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 recognized 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.

A few men are so strong-footed they can grip on and stay 'round the top for some time, and I presoom this minister, bein' a good-natered man would been glad to had 'em all hung on there, but he must have knowed they wouldn't and couldn't. He'd seen 'em leggo thousands and thousands every year, he knowed what made 'em fall. And he might jest as well made a prayer and sung a hymn over a murderer's knife, because he wanted it to cut bread but knowed it would and did murder, as to done this.

For no matter what he wanted he knowed intemperance is evil and only evil. And pattin' a pizen viper and callin' it "angel" and singin' the Doxology over it hain't goin' to change its nater, its nater is to sting, and its bite is death.

And the God they dasted to invoke said of the drink the place wuz made to sell, "It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," and the end thereof is death.

I don't know what that good man could be thinkin' on to dast. But then as long as our Government opholds it, I spoze he thought he might.

But I wish I'd been there to told him how it wuz goin' to look to me and Josiah and the world, and what slurs wuz goin' to be cast onto the sacred cause of religion by it.

I couldn't tell him what harm it wuz goin' to do; no, eternity is none too soon to count that up. Awful waves of influence sweepin' along—sweepin' along clear from to-day to the Day of Judgment; I can't bear to think on't; I'm kinder sorry for him, and am glad enough it hain't my Josiah that has got that ahead on him. I wish he'd ondo now what he's done as fur as he can, he'd feel better, I believe, I know that I and the meetin' house would and Josiah.

But, 'tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin' and sneerin' and angels bendin' down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin' through their pityin' tears hopin' it must be a mistake, not believin' it possible that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin' saloon. And coverin' their eyes with their droopin' wings when they found it wuz so—they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went home in good season. And Perkins also started home walkin' afoot, it wuz so little ways.

And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him. Some of these wimmen's husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man's Club. And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins owned. For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin' him, that money spent enticin' the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz easily influenced, wuz money well spent.

For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin' ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off. And this saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a flourishin' bizness.

Two or three of Perkins' saloons made a specialty of sellin' drink to girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night and found 'em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin' of the pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother's care to earn their livin', out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere. And some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school——

These mothers thinkin' what a weak thing a girl's will wuz when drink had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion and temptation urgin' 'em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed 'round him.

These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts, and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin'.

But they couldn't do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and escorted Perkins home with honor. But to resoom backwards.

I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon's Temple and go on in.

This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with, I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him. I'd say:

"Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin' so much show your smartness by gittin' rid of six hundred and niney-nine on 'em; keep jest one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest. Set 'em up in dressmakin' or millionary or sunthin' to git a livin' by, and settle down peaceable with one." Mebby he'd hearn to me and mebby not, men are so sot in their way.

But to resoom. Here we stood in that splendid temple which was the wonder of the world, and see the tabernacle the old Hebrews carried with 'em through the parted waves of the Red Sea and their journeyin's through the wilderness for forty years, led by the pillow of fire.

What feelin's I had as I looked on it and meditated, what riz up feelin's them old four fathers that carried it must have had, and them that follered on, led as they wuz by heavenly light, fed by heavenly food. How could they acted as they did, rambelous often and often, wanderin' from the right road, but still not gittin' away from the Divine care.

And there wuz a picture forty feet long, as long as our barn, showing the old Hebrews encamped before Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Law that rules the world to-day (more or less). Heaven drawin' so nigh to earth that hour that its light fallin' on Moseses face made it too glorious for mortal eyes to look on.

And I'dno but one of them mountains we see wuz where Moses stood after his forty years journey, castin' wishful eyes onto the Promised Land, not bein' able to enter in because of some past error and ignorance. And I thought, as I stood there, how many happy restin' places we plan and toil for and then can't enter in and possess through some past error and mistake caused by ignorance as dense as Moseses ignorance. What a lot of emotions I had thinkin' this, and how on top of another mount the great prophet and law-giver wuz not, for God took him.

I wuz lost and by the side of myself, but Josiah's voice reached me up in the realm of Reverie and brought me back.

"What ails you, Samantha? Do you lay out to stand here all day?" And I tore myself away.

Well, there wuz movin' pictures describin' the Holy Land and we see 'em move, and dissolvin' views of the same and we see 'em dissolve, and at last Josiah got so worrisome I had to go on with him. We laid out to stop to Japan and France, they bein' right on our way, and I sez, "We might as well stop at Morrocco." For as I told Josiah, while we wuz travelin' through foreign countries we might as well see what we could of the people, their looks and habits.

But he sez to once, "You don't want to buy any Morrocco shues, Samantha, they don't wear nigh so well as calf-skin and cost as much agin." And sez he, "We won't have more than time to go through Japan and France and do justice to 'em." So we went on.



CHAPTER XIII.

The Japan exhibit is on a beautiful hill south of Machinery Palace. There are seven large buildin's besides the small pagodas and all filled with objects of interest. It seems as if the hull kingdom of Japan must have taken hold to make this display what it is. And how they could do it with a big war goin' on in their midst is a wonder, and shows beyend words what wonderful people the Japans are.

There are two kinds of exhibits, one by the allied business interests or Government and the other by individuals. But they all seem to work in harmony, havin' but one idee, to show off Japan and her resources to the best advantage, and the display wuz wonderful, from a royal pavilion, rich in the most exquisite and ornate decorations down to a small bit of carving that mebby represented the life long labor of some onknown workman.

In the Transportation Buildin' is a map one hundred feet long, showing the transportation facilities of the Empire, a perfect network of railways and telegraph and telephone wires, showin' they have other ways of gettin' 'round there besides man-carts and jinrikshas, yes, indeed! it is a wonder what they have done in that direction in fifty years.

