail a letter Blandina come into my room and sez the first thing, "Aunt Samantha, I love him passionately but my love is scorned by him."

And she busted into tears. I didn't ask no questions, but from Billy's icy demeanor at supper table and Blandina's sentimental grief-stricken linement I mistrusted she'd made overtoors to him that had been rejected.

But I tried to turn her mind 'round by showin' her a letter I'd jest got from Maggie, my son, Thomas Jefferson's wife, tellin' me that her sister Molly, who had been visitin' a college friend in the South, had come home much sooner than she had been expected and seemed run down and most sick.

But she wuz bound to go to the Fair and they thought it wouldn't hurt her to go, as there didn't seem to be anything serious the matter with her only she seemed melancholy and out of sperits, it seemed to be her mind that wuz ailin' more than her body. And would I if there wuz room in my boardin' place take her in and mother her a little. Maggie couldn't come herself, she wuzn't feelin' strong enough, and Thomas J. won't leave her, specially if anything ails her, no indeed! he jest worships her, and visey versey she him.

I can't deny my first thought on readin' the letter wuz, another straw to be laid on the back of the camel, meanin' myself in metafor. But my second thought wuz I should be glad to have her come, for she is a lovely girl and I set store by her. She's been away to school and college for years, but I had often seen her durin' her vacations at Thomas Jefferson's.

Maggie had showed her letters to me that she had writ whilst she wuz away South on this visit to her friend. One young man's name run through 'em like the theme to a great melody, and then all to once stopped, and though Maggie and I hadn't passed a word on the subject I mistrusted more than Maggie mistrusted I did about the cause of Molly bein' so deprested.

Young folks will be young folks! young blood can't run slow and stiddy, and how young hearts can ache, ache. The tide that youth sails out on is a restless one, it has its passionate tides, lit by glowing sunshine, and anon by the glare of the tempest. It flows ever and anon smooth, and then agin rough rocks of disappointment checks its swift glad flow, and what it calls despair, but which dwindles down into nothin' more than regret time and agin. It has its low tides, full of the sobbin' of waters that are flowin' back to the depths, and everything seems lost and gone. But anon the tide flows back again and so it goes on, storm and dull calm, sunshine and tempest, and they don't know which is the hardest to endure. That's why youth is so beautiful, so glorious, so tragic.

How I wished I could take Molly (for I loved her) and lift her clear over the breakers into the calm of the deeper, smoother waters that the home going boat finds when it is nearing the nightfall. The calm waters lit by a light, soft and stiddy but sort o' sad like, not like the dancin' sunlight of the mornin', oh no! when the tired mariner looks back over the voyage and gits ready to cast anchor in the Home Haven.

But I knowed I wuz onreasonable to even wish it, for grim old Experience must stand at the hellum every time in everybody's life, and folks hadn't ort to expect dyin' grace to live by; Molly had got to weather the storm of life whether or no and I couldn't help it. But to stop eppisodin' and resoom.

I made a practice of writin' down mornings before I started for the Fair the places I wanted to see that day if the rest of the party consented, and I writ down that mornin' Liberal Arts, Fisheries, Educational Buildin', Electricity, Machinery, Transportation, Horticultural and Agricultural Buildin's and etcetery.

Josiah wanted to know what etcetery meant, and I told him any other place we wanted to see which he said wuz reasonable, and he thought probable he should have to go to some shows on the Pike, he said he had met Uncle Sime Bentley the day before and they talked it over and decided that it seemed to be their duty as solid stiddy men to go to some of the worst shows, specially them that had pretty girls in 'em, so they could be convinced of their iniquity and warn the young Jonesvillians. He said they would take their advice as quick agin if they could warn 'em from experience.

"But Josiah," sez I, "I wouldn't take such a distasteful, hateful job onto me, it hain't your duty to make such a martyr of yourself, specially as you hain't well."

But Josiah said he'd always said "He wouldn't put his hand to the plow and look back," and he and Uncle Sime had talked it all over and agreed they would make the sacrifice for the good of Jonesville. But I meant to break it up; I knowed it wuzn't his duty to nasty up his mind, hopin' to do good by it, when I could never git it cleaned up agin as clean as it wuz before.

CHAPTER VII.

Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.

But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time. And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur, which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.

Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy more than to git her to goin', as he called it.

He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going. She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.

In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little, as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his sex with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described her as holding her son by her apron string, as she termed it.

She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and summer.

She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St. Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been cuttin' up. She sez:

"You know she lacks." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we come.

Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change, so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a nice woman and didn't lack.

But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child—faithful creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her. Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that she seemed to like me.

Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a noble lookin' structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are the pride and glory of our country.

"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong as a bull."

"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that, but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love to be corrected.

And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music, agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools, people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training. Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits, but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the foreign countries.

We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to overcome space, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one, for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and nobody else—wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us, helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.

And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry and intolerance.

And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind, telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.

There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.

There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin' to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any difference.

But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off, strains of music. It's a sight.

And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may discover the secret of seeing? Who knows what divine visitors are this minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another like as not."

And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.

"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. But sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now faintly apprehend."

Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'? You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time for eppisodin', if there ever is a right time."

And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my pardner out of the buildin'.

But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she wouldn't set down if she could.

But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."

Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."

Then Josiah wondered if he couldn't borry the loan of a wheelbarru that would hold me up. He could trundle me along as well as not.

Sez I, "I shall not enter the Palace of Transportation, Josiah Allen, in a wheelbarrow."

"Well, I could probable git in Machinery Hall a pair of big castors and fix 'em onto your shoes, and Blandina and I could push you 'round like a buro. What do you think of that?" sez he anxiously.

"I shall not enter into any such operation!" sez I. "How it would look!"

"I d'no as it would look so dretful, you standin' up straight and easy, and Blandina and I pushin' you along, and 'tennyrate I guess it would look as well as bein' throwed onto the town! chairs cost like the old Harry."

Sez I, "Don't worry, I shall pay with my own butter money." And so I did, and rid to Transportation Buildin' with Josiah and Blandina walkin' by my side. We entered one of its sixty doors, and the first thing we sot our eyes on up in plain sight, but fur ahead wuz the wheels of a great locomotive weighin' more than two hundred thousand pounds, revolvin' 'round in dizzy speed. They said it went by compressed air, another wonder, jest common air that you could dip up in your hand and not think you had anything in it, and yet if managed right had power enough to turn all the machinery we see goin'. Around this monster engine wuz electric head-lights throwin' dazzlin' beams in every direction. The hull thing well named, the Spirit of the Twentieth Century. And all 'round it wuz grouped models showing the development of the inventor's dream from the first rough effort at an engine up to the most perfect specimen of to-day. All sorts of electrical railways, freight and work cars, tracks, switches, signals, carriages, ortomobiles, motor vehicles, naval architecture, models, boats, steamships, men-of-war, battleships of the line.

Exhibits of all sorts, illustrating inland transportation in India, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and every other foreign country. You could see to once that there wuz ways enough to travel, and if you stayed to home it wuz your own fault.

Well, we went from there to Machinery Buildin', that bein' writ down next on my pad. But as we walked along, I considerable riz up in my mind, owin' to what I'd seen, who should we come acrost but the widder Whisher of Loontown, a woman we knew well. She wuz settin' on a bench cryin' as if her heart would break, and I sez:

"Why, sister Whisher, what is the matter?" (She wuz sister in the meetin' house.)

She had a paper in her hand and held it out to us, "Jest see that! I found it in the pocket of my innocent boy!" pintin' to a coat layin' by her.

"Why," sez I, "that paper is took more than any other almost; I like it myself first-rate, its editorials are the brightest and smartest you'll find anywhere."

"Oh, but it is so sensational! so vulgar, so demoralizin' to the tender and innocent heart of youth. And to think that my spotless child that I have guarded so sedgously from every breath of evil should have it concealed in his pocket. I have always burnt every copy I've found." And agin she sobbed, and agin I sez:

"Sister Whisher, don't take it so to heart; he'll have to weather worst storms than this on the sea of life. And you can't expect to be with him always and stand to the hellum."

"Oh, but Reginald Heber is so innocent, so pure-hearted; almost an angel," sez she, "I have been so afraid that he wuz too perfect for this sinful world!" And her tears flowed afresh.

Well, I see I couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better than common children so fur as I could see.

And after goin' a few steps, Josiah and I in advance, Blandina a little in our rears, who should we see comin' directly towards us but Reginald Heber himself. He evidently didn't notice who we wuz, but wuz merely takin' note of a new victim, for after takin' fair aim at my stomach he bent his head down and went, "Choo, choo!—choo, choo!" like a engine and run towards me at full speed, and bunted his round shingled head right into my stomach with almost the force of an arrer shot out of a catamount, yellin' all the while like a demon.

"Git out of the way, you old four-eyed devil you!"

Makin' light of my spectacles, I spoze, though truly I wuz too weak to reason. After doublin' me up in agony he sought safety in flight. But my indignant pardner ketched him by his little short-tailed coat and dragged him back to his ma, hollerin' at her:

"I'll give you a specimen of your innocent boy! He's jest the kind of an innocent angel I'd love to take a hemlock shingle to, and would, if it wuzn't for makin' talk." And he told the hull thing before I could interfere.

She wept afresh, but sez she, lookin' at the whimperin' and strugglin'
Reginald H., "How soon the demoralizin' effects of that paper shows——"

But Josiah continued on in that same loud axent, his liniment red as blood with anger, "If I had your darling to deal with a spell, there would be a change in him, or a funeral appinted, and the body would be ready at the time sot, I can tell you that!"

Josiah wuz fearful excited and by the side of himself. Such voylent language is almost a perfect stranger to him, but he feared for my bones. But I found after walkin' 'round a spell that they wuz intact, but the pain in my stomach hung about me all day, and that night, no matter how high my standin' wuz in the W.C.T.U., I had to take a peppermint sling.

But to resoom backward. Machinery Buildin' wuz an immense beautiful palace. And when I tell you its contents are valued at eight millions you won't expect me to disscribe the hull on 'em, no, it hain't reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over fifty thousand horse-power.

Now, jest think on't, a one horse-power hain't to be despised. Why, I've thought our old mair power when she wuz hitched onto a bob sled wuz powerful. But jest think of fifty thousand horse-power. Why, if they wuz hitched in front of each other with lines about the usual length, the line would reach more than a hundred miles. Why, the very idee is staggerin' to the intellect.

But, there it was right there before our eyes grindin' out power to run this monster Exposition, and not complainin' or needin' the whip as the fifty thousand horses would, only jest knucklin' down stiddy to the work, groanin' considerable loud, and who blames it. And you could see everything in the line of engines from the little half horse-power gas engine, about half the mair's strength, about cow power, mebby, and from this up to a steam turbin of eight thousand horse-power, a rotary steam engine. And in the Belgian exhibit wuz a gas engine of three thousand horse-power, a common sized horse can be driv through its cylinders, it takes about thirty tons of coal a day to run it. And there wuz a big French steam engine turnin' three hundred and thirty times a minute. And there wuz a great hydraulic press from Germany that exerts the terrific pressure of ninety thousand pounds to the square inch—what would it be to the yard? My brain hain't powerful enough to tackle the idee.

Well, there wuz every kind of machinery in the world from all the foreign countries as well as ours, and the methods of making and running them. And we stayed there till my head seemed to turn 'round and 'round, and I told my pardner I must git out into the open air or I should begin to turn 'round and revolve in spite of me. I spoze I did look bad, and Josiah said we would go and have lunch. He said there wuz a caff right 'round the corner, as he pronounced cafe it sounded like a young cow. But the idee wuz good, and after we eat quite a good meal and rested a little we started to tackle Agricultural Buildin' which wuz writ next on my pad.

It wuz quite a journey there, in fact, as I've said before, you have to walk a long distance to git anywhere, but jest before we got there we see sunthin' that made us forgit for the moment our achin' limbs. On the side of a slopin' hill at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, that lead up to the north entrance of Agricultural Hall is the most wonderful clock that wuz ever seen on this globe, and I don't believe they've got anything to beat it in Mars or Saturn.

I can't give you much idee of it by writin', nobody can, but I can probably describe it so you can see it goes ahead of your own clock on the kitchen wall or mantelry piece. To begin with how long do you spoze the minute hand is? The minute hand on our clock is about three inches long, and the minute hand to this is fifty feet long, and its face is about three hundred feet 'round and all made of the most beautiful posies.

Why, the figures that mark the hours are fifteen feet long, most three times as long as my pardner, if he lay flat as a pan-cake to be measured by a pole, jest think of that and these figgers are all made of bright colored foliage plants. The ornaments 'round the face of the clock is a border of twenty-five different plants, each one fifteen feet wide. Some different from the ornamental wreath 'round our clock face, that hain't more'n half an inch wide, if it is that. Our clock has a picture underneath of old Time with his scythe a mowin' down the hours and minutes as his nater his. And I told Josiah how beautiful and symbolical it wuz to think old Time had laid down his scythe for a spell, and wuz measurin' off the hours here in this Fairy Land with beautiful posies.

And Josiah said, "The hours ort to be marked here with canes and crutches," he said his legs ached like the toothache.

The distances are awful and I couldn't deny it, and you do git tuckered out, but then, as I told Josiah, jest think what you're tuckered for.

And he said, "When you're as dead as a door-nail he didn't know what good some steeples and flags wuz goin' to do you, or floral clocks." I mistrusted he'd walked too fur lately, and had strained the cords of his legs, and his patience too much, though the last-named wuz easy hurt and always wuz.

But Josiah took out his watch and looked at it and said he'd promised to meet a man on important bizness, and he'd meet us at a certain spot in Agricultural Hall in jest one hour.

I asked him what bizness it wuz, and he hesitated a little and said as he hurried away that it wuz "Bizness connected with the meetin' house," and I asked him "What meetin' house?" and he didn't answer me, he wuz walkin' off so fast—mebby he didn't hear me.

Well, Blandina and I stayed lookin' at this wonderful clock for some time, and she said that the man that invented this clock wuz a powerful genius and how she did wish she could meet him. She said such a man needed a kind and lovin' companion to take every care offen him and pet him and make of him.

The machinery of this clock, what makes it go, is up above a little ways on the hill in a small pavilion. There are glass doors, and you can look in and see the works of the clock. A great bell there strikes off the hours and quarter hours, and there is a big hour-glass there too. One thousand electric lights light it up at night so folks can see day or night jest how time is passin' away.

