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.



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."



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.