The postal exhibit shows they delivered eight hundred and sixteen million pieces of mail last year, and every post-office has a bank, the school children have deposited in them eleven millions. I wish our country would do as well. The exhibit of the steamships show jest as much enterprise, and how world-wide is their commerce. The saloon of one of the steamships is a dream of beauty and luxury.

The Temple of Nikko is ornamented by wonderful carving in catalpa, chrysantheums, etc., and in it in glass cases are the most beautiful specimens of their embroidery, tapestry, pottery. One pair of vases are worth ten thousand dollars. As you leave this Temple you see on each side the finest specimens of Japanese art, painted and embroidered screens, all kinds of metal, laquear and ivory work; exquisite vases and priceless old delft wear, and there is a model Japanese house, you feel that you'd love to live in it. There is one spring room in it that holds the very atmosphere of spring. The tapestry and crape hangings are embroidered with cherry blossoms, its one picture is a sweet spring landscape. Low green stools take the place of stuffy chairs and sofas. And there wuz an autumn room, autumn leaves of rich colors wuz woven in the matting and embroidered in the hangings, the screens and walls white with yellow chrysantheums.

Then there wuz a gorgeous Japan room with walls of exquisitely carved laquear wood, massive gilt furniture, rich embroidered silk hangings, and the ceiling wuz a beautifully carved flowery heaven with angels flying about amidst the flowers. This one room cost forty-five thousand dollars.

And we see lovely embroidered cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns, cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns, fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw goods, cameras, etc., etc.

In the mining display is a model of one of their copper mines, and you see they have the largest furnace in the world, and they not only mine on land but under the sea, it beats all how them Japanese do go ahead. There are tall gold and silver bars showing how much they have mined in these metals.

Their educational exhibit shows the same wonderful energy and advancement. There is a compulsory educational law and twenty-two per cent. of the children attend school. There are schools for the blind, deaf and feeble-minded, and a display of all their excellent methods of education, from kindergarten to the imperial university.

In the Palace of Electricity on a map thirty feet high and twenty-five feet wide, you see pictures of Japan's great engineering work, Lake Biwa Canal, connecting the Lake with Kioto. Irrigating, electricity making, electrical apparatus invented by them, they have nearly twenty-five thousand telephones, long and short distance.

In the tea exhibit you see everything relating to this beverage, tea houses, experimental farms and over one hundred different kinds of tea are shown. Rice is shown in every stage of its growth, tobacco, fruit, canned goods.

You can enter the Forestry and Fish departments through a temple built of twenty different kinds of wood. Here you see all the native forest woods, bamboo takin' the lead. Their fish and their methods of fishing are shown off, charts of their fishing grounds and boats. The Japanese section of the Palace of Fine Arts has the best samples of sculpture, painting and pottery.

But the crownin' beauty of the Japanese display is the Enchanted Garden (well-named). A charmin' little lake lies in the midst of flower beds and hedges, dotted by aquatic flowers. Beds of hydrangeas and chrysantheums and other bright flowers glow in the sunlight. A pretty summer house stands on a little island and bending over the water are dwarf pine trees brought from Japan. At one end is a waterfall, and there is a pleasant tea house where pretty Japan girls serve tea on the broad galleries.

Beyend the lake you see a model Japanese house and not fur off is the headquarters of the Japanese commission. Near the top of the hill is a large pavilion made of wood and bamboo. It is used as a reception room, and here you see Japanese costooms from the earliest day to the present. Here are pictures of the Emperor and Empress. There is a display here also of the Red Cross society, medical boxes of army and navy, etc. This is the only hint this courteous country gives of the great war going on at home that would stop the exhibit of most any other country. They are a wonderful people and are making swift strides to the front in every direction. I took sights of comfort here and so did Josiah.

I said a big war would stop the exhibit of most every country—it has stopped Russia—she don't have much show here to the Fair, they wanted to, and laid out to, but couldn't on account of havin' to go to war. It is dretful busy this year, killin' off men, and sendin' out men all the time to be killed, so of course, it can't devour the same time in more peaceful occupations.

I wuz really sorry, for I always liked the Zar. Of course, we don't visit back and forth, he havin' the misfortune to not live neighbor to us. But I always thought he wuz likely, real smart and good-natered, lovin' his wife and babies devotedly, settin' a splendid example in this direction to other high potentates who act and behave more or less.

And his Peace Proclamation, like a tall white monument riz up for men and angels to admire. How its pure luminous light lit up this dark earth and streamed clear up to heaven, the blessed influence it shed abroad wuz so beneficient and divine. How much I and the hull world thought on't.

And here it is all broke to smash, for of course, it wuz right in his way and he had to tromple on over it, he and the squadrons he called to war.

I don't know exactly the right or wrong on't, it is hard sometimes to keep track of ethics in a Jonesville quarrel, and when two big Empires git to cuttin' up and actin' and sassin', and dastin' each other to do thus and so, I can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of their dispute.

But I do know this, that the beautiful Peace Monument is smashed all to pieces under the feet of the thousands and thousands of men sent out to murder and be murdered, and it is doubtful to me if the Zar can ever contoggle it up agin to be as strong as it wuz before. You know he will nachully git his muscles and will and temper kinder stiff jinted leadin' the armies and gittin' so awful mad.

But, there they be, these two great nations, Japan and Russia, sendin' out their peaceable and well-behaved sons by the thousands and hundreds of thousands to cut each other to-pieces, shoot, maim and murder each other, for that is what war is, it is on purpose to kill men, the greatest crime in the civil calendar.

As I told Josiah one night to Miss Huff's, as I laid down a paper givin' the details of a bloody battle which wuz headed "A Great Victory."

Victory! the idee! hundreds of men borne bleeding from the field suffering tortures worse than death and every pang they felt twice suffered by them that loved 'em, watching and waiting at home in agonized suspense, hundreds more layin' with their white, dead faces upturned to heaven as if in mute appeal and wonder that such a horror as war could be in a world where the words of the gentle Christ had been hearn.