Agricultural Building is the largest on the ground. The two palaces of Agriculture and Horticulture stand up on a beautiful hill surrounded by orchards, gardens, vineyards, shrubs, vines of all sorts. This outside exhibit covers fifty acres. There are beautiful lakes full of the rarest aquatic plants, from the great Egyptian lotus, whose leaves are large and strong enough to hold up a good-sized child, and all kinds of smaller plants, but jest as beautiful; indeed, there is everything rare and lovely in that display that ever grew in water or on land, and they make it one of the most beautiful places of the hull Exposition.

The enormous display outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools, implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers, threshers, etc., run by horse-power, steam or electricity.

Among the ploughs we see a small old-fashioned one made of wood, used by Daniel Webster when he wuz a poor farmer boy. Workin' hard at his humble work but his boyish mind, most probable, sot on sunthin' fur above, lookin' at the hard soil ahead on him that he must break up, with them wonderful, sad, eloquent eyes of hisen, and seein' visions, no doubt, and dreamin' dreams. Callin' out to his oxen or horses, "gee," or "whoa" as the case might be, and they not sensin' the fact that this voice wuz goin' to give utterance to silver-tongued, heart thrillin' eloquence in the highest places of Europe and his native land.

As I looked at it pensively I pictured the tired boy holdin' the onhandy handles of the plow and trudgin' along behind his team through the long sultry days, and thought to myself, what hopes and dreams and ambitions wuz turned over by that old plow as well as green-sward.

Right by that little plow wuz a big powerful one that went by electricity. A sight that would probable looked as strange to Daniel, could it have appeared to him then, as any of his wildest day-dreams materilized.

And there wuz all the methods of irrigation, draining, engines, wind-mills, pumps, farm wagons, all kinds of fruit, sugar canes, vegetable sugar, candy stores, confectionery displays, vegetables of all kinds that wuz ever hearn on, some on 'em of such monster size that you never dremp on 'em, unless it wuz in a night-mair.

CHAPTER VIII.

Well, the time had arrived when we promised to meet Josiah at the appinted rondevoo. Indeed Blandina, went a little ahead of time, for as second chaperone she said it might be he would get there a little early, and bein' naturally high-sperited he might get impatient, and she said men ort to be guarded from anything that would wear on their tempers, jest as much as possible.

So I looked 'round a little more, and when I got to the place appinted, there sot Blandina readin' extracts from "The Noble Achievements of Men" in a paper cover, which she carried 'round in her pocket. But no Josiah wuz there.

Minutes passed; my happiness and peace of mind passin' off faster than the minute hand, and no Josiah. A quarter of a hour passed, and still no sign of that dear man. And when half an hour had gone by I busted into tears, and Blandina I could see wuz torn with anxiety and offered to go out into the streets of St. Louis and hunt for him. She mistrusted he had wandered off the Fair ground, and that clever creeter wuz willin' to leave all the allurements that wuz allurin' her here to hunt for him.

I sez, "I don't believe he is there. But, oh, where shall we find him? and what state will he be in when found!" Knowin' the past as we did, we feared for the worst. But jest then Billy Huff happened to pass by and stopped and asked what wuz the matter.

"Oh!" sez I, with the tears runnin' down my cheeks in copious as torrents, "my pardner is lost!"

"Where did you lose him?" sez he.

I told him how it wuz and he sez, "I'll bet I can find him for you; I remember his talkin' last night about a certain place."

[Illustration]

Sez I in tearful axents, "Oh, do! do try, and ease the heart of a distracted companion."

But when he mentioned the place he thought he wuz I repelled the insinuation with scorn. It wuz one of the most hilarious and vain places of revelry at the Fair, where there wuz lots of bally girls and etcetery, and I sez:

"No, indeed! He may have gone into some meetin' house and wandered up into the steeple onbeknown to him, or some educational exhibit, or Bible rooms, but never, never in that place."

But yieldin' to his arguments I consented to go with him sayin' we would stay at the door while he reconoitered. But jest as we got to the door who should we see comin' out radiant and smilin' but Josiah Allen and Uncle Sime Bentley.

Billy sez, "What did I tell you?"

I couldn't frame a reply, I had no frame that fitted the remark, but as Billy disappeared to once it didn't matter. When Josiah ketched my eye and the look it wore, the blush of shame mantiled his cheek—or wuz it remorse?—I couldn't tell, they look some alike.

And he sez, "We went in, Samantha, to look for a missin' man, and my corn ached like furiation jest as we wuz passin' the door, and I couldn't seem to walk another step, and it looked some like rain and I knew you wouldn't want me to spile my new coat——"

And Uncle Sime chimed in, "We wuz took faint both on us jest as we got to the door and had to set down, and I mistrusted I should find cousin Zekiel there," and then happenin' to remember, both at the same time, they begun to say how they went for the good of the meetin' house.

Sez I in frigid axents, "Say no more!" And I turned onto my heel and walked coldly away.

But Blandina whispered to me, "Oh, be merciful, Aunt Samantha, men have such powerful intellects, that Shows that would almost ruin a woman, don't affect them hardly any. Speak tenderly to him," sez she, "and I myself will gently accost Mr. Bentley."

So she stepped back to his side and Josiah advanced and walked by me still pourin' out excuses. Why he gin enough reasons to excuse a regiment let alone one small deacon.

But Blandina seemed to lose her efforts, for Uncle Sime talked real grouty to her, he has never had a idee of marryin' anybody since his wife died and he mistrusts wimmen are runnin' after him. You know male widowers do git that idee into their heads, them that are as humbly as Time in the Primer, and a onmarried woman can't ask 'em about the weather, or sheep, or anything but what they mistrust some hidden warmth, and pride themselves on how attractive they be. It's a sight.

As nigh as I could find out the minute Josiah Allen left me he took the railway and hurried to the wicked place where he and Uncle Sime wuz to meet, expectin' to git back in ample time to meet us. But they wuz so took up with the show they dallied, and so retribution and a indignant pardner overtook 'em. Well, we took the Intremoral railway and went back to finish Agricultural Hall, for that bein' writ on my pad I wanted to complete it so fur as we could, of course it would took months to do justice to it.

We got there in a few minutes, and Josiah, as might be expected, wanted to see the food exhibits, so we went where there wuz all kinds of food made of vegetable products, all kind of grain, flour mills where you could see wheat go in one end and bread come out the other, bakeries, kitchens, tea and coffee pavilions and every sort of animal food products, milk and cream in every form, fresh and preserved cheese and butter dairies, all sorts of dairy tools, churns, separators, cheese presses and vats, everything connected with makin' butter and cheese, transporting and distributing. Starch factories, broom factories, market gardening in all branches.

Grasses, all sorts of fodder for cattle, raised in every country of the world, and the best methods of raising. Everything relating to poultry, artificial hatching and raising. Every kind of crop raised in every country of the world and the best methods of raising and handling them. As in cotton, you can see it from the tiny seed clear to the cotton mill, so in corn, you see everything that is manufactured from it and how it is done—meal, breakfast foods, starch, bread, pastry, baking powders, yeast, from a kernel of corn up to mills and manufactories. And so it wuz in everything raised in our own country and all over the world.

And there wuz a display of insects, bees and everything relating to honey and wax. Silk worms and their work and products, cochineal and all kinds of useful insects and their work, and hurtful insects and methods of destroying them, and so on and so on and so on. I couldn't tell all I see if I should try a week, and what we see wuzn't a drop to a fountain. The immense buildin' is divided off into streets and blocks jest like a city, and you might roam through them streets a month and find sunthin' new and interestin' every day and hour.

Well, from there we went to Horticultural Hall, or we had started for there when Josiah made a observation about the size of a potato he had seen in Agricultural Hall, that I had to in the cause of Truth and Duty object to, the size he mentioned was a twelve-quart pail, and I said:

"Josiah, take off a few quarts from that pail. For the good of your soul take off two quarts anyway."

"Not a quart!" sez he, "nor a spunful."

Well, we had words about it, Blandina as usual siding with her uncle, and it ended with their goin' back with a string, which Josiah produced from his pocket to measure it, I offering to stay by a certain statute till they got back. And as I stood there lookin' at the stiddy passin' crowd and philosophizin' on it as my nater is, I wuz accosted by a strange lookin' man, as I took it to be (I say It for reasons named hereafter).

"Josiah Allen's wife, I am happy to meet you; I knew you at once though it is so long since we met." In the meantime it had gripped holt of my hand with fervor.

I drawed back and sez, "Sir!" (I thought it favored that gender most)
"Sir, I think you are mistook."

"Oh, no, you are Josiah Allen's wife; I am Dr. Mary Walker."

"Oh!" sez I in a relieved axent, as I returned the warm grasp of her hand, "I am glad to meet you, Mary."

She's done some good things in her life, takin' care of poor wounded soldiers, etc., and I honored her for 'em. Though I don't approve of her costoom, as I told her in the conversation that ensued, after we'd talked considerable about the Fair and kindred matters. For I see as we stood there behavin' ourselves, curious eyes wuz bent on her and onbecomin' epithets hurled at her by them who knowed no better. She seemed oblivious to 'em, but I asked her if she wouldn't rather wear less noticeable attire.

And she said she cared not for ribald remarks as long as her motives wuz pure.

And I said we could carry pure motives under a headdress of peacock's feathers standin' up straight over our foreheads, but wouldn't it be better to carry 'em under a bunnet?

"No better!" sez she. "Not a whit."

"Well, easier?" sez I. "Wouldn't it be easier for ourselves and bystanders?"

Sez she, "I care not for Public Opinion!"

"But," sez I, "as long as we've got to live clost neighbor to Public Opinion wouldn't it be easier for us to fall in with his idees a little on comparatively unimportant things than to keep him riled up all the time? It seems to me that if folks want to impress their personality on the world it is better to do it by noble deeds and words than by startlin' costooms."

Sez she, "My dress is fur more comfortable than the ordinary dress of females."

Sez I reasonably, "Short dresses are a boon and a blessin', but in my opinion they can be short enough for comfort and still not infringe on man's chosen raiment. And as for pantaloons, men are welcome to 'em so fur as I'm concerned, and also tall hats, they hain't nothin' I hanker for either on 'em."

Sez she, "We have a right to wear any clothes we see fit."

Sez I, "We have a right to plow green sword, shingle a steep barn ruff, or break a yoke of steers. But the question is, will it pay in comfort or economy to do this? As for me, I'd ruther be in the house in a comfortable dress and clean apron, cookin' a good dinner for Josiah, or settin' down knittin' his socks whilst he duz the harder work he is by nater and education fitted for. But everybody to their own mind. And so fur as I am concerned I'd ruther attract attention by doin' sunthin' worth while, sunthin' really noble and good, than by tyin' a red rag round my fore-top. But as I say, folks are different, and I am fur from sayin' that my way is the only right way."

Mary kinder waived off some of my idees and went on and spoke of her work on the battlefield and how necessary her dress wuz in such a place.

And I sez, "Mary, I've always honored you for your noble work there. But I believe I could lift up the head of a dyin' man easier in a loose gingham dress and straw bunnet tied on, than I could in your tight pantaloons and high hat, but howsumever the main thing is that the man is lifted, and he doubtless wouldn't quarrel about the costoom of his preserver. The main thing in this world, Mary, is the work we do, the liftin', or tryin' to lift; the day's work we do in the harvest field of Endeavor. And I spoze a few trousers more or less hain't goin' to count when we carry in our sheaves. Though I must say to the last, Mary Walker, I could carry 'em easier in my dress than I could in yourn."

[Illustration]

In the heat of our good-natered conversation Mary had slipped her hand through my arm and neither of us noticed it, so wropped up wuz we in the topics under discussion, when I hearn Blandina's voice behind me sayin', "Oh, what a noble lookin' man Aunt Samantha is talkin' to and how affectionate actin'; how sweet it will be to meet him." And then I hearn a sharp raspin' voice clost to me sayin':

"Sir, I will thank you to onhand my wife!"

I wouldn't hardly have knowed my pardner's voice, such burnin' anger showed in it and wuz depictered on his liniment as I turned round and faced him. And he went on:

"Samantha, have I lived with you most a century to be deceived in you now?"

His turrible emotions had onhinged his reasonin' faculties, we hain't lived together so long as that, but I didn't dane to argy, I only sez with calm dignity:

"Miss Walker, this is my pardner, Josiah Allen."

"Miss!" sez he in a overbearin' axent, "Miss Walker!" He looked as if he thought it wuz a conspiracy hatched up between us to deceive him.

"Yes," sez I coolly, "Miss Walker, Dr. Mary Walker."

"Oh!" sez Josiah, in his surprise and relief not offerin' to bow or shake hands or nothin'. "Dear Samantha, I've hearn on her." And he turned and linked his hand in my other arm so for a minute we looked like three twins perambulatin' along. In the meantime I introduced Blandina, who looked bewildered and disappointed.

But Dr. Mary Walker remembered a engagement, and to my relief took leave on us. And I said a few words to Josiah on the danger and cruelty to me of his hasty opinion and suspicion and in the cause of Duty I mentioned the late eppisode of himself and Uncle Sime, and he seemed mortified and apologetic for as many as three minutes. But it didn't last, it never duz with his sect. And we went on to Horticultural Hall, Josiah on the way reluctantly showin' me the string he had measured the potato with. He had to take off several quarts offen that pail, jest as I told him he would, and it made him fraxious.

But he lost his shagrin on the way, it wuz buried under the acres of posies and beautiful shrubs and trees through which we wuz passin'. Every rare posy you ever hearn on wuz there and them you never dremp on, and trees, some beautiful and familiar, and them with strange and beautiful foliage. Little lakes, where gold and silver fish played and dotted over with the rarest and loveliest water plants and blossoms, shrubs runnin' over with bloom, why, there wuz acres of jest rosies. And in the middle of a six-acre rose garden stood a handsome statute of one of my own sect, Flora by name, jest lookin' down as if she owned the hull on't, and wuz proud and happy to be there, as well she might—she'll never git into such a delightful spot agin, I don't believe.

And there wuz pleasant walks windin' round every which way and once in awhile a big tree shadin' a cozy nook where you could sit down and enjoy the beauty and perfume. It wuz good to be there, and it seemed as if the hull world had the same mind about comin' and wuz all there walkin' about or else settin' down enjoyin' themselves.