Sez I, "I can't understand it, Josiah, John Jones gits mad and kills one man, a small boneded man too, and weakly, couldn't live long anyway, and John had been abused by him shameful and wuz dretful mad at him. A horrified state law clutches John Jones and kills him. Public Opinion sez good enough for John, it will keep other murderous-minded men at bay mebby.

"But I always loved justice, and if a king gits mad and kills or causes to be killed hundreds of thousands of men I can't see why he if successful should be admired for it, have a monument riz up to show forth his nobility and school boys be taught to emulate his greatness."

Josiah said, "That wuz different, a war between nations wuz planned ahead, it wuzn't murder."

"But," sez I, "if John Jones had planned killin' his man he would git hung the sooner."

"Well," sez Josiah, "great national quarrels has to be settled some way. Nations wouldn't go to war unless they wuz aggravated."

Sez I, "John Jones wuz aggravated. Murders hain't generally planned or committed in class meetin's, and love feasts."

"Well," sez Josiah, scratchin' his head, "it is different."

But I sez, "How different, Josiah, they are both murders."

Sez Josiah, "I guess I'll go down to Grandpa Huff's room and borry the World." But I kep' thinkin' on't after he left about war and what it wuz. Rivers of human blood flowin' through ruined countries, follered by the horrible specters of pestilence, disease and famine, moral and financial ruin. Acres and acres of graves filled with forms once full of throbbing life and hope and dreams of future happiness, cut down like grass before the mower. Wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts see the sun of their life's joy go down in blackness, their heaven of love and happiness changed into a hell of misery by somebody's quarrel, somebody's greed and ambition. How many of the common soldiers who make up the great body of the army know or care about the right or wrong of their cause. They go into the fight like dumb-driven cattle, suffer and die and make their loved ones die a hundred deaths jest because they are hired to do it, hired to murder their fellow men, jest as you would hire a man to cut down a grove of underbrush. They go out to this wholesale slaughter to kill or be killed, to meet all the black awful influences that foller the armies, go gayly to the sound of bugle and drum.

It is the common people who bleed and die, it is the hearts of the common people that are wrung; it is their wives and orphan children who have to struggle along and strive and die, or live and suffer by this cause.

And who can tell the moral, physical and financial ruin, the sickenin' and terrible effects of evil habits formed there, the sin and woe that like a black cloud follers the army? The recordin' angel himself can't do the sum till the day of judgment, not till then can he add up the broad, ever-widenin' effects of evil and sorrow that follers a great war and that shall go on and on till time shall be no more.

Calm judicial eyes lookin' back at this problem from the happy days when Peace and Love shall rule the world, from the era when Courts of Arbitration will settle national differences, will look back on the bloody godless warfare of to-day with more horrow than we do on the oncivilized doin's of our savage ancestors.

It is strange, hain't it, to think eighteen centuries of Christian teaching hain't wiped the blood stains off the face of the earth, as it would like to? Yes, indeed! our Lord's words are luminous with Charity, Peace and Love. But the vengeful black clouds of war sweep up between the nations and the Sermon on the Mount and hides its words so they can't, or don't heed 'em.

And I d'no what's goin' to be done. I guess them that don't believe in war must keep on givin' in their testimony, keep peggin' away at Public Opinion and constant droppin' will wear away stun.

But to resoom backwards. We stayed so long in Japan that I couldn't devote so much time to France as I wanted to, for they too had a fine display. The most beautiful exhibit we saw was the reproduction of the Grand Trienon, the favorite home of Napoleon, brought from all appearances from Versailles with its famous garden and sot down here in St. Louis.

There is a big central pavilion and on each side wings, each terminating in a pavilion joined by tall marble columns. The ruff is surrounded by a balustrade ornamented by vases and beautiful statutes. The same balustrade extends the hull length of the building below, five hundred and thirty-four feet.

And below it stretches the beautiful garden, terraces, lake, fountains, statutes, rare flowers, shrubs and trees. Winding walks in which the great Conqueror might have walked with his brain teemin' with ambitious plans. I didn't want to leave the garden it was so beautiful, but time wuz passin' and we went inside and went through room after room, each one seemin'ly more beautiful than the one we had seen last. The picture-room wuz specially beautiful filled as it is with treasures of French art. And all the rooms wuz gorgeous with tapestries, elaborate carving, sculpture, painting, the most exquisite decorations of all kinds showing what a beauty and pleasure-loving race can gather about it of beauty and grandeur if it sets out to.

And France shows off well also in manufactures, electricity, machinery, transportation, etc. All together this is the best exhibit she has ever made, and she has reason to be proud on't.

England makes a good show in products and processes in every Exposition building. In the Palace of Varied Industries she gives a model of one of her charming country houses, a model indeed of comfort and luxury.

Her national pavilion is built of red brick and stone and is a reproduction of the Orangery, a building two hundred years old. It wuz Queen Ann's favorite home, and I didn't blame Ann a mite for lovin' it. As I walked through the beautiful and stately rooms I thought I would have loved to neighbor with Ann and spend some time with her.

The gardens outside are so beautiful you don't want to leave 'em, shaded avenues, terraces, flower beds, yew and box shrubs trained into shapes of lions and big birds. Josiah wuz entranced here, and as he stood lost in admiration of them green animals growin' right out of the ground, he sez:

"My first job in Jonesville is cut out, Samantha."

As first chaperone I looked at him tenderly and sez, "Don't jar your mind too much, Josiah, don't dwell on tuckerin' things."

"But," sez he, pintin' to the green form of the lion growin' right out of the ground, "do you see what a impressive and noble figger the old mair is goin' to cut when Ury and I sculp her out of the pig-nose apple tree? We can do it by odd jobs, and the apples hain't good for nothin' anyway."