Horticultural Buildin' is big enough and full enough to keep folks busy a month. Right in the centre, in a place as long as from our house clear over to she that wuz Submit Tewksbury's and I d'no but furder, wuz a display of fruit, all kinds of fruit of every shape and size that grow in every climate from frigid to torrid, and every country from Greenland to Asia, it wuz a sight. Then there wuz a display of every kind of horticultural machinery and implements, glass housen, aquariums, ferneries, all sorts of ornaments for gardens.

All kinds of small fruits and how to grow 'em, everything relating to the culture of vines, vineyards, wine cellars. All sorts of ornamental plants and flowers, models of fruit in wax and plaster, baskets and bunches of flowers, conservatories, all flowering plants from every country and the way to grow them. All sorts of seeds, grass, fruit trees of all kinds, and the best way to prune and plant them.

Josiah told me he thought we could git round and see what wuz in this buildin' in four weeks, but I felt dubersome about it and told him we would have to go a pretty good jog if we did. Blandina thought she could git round in three weeks if she had some good man's arm to lean on the most of the time.

But 'tennyrate, after stayin' there and lookin' round a long time, I told Josiah I wuz tired enough to go home, so we went.

I wuz most melted too, for St. Louis weather is tuckering to them that can't stand heat. It made Josiah real worrisome time and agin. And one thing he said about it put a idee into my head that I never had thought on, I thought it wuz real smart.

Somebody wuz lamentin' the fact in our hearin' that so many thieves and villains of all sorts had congregated at St. Louis this summer, and Josiah sez:

"It's a first rate thing for sinners to come here to git acclimated, as it were, before they die."

I hadn't thought on't, but felt there wuz sunthin' in it, for truly the burnin' climate of the place I don't want to speak on by name, must be easier to bear after visitin' St. Louis than to plunge into it from cooler and more northern States. And still I don't know why we should want to make it easier for 'em, I spoze it wuz our pityin' naters that made us think ont.

The weather wuz simply burnin' hot, no other word describes it, oveny, furnacy hot! and Josiah said, and well said, it set folks to thinkin' and inclined 'em to take warnin' and mend their ways. Sez he, "Two days of St. Louis weather wuz worth more to sinners than the sermons of a month of winter Sundays."

Truly in heat it wuz a great object lesson. I wore my brown lawn dress day after day, havin' no chance to wear my rich alpacky, as I wanted to, to kinder show off before Miss Huff, and Blandina presented the wilted appearance of a long slim cabbage leaf plunged in bilin' water.

I believe Josiah's groanin's and takin's on and mutterin's helped him to bear it better than if he had held in. Not that I told him so, no, I told him it wuz onmanly to carry on so. But truly the heat wuz fearful, our clothin' stuck to us and prespiration and sweat run down our faces.

The next day it wuz so hot I felt kinder mauger and stayed to home. Blandina and Miss Huff went half a day, and in the afternoon Blandina went to a big department store in the city to git some thinner underwear, and I got awful skairt about her. Miss Huff gin her the most minute directions about where it wuz and what car to take, it wuzn't a great ways off, and she ort to got back at four o'clock anyway.

But time run along, four struck, then five and then six, and I wuz gittin' dretful worried about her when she come in tired enough.

Sez I, "I wuz awful worried about you, Blandina. Did you git lost?"

"No." She said she got onto the right car and the conductor wuz a dretful handsome and fascinatin' man, and she went to git off at the right street, and kinder backed off, she always duz git off that way, and the conductor thinkin' she wanted to git on, he smiled so sweet and held out his hand to help her on so she would git on again. And that happened over and over. She not wantin' to hurt his feelin's and slight him by not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all right, but it belated her.

Sez I, "What made you do it, Blandina?"

"Oh," sez she, "he looked so winnin' and invitin' I didn't want to hurt his feelin's."

Sez I, "You'll sup sorrer yet, Blandina, by your wantin' to obleege everybody. You ort to look out for yourself some, you're alltogether too good to be comfortable."

CHAPTER IX.

Well, Josiah went that day with Billy Huff, he santered off without any system or plan, and wouldn't take my pad though I offered it to him. But I guess they jest poked round miscelaneous, as you may say, seein' jest what they happened to run into. And in some of their travels they met Barzelia Trimble, a woman lecturer, she's young and good lookin' and smart as a whip, and I guess she made much of Josiah, 'tennyrate she gin him tickets to her lecture.

She said she'd met a man whose brother-in-law's cousin had bought a dog once of a neighbor of mine, and so feelin' so well acquainted with me she sent me the tickets, and did hope we would come. She said she felt that she knew us both so well that it would be a treat to her.

The way she come to see Josiah that day, Billy had met her at school where she lectured.

Josiah wuz very anxious that we should both go. He remembered the dog.

But I sez, "I thought you didn't believe in wimmen's lecturin' and havin' rights, Josiah."

"Well, I don't believe in 'em, but the tickets wuz gin to us, fifty cents right out of her pocket, and she'll expect us. She said it would make her feel more homelike to have us present."

"Well," sez I, "I don't know as I feel so very intimate with her, I never see the dog, but her idees on wimmen's rights is sensible, I've read about 'em."

And that kinder headed Josiah off onto a new tact; we had had a dretful good supper, and I believe Miss Trimble had made a sight on him, I believe she had flattered and pompeyed him and for the time bein' he felt soft in sperit towards the sex.

And 'tennyrate men's moods are like the onfathomable sea, sometimes turbulent, throwin' up stunny arguments and sandy ones, and agin flowin' calm and smooth as ile, and this wuz one of the gently swashin' ones.

"Id'no," sez he, "and I told her so, what wimmen want rights for, or to vote; I never wanted wimmen to vote, I told her they wuz too good, they wuz too near angels to have rights. You know I've always said so, Samantha, and I wuz readin' a piece a day or two ago, writ by one of the first ministers in the country, and he said that wimmen hadn't ort to want any rights; they ort to be riz up on a pedestal and I say so too."

And I sez, "No, Josiah, I can't go into that with all the rest I have to do, and it seems onreasonable in that minister to want wimmen to climb up onto pedestals when they have to do their own housework."

"Well, I say it hain't onreasonable. You ort to be up on one, Samantha."

(How much Miss Trimble must have made on him. He wuz so oncommon clever, and he never wuz megum, poor creeter!) I didn't really want to git into an argument at that time o' day, but I see he wuz on the wrong tact, and I felt I must convince him, so I sez in reasonable axents:

"I jest as lives be on a pedestal as not, I'd kinder love to if I could set, I always did enjoy bein' riz up, if I had nothin' to do only to stay up there some time, but wimmen have to git round so much it wouldn't work. How could I take a tower histed up like the car of Juggernaut or a Pope in a procession. I couldn't get carriers for one thing, and I wouldn't give a cent to be carried round anyway with my dizzy spells, I should more'n as likely as not fall off. But that hain't the main reason I'm agin it, it is too tuckerin' a job for wimmen."

"Tuckerin' to be enthroned on a pedestal with the male sect lookin' up to you and worshippin' you. You call that tuckerin'?" sez he.

"Yes," sez I, "I do. How under the sun can I or any other woman be up on a pedestal and do our own housework, cookin', washin' dishes, sweepin', moppin', cleanin' lamps, blackin' stoves, washin', ironin', makin' beds, quiltin' bed quilts, gittin' three meals a day, day after day, biled dinners and bag puddin's and mince pies and things, to say nothin' of custard and pumpkin pies that will slop over on the level, do the best you can; how could you keep 'em inside the crust histin' yourself up and down? And cleanin' house time——"

"Mebby," sez I honestly, "it would come handy in whitewashin' or fixin' the stovepipe, but where would it be in cleanin' mop-boards, or puttin' down carpets, or washin' winders, or doin' a three weeks washin', or bilin' soap? or pickin' geese? They act like fury shot up on the barn floor. How could you git our old gander up on a pedestal? His temper is that fiery, to say nothin' of settin' or standin' on it and holdin' on to the old thing and pickin' it. And raisin' chickens and washin' old trousers and overalls, and cleanin' sullers and paintin' floors and paperin', and droudgin' round all the time, as a woman has to to keep her house comfortable.

"And pickin' black-caps and strawberries, and churnin' big churnin's of butter, and pickin' wool, to say nothin' of onexpected company comin', and no girl. Let a lot of company come to stay all day the relations on your side and the work not done, and me posin' like a statute, lookin' down on you and your sect, you'd feel like a fool and jaw, you know you would. I presoom you'd throw your boot-jack at me and threaten to part with me, and how mean that would be in you when I did it at your request. 'Tain't anything any woman would go into if she wuz let alone."

"And then think of the thrashers and silo fillers comin' in hungry as bears, what would they say? No dinner cookin' and I on a pedestal, why it would be the town's talk. Or you comin' home from Jonesville on a cold night fraxious as a dog and sayin' you should die off if you didn't have supper in ten minutes. How could I git it on time perched up there?

"I say it can't be done, and it is onreasonable for men to want it, and at the same time want wimmen to do her own housework. For these men, every one on 'em, would act like fury if their house wuzn't clean and their clothes in order, and meals on time. And you must know it would jest about kill a woman to be doin' all this and histin' herself up and down a hundred times a day, and mebby half dead with rumatiz too. Why, it would be worse for me than all the rest of my work, and you hadn't ort to ask it of me."

Josiah looked real huffy and sez, "I hain't the only man that's wantin' it done; men have always been sot on it. There's been more'n a wagon load of poetry writ on it and you know it. Men have always said a sight about it, I hain't alone in it," he snapped out.

"No," sez I honestly, "I've hearn it before. But you see it wouldn't work, don't you? And I believe I could convince every man if I could git to 'em and talk it over with 'em. And I don't see where the beauty on't would come in; of course a woman couldn't change her clothes and put on Greek drapery right in the midst of cleanin' the buttery shelves or moppin' off the back steps. And to see a woman standin' up on a pedestal with an old calico dress pinned up round her waist and a slat sunbunnet on and her pardner's rubber boots, and her sleeves rolled up, and her face red as blood with hard work, and her hands all swelled up with hot soap suds and lye, what beauty would there be in it? It always did seem onreasonable besides bein' so tuckerin' no woman could stand it for a day."

He looked mad as a hen and sez he, "They could manage it if their minds wuz strong enough."

Sez I, "It seems to me it would depend more on the strength of their legs, specially if the pedestal wuz a high one. I never could git up onto it at all if I should go into it without gittin' up on a chair and then on a table. No woman no matter how strong she wuz could git more than two meals a day under the circumstances."

Josiah looked worried and sez, "Well, mebby there has been too much said about it, mebby it would be jest as well to leave pedestals to statters."

And I sez, "It is as well agin. Wimmen couldn't stand it with all they have to do."

And so we ended by bein' real congenial in our two minds and thinkin' considerable alike, which is indeed a comfort to pardners. And we read our chapter in the Bible and had family prayers jest as we do to home. For I would not leave off all the good old habits of my life because my body wuz moved round a little. And we had a good night's rest and sot out in good season the next mornin' for the Exposition.

The next mornin' grandpa Huff said to the breakfast table that he did wish he had someone to read to him that day, everybody wuz goin' to the Fair and he wuz goin' to be left alone. So Blandina, clever creeter that she is, said she would stay and read to him from his favorite volume, Foxe's Book of Martyr's, and also from Lamentations and Job. Billy said his grandpa wuz never happy only when he wuz perfectly miserable. We have all seen such folks.

So Josiah and I sot off alone, and he bein' in good sperits and bein' gin to new and strange projects, proposed that we should take an ortomobile. I didn't favor the idee and said:

"Id'no about it, Josiah, I feel kinder skairful about ortos, I fear that it might prove our last ride."

"But," sez he, "with a good shuffler there hain't any danger."

But I still wuz dubersome and sez, "Mebby it would end by our shufflin' off our mortal coils, as Mr. Shakespeare tells on."

"You don't wear 'em, Samantha, nor never did, nor I don't wear a pompodoor" (he meant this for a joke for his head is most as bare as a sass plate).

And he went on, "It would be a very stylish and genteel ride. I'd love to tell brother Gowdey about it. The bretheren will expect it of me as a live progressive Jonesvillian minglin' here with the noblest in the land to cut sunthin' of a dash."

But seein' that I still looked dubersome he sez, "I don't feel very rugged this mornin' and I dread the crowded car; Id'no but I should faint away in 'em if I sot out."

That of course settled the matter. As his anxious chaperone I consented to the project and he went and got the showiest one he could find. He didn't look for character or stability, only for gildin' and red paint. And we embarked, Josiah with a proud liniment, as if he wuz introducin' me into gay life and fashionable amusements. The man wuz to take us to the Fair ground for so much, and Josiah feelin' so neat had paid him in advance, and there wuz another party waitin' for him. And the speed that shuffler put on wuz sunthin' awful.

The first few minutes before we got to goin' that terrific speed Josiah liked it, and seemed to look patronizin'ly down on the people walkin' afoot that we passed by and pity 'em. But anon the man got to goin' faster and faster and Josiah's liniment underwent a change and he hollered out to me, for the noise wuz so loud and skairful he had to yell:

"Samantha, I don't believe it is right for members of the meetin' house to be goin' at such a gait."

And I hollered back to him, "It hain't none of my doin's, it hain't nothin' I wanted," I a hangin' onto my bunnet strings and tryin' to keep my bunnet on. As for the tabs of my mantilly I had gin up tryin' to curb 'em down, and they waved out like a pirate's flag in a cyclone only a different color.

Finally Josiah hollered to the shuffler, "I want you to curb in your machine! I'm a deacon, and have got my station in the Jonesville meetin' house to think on. Hold it in, I say!"

The shuffler glanced round at us as calm as a goggle-eyed clam and never dained to answer, and seemin'ly urged on the orto to redoubled speed.

Oh, the awfulness of the seen! the terrific noise soundin' on my ear pans till it seemed as if them pans must break down, the dirt a flyin', my pardner standin' up with his whiskers and coat tails wavin' in the breeze. His hat blowed off and by almost superhuman exertions I ketched it and carried it in my hand, thinkin' it wuz safer than on his head.

He a yellin', "Stop, I tell you! Whoa! back up! Dum your dum picter, whoa I say!"