But I sez, "You can't prune apple trees into figgers, Josiah, it takes different trees, and that is too big anyway."

"That's a woman's way of talkin'; I want her in heroic size, she's worthy on't. I expect," he went on, "the road will be jest lined with Jonesvillians, and we'l see 'em hangin' over the orchard fence lookin' on and admirin' the beautiful statter, I think I can see her now, head up, tail out, mane a flutterin'—you'll see, Samantha."

"Oh, dear!" sez I, "I expect I will see more than I want to."

But goin' on a little furder we see what put such vain and onpractical idees out of his head. We wandered into a spot where there wuz old-fashioned flowers, such as grow in the green meadows and hedges of old England, and there wuz some old wimmen wrinkled and gray, poorly clad, lookin' at them daisies and cow-slips and laughin' and cryin' over 'em.

They wuz fur from the old home and the summer time of youth and love, a half century of years and dreary wastes of sea and land lay between 'em, but these cow-slip blows and daisies took them back to their youth and the sunny fields they wandered in with the young lover whose eyes wuz as blue as the English violets, while their own cheeks wuz as rosy as the thorn flowers.

When the hull world lay hid in a rosy mist, and they wuz the centre of it, and life wuz new, and hope and happiness gilded the future, and the Fairy land of America wuz beckonin' to 'em out of the rosy mist.

Fifty years of dusty, smoky tenement life, hard work, child-birth, rearing children, toil, disappointment, pain—where wuz they? They had all gone. They wuz eighteen agin; they wuz pickin' the rosy blooms in the dear home land, and love wuz whisperin' to 'em that they wuz sweeter than the flowers.

I took out my snowy handkerchief and almost cried myself, the tears just run down my face, and Josiah blowed his nose on his bandanna, and I believe furtively wiped his eyes. But men never love to betray such sentimental emotion, and most immegiately he asked me in a gruff tone for a fried cake, and I handed him one absently and as one who dreams, and we went on and met the girls at the rondevoo appointed.

I'd had my supper and wuz restin' in my room, Molly and Blandina had gone for a walk accompanied by Billy Huff, and Josiah had gone down to set with grandpa Huff a spell, when Aunt Tryphena come in and said a lady wuz there to see me; I asked her who it wuz, and she said:

"I don't know, but guess it is some 'big bug trash,' 'tennyrate she come in a antymobile that stands to the door without hitchin'."

I knowed in a minute it wuz Jane Olive Perkins and told her to bring her up to my room. And she entered with more than her usual gushin' warmth of manner, and told me the first thing that I grew better and younger lookin' every year.

But I kinder waved the idee off and told her, I didn't feel so young as I did twenty or thirty years ago.

I acted well. (But then I spoze I do look remarkable young for one of my years, and I admired her good horse sense in seein' it so plain.) But she looked real mauger, and I sez:

"You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?"

Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her.

"Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?"

No, she said she had ten servants.

So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her, she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do.

Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet country she come to Jonesville.

And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago. Her money went jest as fur as though it had descended onto her from the sale of the mink skins and cabbages of the grandpas of the 400.

Well, as I say, this did more than all her other efforts put together, and took her inside furder, for givin' as much as she did they had to invite her to set down on the same charitable boards where these genteel females wuz settin'. And when a passel of wimmen are settin' down on one board they have to be more sociable and agreeable like, than if they wuz settin' round on different piles of lumber.

So Jane Olive wuz highly tickled and gin money freely. And now I don't want it understood that Jane Olive done every mite of this work and gin every cent of money for the speech of people or to git on in fashionable life. No, she wuz kinder good hearted and felt sorry for the afflicted. Her motives wuz mebby about half and half, half goodness and half ambition, and that is I spoze a little worse than the average, though motives will git dretfully mixed up, evil is worse than Canada thistles to git mixed with good wheat.

When some good object rises up and our souls burn within us aginst wrong and injustice and bigotry and such, we may think in our wropped moments that our motives are all good. But most always some little onworthy selfish motive will come sneakin' in by some back door of the heart and wiggle its way along till it sets down right by the side of our highest whitest motives and stays there onbeknown to us. It is a pity that it is so, but human nater is human nater and we are all on us queer, queer as dogs. Once in awhile you'll see some rare soul that seems as if all onworthy motives have been driv out by the angels of divine Purity and Endeavor, but they're scurce, scurce as hen's teeth.

Jane Olive wuz highly tickled with her success, and then, as is the way of human creeters, when she'd done well she wanted to do better. She wanted to outdo the other females settin' on the boards with her, she wanted her board to tip higher than theirn, so she took it into her head to build a Home for Fallen Wimmen in that end of the city where she lived. She said that there wuz sights and sights of wimmen that had fallen round there, and sights that wuz fallin', and I spozed there wuz. I spozed that anywhere that Sam Perkins lived there would be apt to be, and she took the idee of buildin' a home for 'em, it wuz a first rate thought, but in my opinion it didn't go fur enough, it didn't cover the hull ground.

Well, Jane Olive had gin of her own money ten thousand dollars and had raised nine thousand more, twenty thousand would build it, and she wuz collectin' round even in St. Louis when she met anybody she thought would give; she knowed how the welfare of humanity, specially female humanity, lay down on my heart, therefore she tackled me.



CHAPTER XIV.

She talked real eloquent about it, and kinder begun to shed tears. She's a capital hand to git money, she could always cry when she wanted to when she went to school, did it by holdin' her breath or sunthin'.

And when I say that I don't want it understood that I believe she did all her cryin' that way. No, I spoze she could draw on her imagination and feelin's to that extent and git 'em so rousted up that she did actually shed tears, wet tears jest like anybody, some of the time, and some she made, so I spoze.

Well, when she begun to cry I looked keen at her and sez, how much she made me think of herself when we went to school together. And she stopped sheddin' tears to once and acted more natural and went on to tell about her skeem. She said female vice wuz stalkin' round fearful, fallen wimmen appeared on the streets with shockin' frequency, sunthin' must be done for these lost souls or their blood would be on our dress skirts.

She told me how much she'd gin to this object and how much ministers had gin and how they wuz all goin' to preach sermons about these poor lost wimmen and try to wake the public up to the fact of the enormity of their sins and the burnin' need of such an institution.

She talked powerful about it, and I sez: "Jane Olive, I've gin a good deal of thought to this subject, and I think this house of yourn is a good idee, but to my mind it don't cover the hull ground. Now I will give five dollars for the Home for Fallen Wimmen and the other five for the Home for Fallen Men."

Sez she, and she screamed the words right out: "There hain't any such institution in the hull city!"

"Why, there must be!" sez I. "It hain't reasonable that there shouldn't be. Why, if a man and a woman go along over a bridge together, and both fall through, and are maimed and broke to pieces, they are carried to a male and female hospital to be mended up. Or if they fall through a sidewalk or anywhere else they have to both be doctored up and have the same splints on and rubbed with the same anarky, etc."

"That's very different," sez Jane Olive.

"Why different?" sez I. "If they both fall morally their morals ort to be mended up agin both on 'em. The woman ort to be carried to the Home for Fallen Wimmen, the Home for Magdalenes, and the men to the Home for Fallen Men, the Home for Mikels."

"There hain't no such place!" sez Jane Olive agin decidedly.

Sez I, "Did you ever inquire?"

"No," sez she, "I wouldn't make a fool of myself by inquirin' for such a thing as that, Home for Mikels! I don't know what you mean by that anyway."

"Why," sez I, "fallen men angels. You know Mikel wuz a angel once and he fell."

"Well, there is no such place," sez she, tossin' her head a little.

"Well," sez I, "you ort to know, you're from the city and I hain't; but I know that if there hain't such a place it's a wicked thing. Just look at them poor fallen men that are walkin' the streets night after night, poor creeters goin' right down to ruin and nobody trying to lead 'em up agin to the way of safety and virtue—poor fallen, ruined men! I feel to pity 'em."

Sez Jane Olive, "Oh, shaw! they don't feel ruined, they're all right, I'll resk them."

"How do you know how they feel? Take a tender hearted, innocent man, that some bad, designin' woman has led astray, led him on till she has betrayed and ruined him, and he feels that the screen door of society is shet aginst him——"

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive agin. "The door of society hain't shet aginst the man, it never is."

"Then," sez I, "there is sunthin' wrong with the door and it ort to be tended to."

Sez she, "Things are winked at in a bad man that hain't in a bad woman."

"Not by me," sez I firmly. "The man won't git a wink out of me more or less than I would give to the woman."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive. "And," sez she, "no self respectin' man goes to any place that hain't licensed and respectable."

"If such houses are respectable," sez I, "and the law makes 'em so, why hain't the wimmen called so that keep 'em? Why hain't the wimmen looked up to that work there?"

Sez Jane Olive, "You don't talk no good sense at all."

Sez I, "Jane Olive, I am spozin'. Mark you well, I don't say they are respectable; I say they are the depths of infamy. But I am talkin' from the standpoint of legislators and highest officials, and if they call 'em respectable, and throw the mantilly of law and order over 'em it is only justice to let the mantilly spread out, so it will cover the males and females too. Agin I quote the words of the poet to you, 'what is sass for the goose ort to be sass for the gander.'"

Says she, "Such things are looked on so different in a man, they can hold their heads up jest as high as they did before."

"Not if I had my way," sez I. "If the female is dragged off to the Home for Fallen Wimmen let the same team come back and haul the men off to the Home for Fallen Men, tie 'em up with the same rope, preach to 'em from the same text, let 'em out when they've both repented and want to do better. That's my scheme," sez I.

"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive, "it wouldn't work."

"Why not?" sez I. "I'll bet if that course wuz took for the next five years with fallen men you wouldn't have to raise so much money for fallen wimmen; I'll bet it would ameliorate their condition more than anything else would."

"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive agin.

"Why don't it hurt 'em?" sez I. "If it makes a woman so bad the hull world calls her ruined and lost, and prints her name out in the daily papers, as they always do, givin' her full name and address and sayin' some wild young man (but nameless) of respectable family was implicated, and talks of her as if Heaven wuz shet aginst her, and she has got to pray and repent in sack-cloth and ashes all the rest of her days, and never, never git her old place back in the eyes of the community, it hain't reasonable to spoze it don't hurt a man a mite to fall at the same time and in the same way. There is no sense in it, and I'll bet if you hunt round in your city you'll find where fallen men are kep' hid away till they can repent and reform.

"Why," sez I, "men's hearts and souls and morals are made out of exactly the same stuff that wimmens be. And as I said before, let a man and a woman fall out of a high winder together it smashes him jest as bad as it duz her. They have to be carried off to hospitals jest the same, the same doctor tends 'em, the same medicine has to be administered to 'em and they have to come back slowly to health agin. It takes the same length of time to lose the marks of the woonds and bruises, and they have to hobble round on the same kind of crutches. And why under the sun, moon and stars there is any difference in the woonds on their souls and morals I can't see, nor I don't believe you can."

Agin she snorted and acted real high headed, and sez she, "There hain't no such a Home as that you're talkin' about, and never wuz."