For the last few milds Josiah rid standin' all I could do and say. Yellin' at the shuffler, hollerin' whoa to him, and appealin' to Heaven and me simultaneous as it were, for mercy and succor.

[Illustration]

And that shuffler payin' no more attention to him than as if he wuz a fly, not a hoss fly, but jest a common fly. Only he would look back at us once in awhile through them big goggles of hisen that most curdled my blood to see 'em.

At last Josiah, seemin' to give up all hope, sunk back and grasped holt of my tab and sez, "Good-bye, Samantha, if you git through alive remember I died tryin' to save you." His emotions and the dirt choked him, and he faintly added:

"Tell the bretheren and see that it is put in the Jonesville Augur, that I died a hero's death tryin' to save my pardner." And his grasp on my tabs become almost hysterical.

But at that minute the entrance gate wuz reached and the orto stopped so abruptly, that Josiah who had got up agin, wuz precipitated into my lap. But he got out immegiately, and the minute he and I stepped onto terry firmy he turned and shook his fist at the man and sez he, "If it wuzn't for the crowd and Samantha's feelin's, I would whip you within an inch of your life! Oh, if I only had you in a ten acre lot you'd feel the wrath of a lion when it wuz rousted up!"

But I laid my hand on him and led him away, I knowed such seens wuz bad for his nerve. He trembled like a popple leaf, and the minute we got through the gate I had to set down with him and deal out four nut-cakes before he wuz himself agin.

I wuz determined this day to go to the Palace of Fine Arts, so we did and I put in a time of almost perfect happiness there. We went into Government Building entrance that day, and I proposed to Josiah that we should stop at Liberal Arts Building on the way, and he at first demurred and sez:

"Samantha, you're too liberal by half now for folks with our means and Id'no as I want you to spend your time in such a display." He said he would rather take me to the display of Economics, and sez he, wantin' to persuade me to go with him, "Wimmen has countless virtues, but to my mind her crownin' excelence is to be equinomical."

But I explained to him that exhibit didn't mean bein' liberal with money but it wuz jest a step behind Fine Arts, and sez I, "I should think you would want to see the place where this Exposition wuz dedicated in the presence of one of the biggest crowds that wuz ever gathered together."

So we stopped there a little while, and could have spent days there with interest and profit. The foreign countries have splendid exhibits here as well as our own.

Everything in typography and books, everything possible in photography; models of light-houses; dams; geographical maps; Egyptian, Hebrew and Imperial surveys. Scientific demonstrations in liquid hydrogen and that queer substance, radium.

I wuz dretfully interested in that wonderful new discovery and sez I to myself as I looked at it, "As little as there is of you there is enough to overturn big systems of science and philosophy, and begin a new history of the inside of the world." I wuz glad my sect had discovered this and thought it wuz one of the best things she had done in a number of years.

And there wuz all kinds of hygienic displays, chemical and engineering works. China had a dretful interestin' exhibit, ancient manuscripts, books published thousands of years before our kind of type wuz invented. Weapons that wuz old when Mr. Confucious wuz livin'. Armor, costumes, musical instruments, queer lookin' things them wuz as I ever see and nothin' I would want to play on. Photo engineering, electrotyping, lithography, typewriting; telescopes of all kinds from tiny ones up to ones that weigh four thousand pounds. The latest medical and surgical instruments. The piano from the first one made up to the present automatic instruments of all kinds; stringed instruments, church organs; displays in civil and military engineering; machinery for making good roads; rock crushers, water purifying, and so on and so on and so on.

The time spent in this buildin' is full of education as well as interest. There wuz some beautiful statutes too decoratin' this buildin', most on 'em I wuz proud to see wuz figgers of my own sect.

But having sot out for the Palace of Fine Arts we anon wended our way thither. It is a beautiful building, or ruther there are four massive buildings connected together to form this Palace of Art. There are three big buildings in front and an annex, the central building built of stone and brick is the only permanent buildin' in this enormous Exposition so naturally they would make it as perfect as possible.

And it is crowded full of beauty. In fact turn where you would you would see such glowing landscapes, such beautiful faces, such perfect sculpture that you git all mixed up, and when you thought it over you couldn't remember whether some picture or statute that stood out in your memory wuz in the U.S. exhibit or the French, or German, or Italian, or etc., etc.

In lookin' back and thinkin' on't and tryin' to git 'em in the right place in your mind it is as difficult as it would be in walking through a big clover meadow and tryin' to sort out the clover blossoms and describe 'em one by one and tell in jest what corner of the lot you found 'em. It can't be done; in such an immense field of art your brain sort o' fills up and turns round and round and you git mixed. But as I say some of the pictures and statutes stayed in my memory so I couldn't dislodge 'em and don't want to, no indeed!

Now there are three noble figgers at the entrance that you can't forgit. Inspiration standin' up above the main entrance is jest where she should be. Inspiration, breath of the Most High breathed into some of His children below anon or oftener, and then on each side is Truth and Nature. Nature, the kind All Mother, Truth, the divine one. How sweet to find 'em all there together guardin' and consecratin' these walls. You went in feelin' safer with such gardeens at the portal.

I must say though that Truth didn't have any clothes on, she wuz jest settin' there on top of the world jest as naked as she could be, she could have wore one of my bib aprons as well as not, durin' the Fair anyway, whilst there wuz so many folks round and she would have looked enough sight better to me and been jest as truthful. But howsumever I knew she wuz likely, her face wuz innocent and beautiful.

As I said it is some of the pictures and statutes that stand out clearest in my memory, but there wuz everything else there admirable and choice in art, paintings in oil, wax; on canvas, wood, enamel, metal, fresco paintings on walls and ceilings. Water colors, chalk, pastel, ivory, pyrography. Engravings, etchings, figgers in marble, metal, plaster. Carvings in ivory, stone, wood, etc. Architectural designs of all kinds; mosaics; art work in glass, earthen ware, leather, metal; artistic book binding and etc., etc., etc., and I might spread these out into volumes.

And didn't my soul jest spread her wings here in delight, to speak in flowery language. What pictures of beauty dawned on my rapt eyesight, faces sweet as wuz ever dremp on, sad faces, tragic faces, old faces and young faces; children sweet and bonny as wuz ever seen. Youth and love, age and manhood and gratified ambition, princes and paupers, life and death.

Landscapes full of the dewy freshness and joy of the morning, night seens dark and full of mystery and melancholy. Mountain and valley, hill and dale, ocean and rivulet. Every phase of human joy and sorrow wuz depictered there, and every phase of peaceful and warlike life. It wuz a sight. If I could stayed there a year right in them walls I might have got round mebby and seen what I wanted to and as long as I wanted to.

But of course this wuzn't to be, for one thing the Fair would be closed before and then Josiah wouldn't gin his consent anyway. He got kinder worrisome as it wuz and didn't want to stay so long as we did, and after a hour or so I compromised with him, gin him nut cakes occasionally and anon when we would enter a new gallery he would set down by the door till I had got through lookin'.

As I said some of the pictures and statutes clung to my memory as if they'd been throwed at my mind so powerful that they jest stuck there and couldn't be dislodged even by all the later multitude of sights throwed over 'em.

There wuz one by Whistler full of the subtle mystery that he wrops round his figgers. Why you know he has painted one that to them that are sympathetic, the Little Lady in Black, will walk right out of the picture and come towards 'em, time and agin she's done it, I'm tellin' the truth that can be proved.

In the "Mystery of the Night," the female figger dimly discerned through the veil of mist seems the incarnation of the mystery of sky and sea, the infinite solemnity, and peace and loneliness of the night.

There wuz pictures that made you happy, and some that sort o' sent a chill to your sperit, like Millais' "Chill October," as you looked at it you almost felt the chill, mournful breeze that you knew wuz sweepin' along.

Some queer pictures like the "Ghost Dance" kinder lingered in the vestibule of your mind. You know your mind has got more different rooms in it than any house that wuz ever built, and some pictures and folks don't git into the very inmost rooms; they never git furder than the doorstep.

There are three pictures by the King and Queen of Portugal, all on 'em picturin' humble life. The King's show a peasant drivin' cattle to water. I wondered if he didn't wish, when he painted it, that he wuz that care-free herder, who could sing and whistle and wear easy shues, and throw on any old clothes, and santer out into the dewy mornin' and do as he wanted to.

One of the Queen's wuz a farm wagon, such as they carry farm produce in, but sometimes I spoze load up with merry girls and boys for a happy outing in the green woods.

I shouldn't wonder if when she wuz dead tired of the cares, formalities and burdens of a queen, she wished she wuz one of them happy young girls riding off in a cotton frock on the old farm wagon into some joyous picnic.

The other one of hern wuz a cute little donkey and over all on 'em wuz bright sunlight and soft shadow. They done well. I wished I could encouraged 'em by tellin' 'em so—a word of praise sometimes duz so much good, to anybody from peasant to king.

Among the statutes that I see to the Fair that stood up straight in my mind wuz Light and Darkness. Darkness wuz in the form of two men, one on 'em crouched low with his arm over his face drawin' his mantle to hide from the light. The other male is liftin' his head but his eyes are still shot, evidently he feels the dawn of sunthin' better and he's waking up, while standin' erect is the graceful figger of a female, beautiful and noble, full of boundin' life and light, holdin' up high over her head a star. She wants to wake up the hull world to the light.

Dakota wuz pictured as a lady with precious few clothes on; she looked old in her face, and I told Josiah it wuz a shame to see a woman that age with such a low-necked dress on. It wuz cut down to the bottom of her waist. And lots of the men staters wuz wearin' low necks. I didn't like it, but Josiah remarked that he'd always said:

"A vest and coat cut low neck would make a man look dressy, and he believed he should have one made for best."

I looked coldly at him and said it looked bad enough to see young folks dress in that way without old folks cuttin' up and actin'.

Lots of the statutes would looked as well agin if they'd had me to advise 'em about their clothes, but still take the pictures and statutes of the Fair as a hull they're magnificent and a honor to the nations. There are a thousand statutes, all beautiful and inspirin', to be seen there on the Exposition grounds.

I wuz glad to see the statute of Dr. Jenner, who discovered vaccination, tryin' it first on his own son. When it is the law for doctors to try their medicine first on their own folks, miscelaneous patients will feel safer. Dr. Jenner acted honorable toward humanity at large. I told Josiah I hoped the boy got along well and didn't git hit on the arm while it wuz sore.

And he said, "I wouldn't worry over folks I never neighbored with, and I'd better tend to my own companion, who wuz starvin' slowly by my side."

He couldn't been so very hungry havin' eat so many nut-cakes since breakfast, but I dealt out some more to him.

Well, we stayed in the Art Gallery a long time, so long that Josiah complained bitterly and sez, "If you stay as long in every buildin' when will we git round to see the Pike?" Truly Josiah longed for that place day by day, but as first chaperone of the party I tried to delay him from goin', knowin' that it must come sometime but gladly puttin' off the day.

But I sez soothin'ly, "I shan't want to stay so long at any other place." And it bein' past our lunch time we went and had a good meal, and of course Josiah's crossness subsided with every mouthful he took and his liniment looked like a cosset lamb's in amiability when I proposed we should go to the Fishery Buildin', it wuzn't so very fur from there considerin', though as I have said before every place is a good ways off from anywhere else. You'd have knowed the buildin' by the great fish that wuz sculped over the entrance. It wuz a bigger fish than wuz ever lied about in male fish stories, and that's sayin' enough; connected with this is also an exhibit of forestry and game. We went into the part devoted to forestry first, there are several acres outdoors as well as inside devoted to this display, and what didn't we see there in trees, plants, woods of every kind, forest growth tree planting, all sorts of useful wood, pine, spruce, hemlock, cedar, all the hard woods, and everything made of wood; wood pulp, barrels, baskets, turpentine, alcohol.

In the United States exhibit wuz immense pictures illustrating our forests, methods of lumbering, lumber camps, forest fires, etc., etc. There wuz displays of different species of trees and plants, forest botany, structure and anatomy of woods, saw-mills, seeds and plants of all kinds, and all the different woods and products of wood from Egypt to Japan, barks, roots, cork, rubber, gums, oils, quinine, camphor, varnish, wax, dye-woods, lumber, staves, why there wuz over two hundred different kinds of wood from Argentina alone.

Josiah, who wuz real interested here, sez, "I'd love to have brother Gowdey step in here a minute; he's proud as a peacock of his strip of woodland, he thought he covered the hull field of forestry with his wood pulp and maple sugar. I guess his pride would be took down a little."

"Well," sez I, "let's look on it as showin' the greatness and wonder of
Providence and be humble and admire."

"I shall look at it as I'm a minter!" he sez. But I guess he wuz more reverential for a spell.

And there wuz all the plants and leaves used in medicine, and mushrooms, truffles, seeds and plants and implements for gathering and preserving; drying houses, nurseries, basket work, grass work. It seemed as if everything that could be known about trees and plants could be learnt here, and though we knowed we hadn't time or convenience to take all the knowledge in, no, our heads wuzn't big enough, but they felt crowded full as we left this buildin'. And that I felt wuz the crownin' glory of this fair, the new idees and knowledge of better ways and things that wuz learnt in all these exhibits, and wuz destined in the future to bear fruit and bless the world.

In the Fishery department we see all the products of the great water world that makes up more than half of our earth. Every kind of fish that ever swum, from a whale to a minnie, salt water and fresh water fish, and them that are half fish and half animal, and aquatic birds and aquatic plants of all kinds, and plants that seem half way between vegetable and animal. Sea grass, shells of all kinds, pearls, pearl-shells, corals, sponges, skins and furs, illustrations, paintings and casts illustrating water life of all kinds, fishing grounds. All kinds of boats, nets, traps, rods, reels, lines, fish curing establishments, aquariums, and so and so on and so on, and I might write them "so ons," indefinitely but what would be the use?

Jest imagine everything that is discovered and brought to light by them that go down to the sea in ships and there it wuz.

CHAPTER X.

West of the forestry buildin' growin' right out of the ground is a immense map of the United States covering five acres of ground, gravel walks mark the State and coast lines, and each State is sot out in its own native flowers.

There it wuz, you could look right down onto it jest like a map, from the rocky shores of Maine down to Florida.