"Well," sez I, "then it is high time there wuz." And I went on real eloquent, "Poor fallen men have been neglected too long and their ruin will lay on our doorsteps if we don't do sunthin' to help 'em; I won't give a cent to help fallen wimmen, who have had ten times as much preachin' to 'em and as much done for 'em, till justice has been done to fallen men. Poor mizable creeters! They'll find out they've got one friend that will stand by 'em if they've never had a mite of pity or help or encouragement held out to 'em before in the world. It is high time sunthin' wuz done for 'em; and when you who live right in the midst of fallen men come here and say you've started a home for 'em, where there will be preachin' to 'em, and encouragement gin 'em to repent and reform, when you've come and told me you've started this job I'll give, and give liberal."

She sot kinder demute for a minute, and I went right on, and sez I, "I'd have a immense big house built if I had my way so's to accommodate 'em if I could git a house big enough. And I would set 'em there in immense rows and let 'em meditate on their sins a spell and I'd have good likely preachers of both sects go and preach to 'em about fallen men and fallen wimmen, and how they could git up agin with God's help if they tried hard enough to. And I'd have pictures hung on the wall of Mikel and Magdaline and them old fallen men castin' stuns at fallen wimmen and what the Lord said about it. And then to kinder encourage 'em and show 'em to what they might rise up to, if they repented and reformed, I would have pictures of some likely he angels flyin' round up in a purer air and——"

I wuz almost carried away and by the side of myself with this beautiful and inspirin' picture I'd cunjered up in my heated brain, when she broke in all wrought up with excitement and horrow with a new thought that had dawned on her:

"Why," sez she, "if you did that, if you shet up such men there wouldn't be a man left outside." And she sort o' screamed out, "Where would I git a coachman to drive for me or a butler?"

"Drive yourself," sez I sternly, "and buttle too; if that is so, but I don't believe it."

But she still looked most wild with excitement and horrow, and agin she sez, "It would take away every man in the world! and what would we do for men?" sez she.

"Do!" sez I, all wrought up, "Do without 'em if that is the case, though I don't believe it; but if it is so it's high time we begun fresh, educate and bring up men babys in the right way, and begin agin; start a new world with 'em, jest as you'd start a new kind of gooseberry or anything. But I don't believe a word on't, not a word. I believe there are good men in the world, lots and lots of 'em."

"I know there hain't," sez she.

And I sez, "I know there is."

And we disputed back and forth several times but didn't convince each other. You can see jest how it wuz, it wuz the example of our own companions that wuz influencin' us in our opinions. She havin' lived with a perfect sardeen and he-wretch, thought all men wuz like him, I nerved up by the thought of my noble-minded (though small) companion held my faith firm as a iron anchor that the world wuz full of good men, scattered here and there like good wheat among the tares, and I felt and knowed that the tearers wuz fur scurser than the wheat.

But Jane Olive riz up and kinder let her train flop out over the floor, she'd held it up as she come in.

I bid her a cordial good-by and told her to come and see me in Jonesville, but she acted kinder cold and hauty and I hain't much hopes that she will foller my advice.

Josiah came in pretty soon, and when I told him about it he acted real huffy and agreed with Jane Olive, and resented the idee of a Home for Fallen Men. Blandina, who come while we wuz talkin' about it to borry a few needlefuls of white thread, she shed tears and said she wouldn't mortify men by namin' a home like that for thousands of worlds like this.

And Josiah acted puggicky all the evenin'. But I knowed I wuz in the right on't. Truly the path of duty is a thorny one anon or oftener.

We went into the Fair the next mornin' by what they call the Skinker Entrance, and we hadn't hardly got in when Josiah sez to me, pintin' to a small low house, "What do you spoze they show there, Samantha? It must be pretty poor if they can't afford shingles or a tar ruff."

And sure enough the ruff wuz covered with straw. It wuz a low buildin' built of sunthin' that looked like stun. But come to find out it wuz the cottage of Robert Burns, and I hastened my steps, Josiah and Blandina follerin' on.

For low as that buildin' is, lookin' like a ant hill almost by the side of the high red granite administration buildin', that little cabin holds memories that soar up higher than the peakedest, highest ruffs on the Fair ground. The Home of Robert Burns, the Poet of the People. How his inimitable poetry come troopin' through my mind as I walked through the low rooms, there is only four on 'em, kitchen, settin' room, store room and stables.

I didn't approve of havin' the stables so nigh the livin' rooms, and should have advised Robert's wife to stood her ground and not had it. But I wuzn't there, and she gin in probable, and mebby she wanted it so, it wuz handy, you could open the door and milk into your coffee cup if so inclined. The bed is built in the kitchen wall; I spoze they couldn't afford anything better, and 'tennyrate that humble bed pillowed the form that will walk down the ages crowned with honor and lovin' memories, while many monarchs who at that time rested on carved rose-wood have sunk into oblivion.

The people are not goin' to forgit their poet. He who taught that no matter what the rank, a man wuz a man "for a' that." Who sung and dignified the humble pleasures of the poor. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" will be remembered when many a scientific tome and eloquent poem writ in long words is dust and ashes. And the scathing irony and wit satirizing the ignorant rich, the scorn of meanness and bigotry, the love of liberty and justice the melting tenderness of his love poems, the People he loved and wrote for, will not forget.

The big open fireplace might have been the one immortalized in his poetry. There wuz a high clock like the one that told him the hours, anxious hours, weary hours, happy hours, hours radiant with the poet's inspiration. Despairin' hours full of anxiety and dread for the wife and children he loved. It told the hours of day and night too, for Robert did love what he called a good time, and I presoom Bonnie Jean read the face of that old clock with anxiety and weariness writ in her own face when the small hours struck and her Robbie wuz away with gay companions.

And with what despairin' grief did she read its calm old face while her poet writ this sad truth:

"I'm wearin' awa' to the Land o' the Leal."

And there wuz a cupboard with blue and white dishes and a sugar bowl that he and Bonnie Jean had used. Oh, warm fingers, tired fingers! how long you've been dust, and the little piece of metal still endures. Oh, my soul! the wonder and the pity on't.