Josiah wuz simply infatuated with the sight and I myself thought it wuz a great idee and I sez:

"Josiah, this is a plan worthy of Uncle Sam to immortalize what is dearest to him in living colors."

"Yes, indeed!" sez he, and after a minute's thought he added, "Others can foller suit and set them that are dearest to 'em out-doors. If I live till another spring, Samantha," sez he firmly, "I will set you out in the paster. The dooryard would be too small to do justice to you. Ury and I will plant you in the middle of the ten acre lot."

I wuz touched by the tenderness underlyin' the idee, but sez I, "Have you counted the cost, Josiah?"

"I know it will cost, you're hefty and big boneded and I'd want you heroic size, but we needn't have your hull frame made in posies, I could plant you in different seeds and raise you like a crop, and sell you in the fall. Beans would look well in different colors."

He see my look of cold irony as he spoke of sellin' me, and added, "Or I could set you out mostly in pusley if you'd ruther, the garden is full of it."

"I shall never be sot out in pusley, Josiah Allen, I always hated it.
The hull thing is as crazy as anything you ever undertook."

"Crazy or not it will be did; summer squash would look well and be equinomical, I could probable train 'em so you'd seem to be holdin' the squashes in your arms."

"Give up the hull skeem, Josiah Allen; don't try to combine love and economy so clost."

But he vowed he wouldn't give it up, and I spoze I may see trouble weanin' him from the idee.

That night whilst I wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and love to man.

She said she'd been readin' all day to grandpa Huff and as near as I could make out he'd kep' her right down to them blood-curdlin' chapters where they fried the martyrs in ile and briled 'em on grid-irons. She looked dretful tired and I told her I wouldn't gin in and read such stuff all day.

But she said Mr. Huff wuz anxious to hear it and she wuz perfectly willin' and more than willin' to please him, for sez she smilin' in a queer sort of a way and sort o' bridlin' a little, "I'm anxious to do anything for him I can because I love him devotedly."

I wuz fairly stunted. "Love him?" sez I, "why how long ago wuz it that you loved his grandchild passionately? Why," sez I, "Blandina, you seem to rob the cradle and the grave for objects of affection."

"Yes, I did love Billy with perfect devotion till I found that my affection wuz driven back like a dove from the rest it fain would made in his youthful heart, and now it has settled down upon his grandpa's bosom. Mr. Huff needs a companion, Aunt Samantha. He needs a tender female companion to journey by his side over the rough pathway of life. And, oh, I do feel that this world is a cold rough place and my heart, like that wanderin' dove I spoke on, sithes to find rest."

"Well," sez I reasonably, "mebby a dove would be safe to rest on grandpa Huff, but I don't believe he could stand the weight of a hen. Why, he's ninety if he's a day, Blandina."

She didn't reply but sot lookin' mournful but clever, and agin she sez,
"This is a cold world."

"Not here it hain't, not in St. Louis," sez I, wipin' my heated forward, but she went on:

"My heart has gone out to him without any will of my own. I feel that he has the makin' of a noble man in him."

And I sez, "I guess he's made about all he can be on this spear." But seein' her mournful looks I added, "You're a clever critter, Blandina, that's what's the matter with you, you're so good hearted you mistake good nater and pity for love more'n half the time. I don't believe," sez I feelin'ly, "I ever see a cleverer creeter than you are." And I meant it, every word I said.

But she repeated agin, "I love him, Aunt Samantha, with a pure, deep devotion."

"Well," sez I, "if I wuz in your place I would take a little catnip tea and go to bed. I'll steep some for you over my alcohol lamp." I knowed it wuz her good nater and her nerves that wuz wrought up instead of her heart, though catnip is good for the heart for all I know. She'd got all nerved up readin' them dretful things and felt queer, I wuz sorry for Blandina to think she wuz so very sensitive to masculine influence. She refused the catnip tea but took the other half of my advice and went to bed, and I sez to myself, I declare I don't know what the good nater of that creeter will lead her into and I most wished she wuz back in Jonesville where that trait of hern wouldn't have so much room for showin' off and so many objects to practice on, but I felt safe about grandpa Huff, for I knowed that even if he'd been strong enough to stand up to be married, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren wouldn't let him.

Well, the next morning Molly come, havin' arrived on a sleeper. I welcomed her warmly. She's a sweet girl, with big eyes soft and brown as the shallers in our trout brook and a shadder in 'em now some like the dark places where the deep water is. Hair about the same color, done up in a shinin' coil on the top of her head, but where it would git loose a little kinder curlin' and crinklin' about her white forward and round white neck. A sweet sad expression on her lips, cheeks white as snow now but meant to be pink and a pretty plump figger. She wuz very beautiful and called so by good judges.

And I wuzn't surprised that Billy Huff fell immegiately and voylently in love with her to his own discomfiture and the great enrichment of them that sold perfumery and hair-oil. But I knowed it wouldn't hurt him any, it wuz only a new face to hang up for the present in the gallery of a boy's Fancy. Aunt Tryphena fairly worshipped her. She immegiately rose to the top place in her gallery of perfect beings. Nothing wuz too good for her, no service she could render her wuz too hard, she almost soared up to that pinnacle on which her Prince Arthur dwelt. Dotie became her willin' adorer and Miss Huff couldn't do enough for her.

But to resoom backward a little. Molly didn't want to go to the Fair ground that morning, wantin' to rest and recooperate, so Josiah, Blandina and I sot forth a little later than common. There wuz a stoppage of the cars some ways from the gate and we got out and walked thinkin' we'd git there quicker, Josiah started to step off first when Blandina rushed past him, waved him back, and descended herself right into the midst of horses heads and huffs and yells and profanity from two drivers who wuz stoppin' the way and wuz revilin' each other, and after we got safe onto the sidewalk and wuz walkin' along I sez to her:

"You ort to be more careful, Blandina, or you'll find yourself killed some day and trompled on, I wuz skairt for you."

"Oh, I didn't think about myself, I wuz only thinkin' of savin' dear uncle Josiah, it wuzn't so much matter about me. A woman's life you know is not worth anything compared to a man's."

"Oh, shaw!" I sez, I wuz driv to it, and I sez it agin, "Oh, shaw!"

"Why, Aunt Samantha, you know it has been decided that that is so. It has been settled by law that a female's life is worth only half as much as a man's. Don't you remember last spring in Brooklyn it wuz settled once for all that a female child's life wuzn't worth only half as much as a male child?"

Sez I, "I remember a man's saying so, I don't remember it wuz proved; I myself thought it wuz about as hefty a thing as a judge ever undertook to try to set a value on two human lives with all their glorious and terrible possibilities, and," sez I, eppisodin' a little but walkin' along all the time, "how did that man know but the soul of a Florence Nightingale would wake up in that girl and bless the world for all time? And how did he know but the boy would prove a Benedict Arnold or a Guiteau? An evil influence to curse the world forever. It wuz a hefty job, and if Josiah had been judge I wouldn't let him undertook it, or if he had I'd had him set an equal value on what God and nater and human affection had made equal."

"Well, well," sez Josiah, "le'ss git along unless you want to stay here and preach all day on the sidewalk."

"But," sez I, "I'm not preachin', Josiah, I'm eppisodin'."

"Well, there is a time for eppisodin' and a time for common sense, and le'ss git along."

He acted real grumpy, I guess he'd thought more on me, if I had pretended I thought his life wuz worth double mine. But I wouldn't say I thought so not even for love's sake. And mebby he squirmed because I said I would have him do thus and so. Men are so queer! you can't always tell jest where the shue pinches, but you know by their actin' and behavin' that it pinches somewhere.

But Blandina sez, evidently reconnoitering the past seen in her memory, "No livin' bein' will ever make me think a man's life is not worth more than a woman's." Well, she felt so and I couldn't make her over at this late day, she'd been made too long, so Common Sense, with whom I always try to be on the most intimate terms, told me I hadn't better multiply any more words with her. Josiah's liniment wuz some clouded till his mind wuz took up by seein' some horses with hats on which truly wuz needed in that torrid heat, and he forgot his temporary shagrin in visions of the future.

Sez he, "The first work I do when I git home will be to git a hat for the old mair; I won't have to buy one, Tirzah Ann's last summer hat will be jest the thing. You know that one trimmed with red roses and shiffon and long lace streamers. Your hats ain't dressy enough; why the old mair hain't quite twenty-one, hain't old enough to vote even if her sect had the privelige. She's young and ort to dress young. That hat will be jest the thing. And what a sensation we will make enterin' Jonesville on a Sunday mornin', the mair, myself and you, we shall attract world-wide attention." But that minute we got to the gate and entered in. I never shall ride after the mair with a hat on, and pink roses and long lace streamers, never. But didn't argey about it.

Well, Josiah couldn't be held off any longer, he would go to the Pike that mornin'; I told him it wuzn't writ in my pad.

And he sez, "Dum that pad! Am I goin' to be held in by that pad, and led round by it all summer? I'm goin' to the Pike to-day and you can do as you're a minter." And Blandina jined in of course and said that if dear Uncle Josiah's mind wuz sot on it it wuz best to go, and she sez kinder low to me, "it wuzn't right to cross a man unless it wuz absolutely necessary."

I wuz goin' to twit her and tell her that as first chaperone I wuz the one to settle these matters, but I see Josiah wuz gittin' too agitated, one look at his gloomy face made me think of the past, and I gin in as gracefully as I could, and we wended our way thither with no more parley, and Josiah, as soon as our heads wuz turned that way, begun to brighten up and look better, and so about one-half of my mind and sperit wuz satisfied. And sometimes I think you can't be satisfied any more than that on this spear wherever you go, and whatever you see, specially if you have a man to deal with that is more or less fraxious and worrisome. To ease his mind and temper you'll git led into strange and devious paths time and agin.

But to resoom forward. The Four Cowboys on a Tear guardin' the entrance to the Pike confronted us and in their wild and boysterous hilarity seemed to my agitated and forebodin' sperit to shadow forth what we would find inside their domain. They wuz a strange and skairful set, their clothes wuz rough and disheveled and so wuz their linements. They all on 'em brandished aloft a pistol, seemin' to be on the lookout for someone to shoot. Their horses wuz on the dead gallop and you knowed by the expression on their faces jest what blood curdlin' yells wuz issuin' from their throats.

Why, if you'll believe it they wuz goin' at such a gallopin' prancin' gait that the feet of one of their horses never touched the ground, all four of his feet wuz gallopin' through the air. Josiah sez as he looked at it:

"I would give a dollar bill to Ury in a minute if he could learn the colt to do that trick, gallop along without his feet touchin' the ground. Jest think what a sensation it would make to the Jonesville fair. The old mair is too old of course to git the trick."

"Yes," sez I, "I guess her feet will never be lifted altogether from the ground till they are turned up in their last rest. But I wouldn't try, Josiah Allen, to imitate that roarin' and rakish set if I wuz in your place, you a member of the meetin' house."

"Oh, keep throwin' that meetin' house in my face, I should think you'd git tired ont but don't spoze you will."

And Blandina sez, "Oh, Aunt Samantha, don't be too harsh on them happy young men, it is only their high sperits. They would probable settle down and make the best of husbands if they had a tender and loving companion. I wonder," sez she, "if they wuz took from life and if they're here to the Fair I do so like the looks of one on 'em, I believe we would be congenial."

I hurried 'em along, the one she pinted out had his pistol raised the highest of the lot and he looked the most rakish.

But you forgot the looks of the cow-boys as you stood at the entrance and got a full view of the Pike. A perfect flood of all the colors of the rainbow, and towers and steeples and domes and crescents, and ornaments of all kinds busts on your vision, and at the same time your ear-pans are assailed by a noise like the sound of many waters, it is the big crowd that is surgin' through the Pike to and fro, fro and to, and keep at it night and day.

The great crowd seen here all the time shows how much the average human craves amusement and recreation. For the Pike is the amusement street of the Exposition. And a bystander standin' by told us that it extended a mild and a half from the Lindel entrance where we entered clear up to the Skinker road.

"What Skinker is that?" sez Josiah to the man. "Is he any relation to the Skinkerses up in Zoar? Old Ethan Skinker had a boy who come West. Most probable you've seen him here; I know most every stranger that comes to Jonesville."

"Where is Zoar?" sez the man, an uppish lookin' creeter, but sunk in ignorance, for when Josiah sez, "Zoar is four milds from Jonesville," sez the man:

"Where is Jonesville?"

And Josiah sez to me, "I'll be jiggered, Samantha, if this man at this age of the world don't know where Jonesville is."

"Well," sez I coolly, "we hain't expected to civilize all creation, Josiah." And as we had jest come to the entrance of the Tyoleran Alps I wouldn't let Josiah stop and parley with him any furder. He wuz kinder snickerin' to himself, a ignorant onmannerly creeter.

I had told Josiah and he fell in with the idee to once (he is clost) that we wouldn't try to see all the sights of the Pike. But this bein' the first one we come to we thought we would enter and we found it wuz a highly interestin' spectacle.

There wuz lofty snow-crowned mountains, some on 'em that seemed fur away, and some nigher by, a lake lyin' smooth and placid at their feet. Its shore wuz dotted with trees, and little picturesque cottages nestled on its banks.

Anon a large fair city spread out at the foot of the serene mountains. Then you would come to an immense castle, so nigh the mountain that it seemed to grow out of it with its ivied walls and lofty towers pierced with quaintly paned windows. Crowds of sightseers passin' in and out its lofty arched entrance and walking through the grounds outside.

Another castle, handsomer yet, wuz the castle of Linderhof, which stands in stately magnificence at the foot of the mountain, but furder away from it. Rows of clipped evergreens stand along its white terraces and masses of foliage on each side. A white monument towered up to the sky in the centre of its beautiful lawn in front, and nigher by there wuz a big leapin' fountain guarded on each side by statutes of female wimmen reclining at ease but seemin' to have their eye on the hull beautiful seen and tendin' to things, as wimmen have to.

Then anon you would come to a little village with pretty houses, mostly gables. There wuz a mountain torrent with several bridges over it that foamed and dashed along through the quaint little place. Pretty girls in their gay national costume accosted us from the verandas anon or oftener wantin' to sell sooveneers.

Josiah noticed the price they asked and hurried me onwards. They wuz real pretty girls so I didn't mind so much goin' on (married wimmen will understand my feelin's. We have to keep one eye out more or less).

There is a little chapel and below it cut from solid rock is a statute of Andreas Hofer, victorious soldier, lover of country, but like many another hero he had to suffer martyrdom for it. But his grateful countrymen keeps his memory green. I wuz glad to see it.

It wuz a pretty place: the lofty mountain side with cow bells tinkling along the winding roads, the cool pretty villages below, chimes sounding from high towers, the peasants singing their national songs, the bands ringing out their stirring melodies. And you could take a tram car and go through some of the loveliest seens in the Alps. We stayed there some time.

I have hearn since that them mountains wuz holler and they keep beer and stimulants there, Id'no how true it is. But I sez, "If it is so it is symbolical of where such stuff and its dealers will find themselves if they don't repent, down in the dirt and the dark, keepin' company with the Prince of Darkness. But I didn't see hide nor hair of any of 'em and don't know as there wuz anything to see."

I kinder wanted to go into the Irish Village, and said so; I remarked that you could buy Irish linen and lace there right on the spot. But Josiah sez, thrustin' his portmoney deeper in his pocket, "Id'no why we should go in there, we hain't Irish."

But I sez, "Miss Huff said it wuz dretful interestin', Josiah, I'd kinder like to see it."

But Josiah gin another deeper thrust to his portmoney and must have strained his pocket and sez in terser, hasher axents:

"We hain't Irish!"

And I sez kinder short, "Id'no as we're Alps." But I didn't argy there wuz so many folks round, wimmen have to choke off time and agin and conceal their shagrin' and their pardner's actin'.

Miss Huff had told me a lot about it. She said they had a real House of Parliament and you could drive in jaunting cars through Lake Kilarney region and the rocky road to Dublin that we've all hearn about.

Blarney Castle is used here as a theatre with stirring national plays going on and there is an Irish arch over nine hundred years old, and in a village here is an Irish national exhibit together with a Scotch display, laces, linens, carpets, etc., and there is a gallery of famous Irish beauties. She said it wuz as good as a visit to Ireland to study the country and the looks and ways of the people.

But as I say, Josiah hurried me past the long, many windowed front of the Irish Industrial Exhibit with its gay flags wavin' out on top bagonin' us to come in, past the famous St. Lawrence gate, Droggeda, one of the most famous relics in all Ireland, with its tall towers and its noble archway filled with crowds of sightseers, for he had seen right by the side of that gate a big roundin' entrance arch with the round world poised above it and above the arch in letters as high as he wuz:

Under and Over the Sea.

And of course he wuz bound to indulge in that luxury. And it wuz thrillin' in the extreme though I stood it better than he did.

The first thing you see is a submarine boat, you can see this plain from the Pike and the passengers embarkin' on it, two hundred and fifty can be carried by this boat at one time, and Josiah led us onto it with a excited linement, but he tried to look brave and fearless.

But the sights we see down there wuz enough to dismay a man weighin' far more than Josiah. You could look right out of the boat on the dashin' waves, water above you and on every side and see the strange monsters of the deep, and the queer marine growths and blossoms. Imagine seein' whales up over your head comin' right towards you, and Id'no but there wuz leviathians, I guess there wuz, they wuz big enough.

Anon you come to the river Seine in Paris and swoop up to the top of Eiffel Tower. Blandina sez holdin' onto my tabs, "From the bowels of the earth up to the vaulted heavings!"

I said tabs, but I meant tab, for Josiah had holt of the other with an almost frenzied grasp, and sez he, "Where will we go next, Samantha?"

And I sez, "Id'no, mebby to the moon or Mars."

And Blandina in trembling axents sez, "I wish I wuz safe at Mars."

Her ma is old but got her faculties. And Josiah sez with chatterin' teeth and quaverin' voice as he looked down from the dizzy hite onto Paris, "If I git through this alive I shall be glad to tell the brethren about it."

Far below us lay the illuminated city, for it wuz night, and a beautiful seen but sort o' melancholy. And sure enough, as if to prove my words true, here at the very top of the tower wuz an air-ship on which we took flight through the boundless fields of air. Paris died on our vision, then we floated over many cities and harbors, up the English Channel, anon the lights of London are passed and we are high up above the ocean. Weird and wild is the seen, the moon comes up, black clouds rise, and the voice of the winds is heard, then the rumbling of thunder and the forked lightning darts its baleful glare at us.

Josiah whispers, "Samantha, have you got on your gold beads?"

[Illustration]

I wear 'em under my collar but most always take 'em off in a thunder storm not wantin' to be struck in my neck. And I seen him furtively gittin' ready to throw away his jack-knife. But at that minute the storm calms down and Josiah replaces his knife jest as we enter New York harbor. A flight over sea and land, forest and city, and we land agin at the Exposition.

As we disembarked Josiah grasped holt of my hand ostensibly to help me but really in tender greeting, and sez in fervid axents, "I wouldn't have you take that trip alone, Samantha, without me with you to protect you, not for worlds."

"No," sez Blandina, "what would we have done without dear Uncle Josiah by our side?"

I didn't argy but felt that he wouldn't with his size and weight made much headway agin them whales and water monsters to say nothin' of danger by drowndin' and fallin' from the sky. But he felt neat and we wended our way on.

Josiah said he didn't care about goin' to Asia, and I said it wuz a pity not to when we wuz so nigh, but he kinder hurried me on.

I told him that the Streets of Seville interested me, for it wuz planned by a woman, the only woman who ever received a concession in a amusement street of a Exposition.

And Josiah sez, "I shall spend my money on sunthin' of more importance; it probable all runs to crazy quilts and tattin."

But it wuz no such thing, it wuz perfectly beautiful, as I've hearn folks say that have been there. But I see he wuz beginnin' to look kinder mauger, and as first chaperone I sez anxiously, "Where do you want to go, dear Josiah? Do you want to go to Hagenbecks Animal Show?"

"No, I don't; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own barnyard."

"Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?"

"No, we shall git there all right if we keep on without my payin' out money. I told you I wuzn't goin' to pay to go in to all these places."

"Well, do you want to go to France or Ceylon or Persia? Or Cairo? Or where do you want to go?"

Sez he, cross as a bear, "I want to go where I can git sunthin' to eat."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, I've been so took up I forgot your appetite; we will go to once." And havin' heard that good food could be got in Japan we hastened thither.

CHAPTER XI.

We entered Fair Japan through a big gateway a hundred feet high. It wuz called the Temple of Kiko, it wuz all covered with carvin' and gold ornaments. And they say it couldn't be made now of the same materials for a million dollars. It would been magnificent lookin' if it hadn't been for what looked like serpents wreathin' up the pillars in front. I hate snakes! and they're the last ornaments I would ever sculp over my front door.

Blandina said they wuz dragons, and mebby they wuz. 'Tennyrate they wuz fastened to the pillars and didn't offer to hurt us. We got quite a good meal, but queer, in a tea-house on the borders of the lake. They had the best tea I ever drinked. I asked 'em how long they steeped it, and how much they put in for a drawin', but they bein' ignorant didn't seem to understand me. But I enjoyed bein' there, for whilst our inner men and wimmen wuz bein' refreshed our minds wuz enriched by this real picture of life in Japan, for in there it is jest as if we had traveled thousands of milds and wuz sot down in the real Japan.

After the edge of Josiah's hunger wuz squenched he begun to look about him and praise up the looks of the Geisha girls that wuz dancin' or rather posterin' in their pretty modest way, and some on 'em playin' on queer lookin' instruments that looked some like my carpet sweeper.

These girl musicians wuz settin' on the floor dressed in what seemed to be gay colored night gowns, and they looked well enough, kinder innocent and modest lookin'. But I told him it wuzn't becomin' in a old man and a professor to be so enthusiastick over young girls dancin' and playin'.

And he sez, "Oh, well, fetch on your girl blinders and I'll put 'em on. But till you git 'em for me and harness me up in 'em I've got to look round some."

But I told him there wuz enough for him to see besides girls and there wuz. For it beats all what long strides the Japans have made in every branch of education and culture. If they keep on in the next century as they have in this some of the so-called advanced nations will have to take a back seat and let this little brown, polite people stand to the head. But then they have been cultured for hundreds of years, though lots of folks don't seem to know it.

But I am sorry to say it wuzn't the high art and culture of Japan that Josiah wuz most interested in, but the queer things, such as the strange stunted trees trained into forms of men and animals hundreds of years old and no higher than a common chair, and lots of 'em not so high. And there wuz roosters with tails twenty-five feet long.

Josiah said he wuz bound to git an egg and see if he could hatch one.

And I sez, "Where would it roost? It's tail is long agin as the hen house is high."

Well, he said in the summer it could roost on top of the barn with its tail kinder hangin' down and out over the smoke house.

But it wuzn't a minute before his eyes wuz took up with some images, some big ones covered with the most exquisite carvin', down to them so small, if you'll believe it, they wuz carved out of a single kernel of rice. And there wuz gold fish and a hundred other kinds of fishes, and you see there the common houses of the people and people livin' in them jest as they do in their own country, and a royal palace, arched bridges, lanterns hangin' everywhere, pagodas, temples, lagoons with ornamental boats, cascades, etc. All made a pretty picture, though curious.

Then in Asakusa, a native village of Japan, is forty stores and there you see the most beautiful display of rugs, carved ivory and wood, porcelain, jewels, fans, paintings, etc., and the workmen busy making 'em right before your eyes. And in the narrer streets jugglers, acrobats, fortune tellers are giving their mysterious performances. There are bands of music, jinrikishaws with men harnessed up in 'em, and you can ride in 'em if so inclined.

There wuz quite a number of places on the Pike that we passed that I kinder wanted to see, but Josiah wuzn't willin' to pay out too much money, and what interested me most wuz the foreign countries that I had never had a chance to see, they havin' the misfortune to be so fur from Jonesville. But when we got to the Chinese Village, it had such a magnificent and showy front that Josiah never made an objection to goin' inside.

I wuz dretful glad to go there, you know it is nater to want to do what you can't. And China has been so determined to keep Josiah and I and the world out of her empire, I wuz glad enough to git in, and wuz real interested lookin' at them queer yeller pig-tailed little creeters with dresses on, and their funny little houses.

There wuz a big Chinese theatre, and a Joss house where they worship Joss, whoever he or she may be, I wanted to have their religion explained to me, there wuz a guide there to do it.

But Josiah said that as a deacon he wouldn't countenance it, for I might be led into idolatry. And when I argued with him he whispered to me:

"Samantha, if you insist on hangin' round their meetin' house here any longer I shall say out loud, 'By Joss!'"

At that fearful threat I started on, I wouldn't let him demean himself before the heathen.

You can see here in this country, as in Japan, native workers plyin' their different trades, mechanics, painters, jewelers, etc., etc. Silk weavers usin' the same old, onhandy looms they used centuries ago, ivory carvers fashionin' elephants and other animals, and all on 'em tryin' to sell to us in their high-pitched voices.

I had quite a number of emotions here in China a musin' on the oldness and strangeness of their civilization, and wonderin' if it would ever be merged into a newer, fresher life.

Blandina didn't share my lofty emotions, she simpered some and said, "I believe they would make lovely husbands if their eyes wuz sot in straighter and they dressed different."

And I sez, "I wouldn't admire 'em in that capacity, but after all they would be equinomical husbands. If you had a calico dress kinder wore off round the bottom you could cut it off and make 'em wear it, men's clothes are so expensive it would be quite a savin'. And you could pass him off for the hired girl if strangers come onexpected, though that is sunthin' I wouldn't approve on, fur from it, a hauty sperit goes before a fall, as I told Josiah once when he got on a new kind of collar that held his head up so high he fell over the wood-box."

But to resoom. The Chinese are curious lookin', but equinomical, they can live on a few grains of rice a day, and America owes 'em a debt of gratitude anyway for tunnelin' her Rocky Mountains, buildin' her big railroads and diggin' ditches to water the land and make it beautiful that they're shet out of.

Blandina sez to me as we wended our way out, "No man ort to be turned back out of this country." She said the Chinee wuz good, industrious, equinomical and peaceable.

And I sez, "Yes, they work well and don't go round like some other foreigners with a chip on their shoulder. But," sez I, "Blandina, I will not tell the nation what to do in this matter; there is so much to be said on both sides it must not depend on me to settle it, and they needn't ask me to."

I hadn't more than said these words as we wuz strollin' along when who should we meet but Royal and Rosy Nelson. I knowed they wuz to be married the very day after we left for St. Louis. We wuz invited but couldn't go, our plans bein' all laid and tickets bought, but I sent 'em a handsome present, for I wuz highly tickled with the match.

Truly no rose ever looked sweeter hangin' on its bough than did Rosy Nelson hangin' onto the arm of her devoted consort, and he I thought wuz well named, so royal and proud wuz his mean as he introduced his wife.

I kissed her warmly right there in China and promised to make her a all day's visit soon as I got home, I'm lottin' on't.

We talked a little about past troubles caused by Jabezeses and inventions, and the glories of the Fair, and then they strolled off happy as two turkle doves, not needin' or desirin' any other company than their own, and showin' it plain by their actions. Josiah was put out about it for he wanted to find out about how things wuz to home, bein' highly tickled to meet a male Jonesvillian.

Blandina sez as they walked away, bound up in each other and both on 'em wropped up in the glowin' mantilly of youth and joy: "Oh, happy, happy wedded souls! how I envy you."

And Josiah sez in a fraxious axent, "How queer it is that two such smart young folks can look and act so spooney, but thank heaven! it won't last. It won't be long before Royal will be willin' to pass the time o' day with a Jonesvillian."

I told him there wuz nothin' so beautiful as love. "No, nor nothin' that makes folk act so like pesky fools, they don't act as though they knew putty."

I hated such oncongenial idees. But couldn't deny they wuz spooney, for they wuz, not a small teaspoon but a big silver dinner spoon, and I believe it will last. Not the outward form of the spoon, oh, no, that would be too wearisome to the world and themselves, but the precious metal that forms it. Love is the greatest thing in the world.

Blandina had always lived in a back place and had never heard a graphophone, so bein' kinder tired, and bein' nigh a place where they had one, we went in at her request and sot for quite a spell.

And we heard voices and songs gay and sad, marches and melodies, loftiest oratory, maddest mirth and profoundest feeling all comin' out of a little square box, what a idee!