There are chairs, tables, spinning wheel, etc., similar to those that were in the Burns cottage. But there is a reel that wuz used by Bonnie Jean herself, I took holt on't tryin' to bring to my mind what emotions she had time and agin as she reeled her threads on and off, love, anxiety, ambition, fear, hopes and sorrows; how they twined and ontwined in her faithful breast as the reel turned, emotions stilled long ago, long ago.

And there wuz the very griddle and toaster with which Bonnie Jean toasted the bread for her Robbie. Many and many a time her heart, I presoom to say seemin' to git seared in the burnin' fires of jealousy whilst the bread wuz toastin'. For Robert wuz a man of many fancies, and though a wife through pride or affection may seem blind to such things, yet burns will smart and "jealousy is as cruel as the grave."

But many a time also whilst she toasted her bread her heart would bound with joy and pride thinkin' of some triumph the man she loved had won, or rememberin' some words of love and appreciation he had whispered in her ear, which made the dark world over in a minute into a bright one, for wimmen's hearts beat the same in Ayr or Jonesville, and Bonnie Jean wuz proud of her poet lover and loved him. And he loved her the biggest heft of the time, and mebby all the time; men are queer in such things and their ways past findin' out.

'Tennyrate my heart bent in homage to his genius and his bravely borne poverty and sufferin'. And I wished, oh, how I wished that some of the pride and honor showered on him now the world over could have brightened his hard life when it wuz needed. But it wuzn't to be, I wuzn't there to advise folks, or to cheer him and Jean up by my warm appreciation and good vittles. And I reluctantly tore myself away from the memory-hanted spot.

Molly wuz dretful interested here too, but naterally wanted to ride in the Intremoral railway and see all she could, it bein' her first visit. So as I had spoke of wantin' to see the air-ships we went there next and then to the Philippines.

Sister Sylvester Bobbett laughed when I told her that probable Josiah and I would go to the next Exposition through the air.

Sez she, "You might jest as well talk about goin' through the ground."

But I wuz glad to see that other folks realized the importance of the subject, for they have given as much space to air navigation as for all the other modes of transportation put together. The buildin' covers about fourteen acres—I wonder what Sister Bobbett would say to that, the walls are thirty feet high, the lower twelve feet, air tight, the upper eighteen feet lattice work.

Part on't is a sort of a harbor for their air-ships to light in. They say they need a still harbor away from boisterous winds jest as much as water ships do. This is the first Air-Ship harbor ever built. Josiah said it wuz the humbliest buildin' on the Fair ground, and it wuzn't a beauty so fur as architecture goes.

But I sez, "Handsome is as handsome duz! I don't spoze," sez I, "that Noah's Ark wuz a beauty, but he started a new world with it, and I believe this buildin' holds the great hope and promise of the future in the way of transportation, and it looks good to me."

It stands between Physical Culture Hall and the Hall of Lady Managers. I wuz glad it wuz where wimmen could keep an eye on 'em and keep 'em from bein' run on. In one corner on't is two stalls, jest as they have horse stalls in barns, but these stalls are one hundred and eighty feet long and forty feet wide. There wuz most ninety entries for the contest. If they make a speed of twenty milds an hour they git a prize of one hundred thousand. I would like to know what Sister Bobbett would think of that.

Josiah said he believed they wuz dangerous, but the head of this company told me with his own mouth that he had traveled over fifteen States in air-ships and had never been hurt or even skairt, and I told Josiah that wuz more than he could say of our wheel-barrow that had never been out of Jonesville. Josiah went out one dark night to shet the barn door and fell over it, and it rared up on him and throwed him; he wuz skairt to death thinkin' it wuz a burglar who wuz tryin' to fight him.

I had to take the lantern and go out and rescue him, and I hain't goin' to tell how he kicked that wheel-barrow when he recognized it, and the language he hurled at it. It wuz onbecomin' a deacon, and I told him so.

Next to the Hall of Electricity, the great onseen Wizard that sways the world, this Hall of Air-Ships wuz interestin' to me, for it is the transportation of the future. Baby eyes blinkin' now at the canopys of their cribs will look up and see the blue sky above 'em cleft by the white wings of great ships of the air sailin' to and fro with no treacherous rocks to dash aginst, no forests to subdue or mountains to tunnel, no roads to break, to and fro, back and forth shining white aginst the crimson sunset, aginst the rosy dawn, and the cloudless noon. Oh, what a sight for the eyes that will behold 'em! I wish I could stand it till then, but most probable I can't, and I wouldn't want to anyway if Josiah couldn't be there to see 'em with me; and his health hain't what it wuz, his liver is bad. But I think sometimes that Josiah and I may look on and behold this glorious sight from some cloudy terrace of the Better Country; I'd love to if we could. But 'tennyrate it will be seen by them that live long enough.

I took solid comfort and lots and lots of it wandering round seeing these immense Travelers of the Sky and askin' questions and lookin' forward towards the glories that is to be.

Josiah and Blandina didn't enjoy it so much as I did, though Josiah, always wantin' to embark in some new enterprise, thought he should go up in one whilst he wuz there. He said he wanted to brag on't to Deacon Henzy and Deacon Huffer. And I told him that wuzn't the right sperit to show, it wuzn't the sperit of a true Discoverer tryin' to solve the problems of the future through love for God and humanity.

And he said he guessed he knew what he took comfort in and what he didn't.

Well, we rid round considerable so's to give Molly a view of the Cascades and big buildin's, and then we went on to the Philippines. This is the largest single exhibit at the Fair and covers forty-seven acres of beautiful woodland and water spaces, and is the largest colonial display ever made. I told Josiah as we walked towards it, Molly and Blandina goin' a little ahead, "What wuz the use of travelin' so fur to see our new possessions?"