What a man that Edison is. It seems always like watchin' the wonderful onseen secrets of nater, like seein' the mortal made immortal to think that voices we've loved and mourned as they wuz hushed in the last stillness can sound out agin, breakin' our hearts with the same old echoes, the same old sweetness of the voice we loved and lost, talkin' in mortal words and axents to us when they've long, long ago learnt the immortal language, beheld the immortal seens.

Why Cleopatra's voice might have been stored up as she made love to Antony, or the voice of the relation on her own side, old Mr. Pharo himself orderin' the Hebrews to git out of his premises, and their back talk about plaguin' him till he wuz willin' they should go.

Why even Eve scoldin' Adam about slackness in gittin' kindlin' wood or her pardner complainin' about her wastefulness and extravagance in usin' so many fig leaves for her fall suit. Oh, how nateral, how nateral that would sound to wimmen.

Or old Noah's voice as he stood in the Ark door bagonin and shoutin' to the animals to walk in male and female. Or his voice kinder soothin' and patronizin' tellin' the female dove to go out and shirk round on the water and see if it wuz safe for the males in the party to go out. Oh, how nateral that would sound to wimmen, soundin' out through the centuries.

And on and on down the long years, Job's voice complainin' of the bitter comfort of his friend's familiar talk. He'd stood losin' family and fortune and had stood biles but the seven days' visitation and the "I told-you-sos" and the advice of well wishers wuz too much for him.

And Solomon's talk to Miss Sheba and hem to him. And Daniel's talk by the deep waters, and mebby the Great Voice that said to him:

"Understand!"

And brave Queen Esther's voice facin' her enemies and a drunken king, and sweet Ruth's, and Paul's incomparable words, and St. John's. Or the lofty voices of the Patriot fathers as they nobly shrieked for freedom as they threw their pardner's tea overboard, while they hung onto their whiskey and tobacco that wuz taxed twice as high.

Oh, how their impassioned cries for liberty, and how they would willin'ly sacrifice their wives favorite beveridge ruther than to yield to the tyrant. How nateral, how nateral them noble yells would sound to their descendant females, the Daughters of the Revolution, and all the rest. What would it be for us all to hear them axents, and it could have been done if Edison had been born sooner and that little box had been round.

I didn't wonder that Blandina wuz enthused, it is enough to enthuse anybody that never has hearn it, she said she laid out to go every day three or four times a day and stay jest as long as she could.

One of the most remarkable sights we see on the Pike wuz Jim Key, a horse that is valued at a hundred thousand dollars, who travels in his own private car. A horse that can read and write, spell, understand mathematics, go to the post office, git mail from any box, give chapter and verse of Bible text where the horse is mentioned, uses the telephone, and is so intelligent you expect him to break out in oratory any time.

Josiah wuz spell bound here, I could hardly tear him away. And sez he:

"The first thing I do when I go home will be to send the colt to the deestrick school."

I told him the teacher wouldn't want him whinnerin' round amongst her scholars, and mebby gallopin' and snortin' round the schoolroom.

But he wuz as firm as adamant in his idee. And Id'no what I shall do about it. But spoze the trustees will have to head him off.

Josiah wanted to go and see the Fire Fighters, he said he thought he could git some idees to tell the brethren that wuz in the fire company, and Blandina and I wanted to see the Esquimeaux Village. We went on, Josiah promisin' to meet us there. And as we went I said:

"I've sung for years about Greenland's icy mountains, but never spozed I should set my eyes on 'em." For there towerin' up to the skies wuz immense ice mountains peaked and desolate lookin', and inside it looked worse yet. A bare snowy place broken by cold lookin' water dotted with ice islands and surrounded by tall ice peaks. I don't spoze it wuz real ice and snow, but looked like it.

And there wuz reindeers hitched to sleds, and the low round huts of the natives lookin' jest like the pictures in our old Gography. And there wuz some white bears natural as life, and dog teams haulin' sledges, toiling up the steep cliffs hitched tantrum. The natives wuz queer lookin' little creeters, dark complexioned, dressed in furs and thick costooms. But little Nancy Columbus born at the World's Fair, Chicago, wuz cute as she could be.

There wuz a big street show at the other end of the Pike and this place wuz most deserted by sight-seers, and Blandina and I sot down on a bench by the side of one of these little housen to rest. As we did so we hearn the voice of oratory comin' from the other side, where some Esquimeaux seemed to be gathered with open mouths and wonderin' linements. The orator seemed to be finishin' his address in words as follers:

"Let us not permit ourselves to be spiritually incapacitated by quandaries regarding the control of earthly matter. Let us circumnavigate the ethereal realms of unexplored ether, quander the unquanderable until the everlastin' stupendiousness of the whyness of the what shall dawn on the enraptured vision, and precipitate the effulgent tissues of ethereal matter in one glorious pulchritude of transcendentalism."

As the speaker paused for needed breath Blandina clasped her hands and sithed out, "Oh, what glorious eloquence! I never hearn anything like it!"

And I sez, "I never did but once, I know that voice, though I hain't hearn it for twenty years; that is Prof. Aspire Todd." And I thought to myself, he is practicin' over a speech, and thought the Esquimeaux would stand it better than tribes less humble and good natered. And so it turned out; he hoped he would be invited to speak at a scientific meetin' to take place in Festival Hall in a day or two, and bein' to the Inside Inn he'd tried to orate his speech in his own room, but it is built so shammy you can hear things from one end to the other, and they threatened him with horse whippin' on one side and lynchin' on the other, and bein' drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on 'em weepin' bitterly, not knowin' what ailed 'em.

Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, "I hearn Aspire Todd at a
Fourth of July celebration in Josiah's sugar bush."

"Oh," sez Blandina, claspin' her hands, "would it be possible for you to introduce me to that noble being?"

Sez I, "You like his talk then?"

"Oh, yes!" sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. "His matchless eloquence is beyond praise."

"So 'tis," sez I, "way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to supper." So as he come round the corner of the buildin' follered by some bewildered lookin' natives I put out my hand and sez, "I don't know as you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I am Josiah Allen's wife."

He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, "Indeed my memory retroacts readily on that delightsome remembrance."

And then I introduced Blandina, knowin' I wuz makin' her perfectly happy by so doin'. He'd growed old considerable, which I didn't blame him for and didn't see as he could help it, twenty years havin' gone by. His hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious, sentimental, high-flown look to him.

I didn't admire his looks, but Blandina's manners to him wuz worshipful, and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.

I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein' quite ready owin' to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin' with excitement, and she sez, "Lazy, good for nothin' things! but it hain't what they do that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise."

Sez Molly, "If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny."

[Illustration]

"Overlook it!" sez she, turnin' an' facin' us with her hands on her portly hips. "I hain't used to no such trash. When anybody has lived with the highest nobility they can't stomach such low down niggers. Why, I used to have 'em kneelin' at my feet, four or five at a time, askin' what I'd have for dinner. And that poor, iggorent, low-down cook in the kitchen told me jest now I lied about Prince Arthur, that there never wuz such a prince, and I sez to her, 'How any black nigger can stand makin' bakin' powder biscuit and tell such lies is a mystery to me.'"

"Well, you know Princes are not common in this country," sez I.

She drew herself up more hautily, "Such a Prince as that hain't common in no country! Why he's so handsome and good the very birds in the trees will stop singin' to listen to his talk, and the grass turn brighter green where he's stepped on it, and the May-flowers peek up and blush with happiness if he looks at 'em."

"How come you to leave him, Aunt Pheeny, if he wuz so perfect?"

"I tole you before," sez she with dignity, "that when he went off to school I wuzn't in no ways bound to stay with ole Miss. She wuz jealous, you know, jealous of me. Prince Arthur made more of me, we used to sing together, you know I've sung in Concorts and Operations, been a star in 'em. Ole Miss couldn't sing no more than a green frog. And he always said when he got married I wuz to live with him, that nachully sot up his Ma's back, and I santered off one day, never tole her I wuz goin', but jest lifted up my train, I wore long pink and blue satin dresses then, and I jest santered out the house over to Californy and Asia and so on to Chicago, and then hired out to Miss Dotie's ma. And here I is!" sez she firmly, and took up the empty tray and departed.

She wuz a good singer, her voice full of the sweetness and heart searchin' pathos of her race. And her wild flights of imagination never hurt anyone but herself.

Well, after supper, which they called dinner, I felt considerable better. Josiah stayed down in the parlor talkin' to Grandpa Huff and Billy, and Molly come up in my room agin and sot with me, whilst twilight let down her soft gray mantilly round us and pinned it to the earth with silver stars (metafor).

I always take it as a great compliment when folks confide the deepest secrets of their heart to me. And Id'no why it is, but they most always do; I mean them that I take to nachully. Sometimes I've felt first rate by it and spozed it wuz because I had such a noble riz up look to my face. But Josiah sez it is because I have such a soft look that folks think they can pour their griefs into me and they will sink in, some like water into cotton battin, and they can lose sight of their sorrows for a spell and relieve 'em some. Well, Id'no which it is, but 'tennyrate as Molly sot there with me lookin' as wan and pale as a white rose on a cold November evenin' she told me the whole story, hid from her own folks but revealed unto a Samantha.

Josiah may say what he's a mind to, but I believe it is the natural nobility of my linement that drawed it from her. While she wuz away visitin' this school chum in a southern city she met a young chap handsome as Appolyan, I knew from what she said, and so talented and gifted, I could see in a minute they had fell in love voylently from the very first time they met, and day by day the attraction growed till they wuz completely wropped up in each other. She said he seemed to worship her.

But strange, strange thing! with all the love he showed her, in every word and act, he left her without a word, only a sort of a wild note saying he could not endure the wretchedness of seeing a heaven so near that he could not hope to enter, and after that silence, deep, dark and onbroken silence and despair. "And my heart is broken!" sez she, as she laid her pretty head in my lap sobbin' out, "What shall I do! Oh, what shall I do!"

She wep' and cried and cried and wep', and I wep' with her, my snowy handkerchief held in one hand, the other hand tenderly caressin' the bowed head in my lap. But as she said the word Silence it brung up sunthin' I had read that very day, and I sez:

"Dear, did you ever hear of enterin' into the Silence?"

"Yes," sez Molly, liftin' her tear wet, sweet face, "I have a friend who enters into the Silence for hours, and she says that everything she greatly desires and asks for at that time, is given her. She calls it the New Thought."

"And I call it the Old Thought, Molly, older than the creation of man. And what they call Entering into the Silence, I call Waiting on the Lord. And what I call prayer, they, from what I read, most probable call waking up the solar plexus, whatever that may be. But it don't make much difference what a thing is called, the name is but a pale shadow compared to the reality. Disciples of the New Thought, Christian Scientists, Healers, Spiritualists, etc., are, I believe, reaching out and feeling for the Light as posies growin' in a dark suller send out little pale shoots huntin' for the sunlight. And so I feel kinder soft and meller towards the hull caboodle on 'em though I can't foller all their beliefs.

"For I, as a member of the M.E. meetin' house, call this great beneficient over-rulin' Power that sot the world spinnin' on its axletrees and holds it up, lest it dashes aginst the planets, and directs the flight of the tiny bird fleeing before the snows; this Mighty Force that controls us from the cradle to the grave, but which we cannot see no more than we can see His servants, the cold and wind that freezes us or the warmth and love that blesses us. This Power, that whether we scoff or pray, holds us all in the hollow of His mighty hand, I call God the Father, Son and Holy Guest, and believe it once took mortal shape and dwelt with humanity to uplift and bless it. And that love, that torture, crucifixion and death could not slay still yearns over this sad old world, still as the comforting Guest makes its home in human hearts that love and trust."

Molly sot still with her pretty head leaning aginst me and I went on, "In the story of His life and death, that volume that holds the wisdom of the old and ripened glory of the new, that holy book sez, 'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under shadow of the Almighty.'

"What a place to abide in, Molly, the shadow of the All Loving, the All Mighty one, a shadow that casts glowing light instead of darkness like our earthly shadows, a pure white light in which, lookin' through the eye-glass of faith we can read the meanin' of all the sorrows and perplexities and troubles he permits us to endure, and find every word on 'em gilt edged with glory.

"Spiritualists, Christian Healers, etc., may name this what they will. Disciples of the New Thought may call it the Silence, but I shall keep right on callin' it the Secret Place of the Most High. And He who inhabits that sacred place has promised that if you reverently and obediently enter and dwell therein and trust in Him, He will give you the desire of your heart.

"So all you've got to do, Molly, is to do as he tells you to, obey and trust Him jest as the child trusts his pa, and asks him for what he wants most, you must ask Him for the desire of your heart, and if it is best for you, dear, He will bring it to pass."

"Do you think so?" sez she, brightenin' up more'n considerable.

"No, I don't think so. I know it."

Well, them consolin' words, for thought is a real thing, and I jest wropped her round with my tenderness and compassion, I guess they comforted her some, 'tennyrate she promised me sweetly that she would obey and trust, and I felt considerable better about her.

I wuz sorry for her as sorry as I could be, but I had a strong feelin' inside of my heart (mebby some wise, sweet angel whispered it to me) that everything would come out right in the end, and Molly would git the desire of her heart.

She's belonged to the meetin' house for years. But sometimes members git some shock that jars 'em and sends 'em out of the narrer road for quite a spell and they git kinder lost gropin' through the dark shadders of earthly disappointment and sorrow. Nothin' but the light that streams down from above can pierce them glooms, and I knowed by the sweet light that lit up Molly's linement that her face wuz turned in the right direction and she wouldn't look sideways, behind or before, but would seek for light and help from above.

CHAPTER XII.

Well, for the next week we had a busy time, goin' to the Fair most every day, sometimes all together, but not stayin' together long, for most always we'd meet Professor Todd somewhere and he and Blandina would pair off together (I jest as willin' as anybody ever wuz).

Molly had a young schoolmate who lived in St. Louis, and sometimes they would spend the day together at some reception or other. But most of the time Josiah and I paid our two attentions to the Fair stiddy, a travelin' about and seein' all we could.

And one mornin' Josiah asked me before breakfast, jest as cool as if he wuz proposin' a glass of lemonade with ice in it, if I didn't want to go to Jerusalem that mornin'.

Jerusalem! City of our Lord! Oh, my soul, think on't! As he said the words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over that old him:

"Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and soul oppressed.
We know not, oh, we know not what joys await us there."

And Josiah broke in and sung the last line with me (or what he called singin').

"What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare."

But I knowed that singin' that time of day would be apt to draw attention, specially as Josiah's singin' wuz very base and my sulferino hain't what it wuz, and I hastened to say:

"Yes, Josiah, I want to go."

Breakfast wuz kinder late that mornin', and little Dorothy come into my room, she slep' jest acrost from us, and she begun to tell me to once about a meetin' she'd been to the night before with Aunt Pheeny. And to make talk with her I asked her what the text wuz, and she sez:

"Jesus the quilt."

Josiah wuz horrified, and it did sound bad, and he begun to reprimand her sharp, but I sez:

"Tell me all about it, Dotie."

And come to find out, it wuz "Jesus the Comforter," and her little bedspread wuz sometimes called a quilt and sometimes a comforter. And I told Josiah how necessary it wuz not to condemn children before searching into their motives. But Dotie wuz evidently thinkin' about the sermon she had hearn so lately, and she went on to ask, "Was Jesus a Jew?"

And I sez, "Yes, dear."

"Why," sez she, "I always thought Dod wuz a Presbyterium."

That wuz her Aunty Huff's persuasion, which she nachully thought couldn't be improved on.

Dotie had a little straw hat on that time o' day and I asked her what it wuz for, and she sez, "Oh, I carry my papers in it, I'm writin' a book."

Grandpa Huff always carried papers in his hat, and she copied him. I asked her what her book wuz about, and how she wuz gittin' on with it and she said:

"It wuz about a lady, a buggler and a ghost, and I've killed 'em all and that's as fur as I've got."

Killin' a ghost! a burglar and a heroine, I thought what a noble start for a sensational novel.

But the breakfast bell rung jest then, and I took the little warm hand in mine and led her down to breakfast.

Well, after breakfast Josiah and I sot out in good season for Jerusalem.

Molly wanted to go to the British Building to see a school friend of hern that she thought might be there, and Blandina offered to accompany her. They wuz goin' to stop at a number of places on the way, and we agreed to meet at noon sharp at the English Building.

We went into the walled city of Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate, through a tall arched entrance in the stun wall. Within wuz lots of carriages and horses and camels and donkeys and men, wimmen and children, some in strange and startlin' costooms, but the first thing Josiah spoke on wuz the name of a restaurant, "A Fast," it wuz over a door clost by.

"A fast," sez he, "that don't look very encouragin' in a eatin' house.
If it wuz Brek Fast it would look more hopeful."

"You've had your breakfast, Josiah, and a good one. Don't be thinkin' of vittles so much in such a place as this."

"I shall think of what I'm a minter, and you can't break it up, mom!"

Truly he spoke the truth; I could cling to his arm, drink out of the same cup, set in the same chair, lay my head on the same piller, and yet, he might be millions of milds from me in sperit, 'round with other wimmen for all I knew. Queer, hain't it?

Yes, he wuz thinkin' of food right here in this Holy City. As for me, a perfect troop of lofty emotions wuz sweepin' through my mind, as I looked 'round me on the very same seen our Lord had looked at. Low old-fashioned stun housen such as He might have entered in, men and wimmen clad in long robes such as He wore.

And to think of seein' the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, that He walked, carryin' the agony of humanity, and the pityin' compassion of divinity.

And the Nine Stations of the Cross where our Lord stopped to rest on that bitter journey, toiling up the steep hill carrying up the heavy cross and the woes and sins of the world, awful! beautiful Calvary! sacred, heart-breaking, holy place. How my soul burnt within me thinkin' of all this as I stood in the Holy City.

And there wuz the Tower of David, the Shepherd king. I always liked David, though I could advised him for his good in lots of things. He didn't do right by Ury, and he ortn't to had so many wives, if he'd scrimped himself a little in 'em, mebby his son, Solomon, wouldn't had so many, and one is enough, as I told Josiah.

"Yes," sez he with intense conviction in his tone. "One wife is enough for any man, heaven knows, and anybody that hankers after more than one is a fool!"

I didn't really like his axent; he'd been layin' it up, I guess what I said about vittles, but I didn't mind it.

And we went through the different quarters of the city. The little stores and bazars by the side of the street wuz full of real nice things to sell, rich Eastern woven goods, embroideries, cushions, curtains, rugs, lamps, jewels, ornaments, trinkets of all kinds, etc., etc. There is more than a hundred of these little booths and stores in Jerusalem, and all full of handsome things. I loved to look at 'em, though Josiah tried to draw me away.

Sez he, "You don't want to buy here; you can do as well agin in Jonesville tradin' off your butter and eggs, and probable git a chromo throwed in."

I didn't argy, but I bought a string of beads for Tirzah Ann and a pipe for Thomas J., the wood of which growed on the Mount of Olives, so the man said.

I told Josiah they would prize 'em high havin' come from Jerusalem.

And he said, "They never see Jerusalem," he said they wuz growed over in New Jersey, and when I asked him how he knew, he said he re_cog_nized the berries and the grain of the wood.

But he couldn't no such thing, and I presoom the man told considerable truth. And we see Rabbis, Turkish cavalry, common people livin' in the queer little housen jest as they did in Jerusalem, and the priests goin' through their religious ceremonies jest the same. And we went through the Citadel and the different public buildin's.

There wuz lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin' posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed with flowers.

They wuz real pretty girls, with white veils on over their dark hair, their lustrous eyes lookin' out at us as they might have looked at the Postles.

And there wuz cunnin' little donkeys that anybody could ride if they wanted to, and camels with gorgeous trappings kneelin' down ready for folks to mount and be carried 'round the streets. Josiah stood ready to pay the ten cents apiece to give us the pleasure of a ride.

But I declined the treat. I sez, "We don't ride the old mair hoss back to home, and I don't hanker after bein' histed up onto a camel's hump, or to see you in that perilous poster."

He said he'd love to tell the bretheren we'd rid 'em, but seein' I wuz sot agin it he gin up.

The streets smell bad and are so narrer I don't see how they would manage if two buggies met; one would have to back out, they couldn't git by each other.

The old Roman barracks are bare and dreary lookin', but dretful interestin' to me for there our Lord stood to be judged by Caesar like a lamb before the shearer, and he said, "I wash my hands of this matter, I find no fault in this man."

I wish Caesar had had more gumption. His wife could see furder ahead than he could. But that is often the case, as I tell Josiah.

And we went through St. John's Hospice, and the Mosque of Omar. That is a monstrous big building with a great round dome on top, two broad flights of steps lead up into it, we clumb the nighest one and went inside. The high dome is lined with colored mosaic, and looks first-rate, but I didn't pay much attention to that for right underneath the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up Isaac, or got ready to. How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham's heart and most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had. It is heart-breakin' to think on't, though it all come out right in the end, as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.

But Josiah wuz gittin' worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, "Josiah, I must see Solomon's Temple."

It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn't begrech the time or journey,
and jest as we wuz goin' up the steps, who should we meet comin' out but
Jane Olive Perkins (nay Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin' in
Chicago, but visitin' her old home and relation quite often.

She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin' with diamonds. I don't approve of such dressin' in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always showy.

She held out both hands in joyful greetin' (the meanin' of which I mistrusted afterwards). We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez:

"I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen's wife, for I know you will want to give to a noble cause I am workin' for, you and dear Mr. Allen. It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin' heart, and I knew you'd give liberal."

I'd forgot my portmoney that mornin' and didn't want right there in Solomon's Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make him fraxious. And I wuz havin' such a lot of lofty emotions there at Jerusalem, I didn't want to bring 'em down by havin' words with my pardner. And I knowed too that "dear Mr. Allen" would be apt to say hash things that would bring him down in Jane Olive's estimation, he's so clost and he never liked her to begin with.

So I said I couldn't very well stop and tend to it right there in
Solomon's Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should
come and see me. She wuz stayin' at a big tarven not so very fur from
Miss Huff's, and said she'd brought her orto and shuffler with her from
Chicago.

Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin' the last thing "owe Revwah," or sunthin' like that and Josiah sez to me:

"Who's she twittin' us on? I don't owe nobody by that name, nor never did, not a cent, I'm a man that pays my debts."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute it."

Jane Olive kinder smiled and passed on, and I'dno but in Fancy I and the public may as well set down on the steps of Solomon's Temple, and I'll tell about who Jane Olive Perkins wuz. She wuz Jane Olive Gowdey, and married Samuel Perkins, old Eliphilet Perkinses second boy, and folks thought she done mizable when she married him. Sam hadn't been put to work much bein' sort o' weakly so his folks thought, he looked kinder peaked.

But I spoze Sam enjoyed pretty good health all the time onbeknown to his folks and wuz kinder savin' up his strength, layin' it up as you may say for the time o' need, so he had it all when he wuz married. A master hand he wuz to save things and make 'em count. For all he never did any work to speak on, he had more proppity laid up than any of the Perkins boys when he wuz married, he had saved so and sort o' speculated and laid up.

He wuz kinder mean too, runnin' after wimmen at that time, though onbeknown to Jane Olive or his folks, but it come out afterwards, he wuz awful sly. When he married Jane Olive Gowdey that wuz a surprise too, for Bill, the oldest boy, wanted her the worst way and everybody spozed they wuz engaged. A good creeter Bill wuz, virtuous as Joseph, or any of the old Bible Patriarchs, and virtuouser than lots of 'em.

But Sam, in jest that way of hisen, laid low and sort o' did the best he could with what he had to do with, sort o' speculated and increased her likin' for him on the sly (mean fellers will git ahead of good ones five times out of ten, wimmen are so queer). And lo and behold! the first Jonesville knew they up and got married.

They moved to a big city where Sam got a chance to travel for a grocery store, and Jane Olive opened a inteligence office, where for an ample consideration she furnished incompetent help to distracted housekeepers, receivin' pay from both victims, and they laid up money fast. Then he went into pork and first we knew Sam wuz a very rich man, lived in great style, kep' his carriage, but wuz awful mean, so we heard, hadn't no morals at all to speak on so fur as wimmen wuz concerned, and we had hearn that Jane Olive not bein' over and above happy in marriage, and forgittin' to all appearance she had ever dickered with mistress and maid, wuz tryin' her best to work her way in among the aristockracy, she wuz dretful ambitious and so wuz Sam, they wanted to go with the first.

She did everything she could to foller their example, she dressed up in satin and diamonds and trailed 'round to theatres and operas and hung over dry goods counters, and kep' her maid and coachman and butler, or that's what folks say, I don't even know what a butler is expected to do, or Josiah don't. "Butler," sez I when I hearn on't, "I can't imagine what a butler duz."

And Josiah sez, "A coachman is to coach, and a waiter is to wait, and a butler must be to buttle."

Sez I, "Buttle what? Or who? Or when?" But he couldn't tell. Well, Sam he did everything to git into the first and be fashionable, he embezzled a lot, broke down two or three times with enormous profit to himself, spent his money like water, wuz jest as mean as he could be, went over to Europe now and then, did everything he could do to be fashionable and act like a man of the world, and finally he led astray a little girl that lived with 'em, a motherless little girl they had took, pretty as a pink too, and affectionate dispositioned. Jane Olive turned her outdoors, of course, when she found it out. It wuz in the fall of the year, and the night before Christmas the girl with her baby in her arms jumped into the river and wuz drownded.

Her father had some spunk and took Sam up, but he wuz always sly and looked ahead, and he proved that she wuz a day or two older than the age of consent, and he got let off triumphant and her father had to pay the cost, besides the funeral expenses, and grave stun.

Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin' to his powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I believe he brought it down to about ten years. He wuz thought a sight on by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for their interest. He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered broadcast through the country without any license to pay. I spoze there never wuz a more popular statesman. He worked too hard though, and had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts. And he kep' right on, so they say reapin' 'em ever since, cuttin' up and actin', but always actin' jest inside the law and always cuttin' up the same.

He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin' what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze there never wuz a more popular legislator.

But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after he'd made a powerful speech at the openin' of a saloon he owned, a old one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin', and by some wimmen too.

Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin' to show off to the world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded off, weaker drinks in one place leadin' up gradual to brandy and whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin' man, so I hearn, who made a prayer and then they all sung the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow—

Askin' God to bless what He'd cursed. What must God thought on't! For He and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.

Praise Him all creatures here below—

When that minister knowed the stuff he wuz dedicatin' rendered all creeters here below, no matter how smart they wuz nachully, incapable of tellin' whether they wuz on their head or their heels, blessin' or cussin'. When a man is drunk as a fool how can he praise anything? It is all he can do to navigate his own legs within' and weavin' along under him, ready to crumple down any minute into the gutter. He'd look well tryin' to sing gospel hims when he can't tell what his own name is, or speak it if he could.

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

Why, I don't see how they dasted to sing that when they knowed that the Heavenly Host couldn't have flowed through such places without bein' liable to git their feathers pulled out in some of the drinkin' carouses held there. As liable agin for their pure eyes must be dimmed with tears, tears for the eighty thousand victims turned out yearly from these resorts. Innocent youth changed to reckless wickedness, noble manhood turned to brutes falling from honorable places in society down into drunkards' loathsome lives, drunkards' dishonored graves.

How could these pityin' sperits help weepin' over it? And the long, agonized procession follerin' on—pale, wretched mothers, once happy wives, now hungry, broken-hearted wrecks, with pinched, starved children clingin' to their ragged skirts. The idee of askin' this pure heavenly Host to praise God for what brought all this to pass!

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Why, I believe that Satan himself, though he loved to see the work go on, would be ashamed to sing the Doxology there. I don't believe you'd ketch him at it, for he is so smart he would see in a minute how it would look to praise God for such a place as that when he had said plain:

"Cursed is he that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips."

And Satan knowed jest as well as Josiah and I and the world did, that saloons wuz made a purpose for this.

"And no drunkard hath eternal life." And that minister wuz ordained to help people attain that life, not to help 'em lose it.

I don't see what he wuz thinkin' on. Of course, the top of the long slippery descent to ruin is quite cheerful lookin', lit up with false lights, hollow mirth, false hopes and dreams lurin' the victims on and down. But he knowed how slippery it wuz, how impossible it wuz for ordinary men to stand up when they got to slidin' down. He knew that nothin' but God's grace wuz strong enough to reach down and haul 'em up agin to level ground.