"Yes," sez he; "no use spendin' so much money."

This wuz to me one of the most interestin' exhibits at the Fair. And I thought it a first rate idee to show off to the world the almost limitless wealth as well as the hard problems that face Uncle Sam in his new possessions, for like a careful pa he will see that they learn how to take care of themselves before he sets 'em up in independent housekeepin'.

We went over a fine bridge, copied from one of their own into the walled city of Manila. Here in one room you see all of its war exhibits, immense cannons, the blow guns of the Negritos; axes the Iggorote head-hunters used to cut off the heads of their enemies. The Moro cris, the wooden guns and bamboo cannons and home-made powder used in 'em by the insurgent army with the rough machinery used in makin' it.

Wanderin' on you see the nita huts of the Visayans, big handsome fellows they are and pretty refined wimmen, and hear their weird melodies as they are at work making their beautiful bamboo furniture, and weaving their handsome blankets, etc.

You see on the hillside the huts of the Negritos, black little creeters. Then you see the Iggrotes, a real village, some of the housen brought from their own land and the rest built here by them from their own materials. It is jest as though you stepped over to the mountains of Luzon and see 'em at their simple housekeepin'.

I whispered anxiously to Josiah to keep clost watch of his own head, for though they promised to not pursue their favorite pastime till they got back home agin, yet I didn't know what might happen, though I felt he wuzn't in so much danger, his bald head bein' so slippery and nothin' to lay holt on, still I kep' a clost watch on that dear head all the while we wuz there.

Josiah didn't sense his own danger, but whispered, "I'm glad enough Bruno is to home." They will eat dogs and dance their war dances, but I spoze I couldn't hender 'em, so didn't try to advise 'em. Some on 'em didn't have clothes enough on to be decent unless you call the tatooin' on their naked bodies, clothes. I see Josiah looked at 'em with interest, and he wondered if common ink and diamond dyes could be used, and if Ury could handle 'em.

And I hurried him on to the encampment of the Moros. Here we see the men and wimmen dressed in silk and satin, but cut after patterns I would never let Josiah wear or wear myself. Some of these Moro girls are quite handsome in their bright striped mantillys, their long hair hanging down under their gay turbans. One of these villages is on land and one built on bamboo poles over the water. Jest open sheds covered with nipa leaves. Anyone with rumatiz couldn't stand it in 'em.

But what took Josiah most of all wuz the tree dwellers, their houses are built up in the highest trees they can find, and they git to 'em by ladders they pull up after 'em; as he looked on 'em I see in Josiah's reminescent eye dreams of summer housen in our ellums and maples, and I hurried him on. Blandina said she could be perfectly happy up there with a congenial companion, and I knowed she wuz thinkin' of Aspire Todd; but she never could git him up there, for his tongue is the strongest part on him.

We all admired the Native Scouts; they live in a little village of tents in a beautiful piece of woodland. There are four companies, Visayan, Tagalog, Maccabebe and Ilicano. Their band of music, and the band of eighty pieces of the native constabulary are called the finest at the Exposition. When they march they all seem to be one body; so smooth and even are their movements, they are called the most perfectly drilled soldiers in the country.

Jest think on't, if they show off so now what will they do at the next Exposition. There are ten large buildings containing their enormous display of art and science, education, agriculture, horticulture, manufactures, commerce, etc. Some of the statutes and pictures are beautiful; you couldn't tell some of 'em from them brought from abroad. But folks don't seem to realize that some of the Filippinos are as refined and cultured as if they come from the middle of Boston.

Their forestry exhibit is the finest ever brought to any Exposition and contains everything relating to the fifty million acres of Philippine forests, splendid timber, over fifteen hundred different kinds of wood, rattans, gutta percha, dye stuffs, trees yielding oil, gums, rosin, etc. The mineral exhibit shows how rich these islands are in gold, copper, coal and other minerals. In agriculture you see the great display of fibres, Manila hemp which brought 'em over twenty-two millions last year, ropes made from bamboo, cocoa-nut, rattan. Sugar, tobacco, coffee, hats, baskets and other articles made from palm leaves, bamboo, rattan and nito, colored by their own native dyes. In the flower display are the most rare and exquisite orchids growing jest as common there as weeds along the Jonesville road. One interestin' display wuz a map built out doors showin' more than 2,000 islands, their shape and comparitive size.

But most of all I wuz interested in the educational exhibit. So anxious have they been to learn night schools have had to be established. The big normal school building in Manila is handsome enough for any American city, and the smaller district and industrial schools are doing jest as good work. Our Government sent five hundred and forty teachers there in 1901, and now we have about seven hundred there. I took comfort in seein' the great work they have done, as well as the church and private schools, and how well they're learning and getting along.

Anyone could spend five weeks at least jest at the Philippine display, and find abundance to interest 'em all the time in the educational, art, manufacturing, horticultural, agricultural and other displays, but we hadn't no five weeks to spend, so we had to move on, but I felt proud enough to see what my revered Uncle Sam had done and wuz doing.

Truly he took a big job on his hands to take care of such an immense family, and differin' so widely in cultivation, temperament and clothes, to lead the ignorant ones into civilization and keep peace in the family and among his own folks.

He'll have as hard work to do it as that widower I hearn on who had three or four children of his own, and married a widow who also had a number, and then they had several, and one day she came callin' to her husband, "Come quick! come quick! Your children and my children are fightin' with our children."

But Uncle Sam will be on hand, he'll wade right in with a birch gad or a spellin' book, jest which he thinks they need most at the time, and settle the differences all right, and I believe it will be a star in his crown in time to come: turning the savages and cannibals that inhabit part of these new possessions into good American citizens.

I don't spoze I shall see the day when this shall fully come to pass, and mebby the babies of to-day will be great-grandpas before it takes place, but it will be, I believe, and so duz Josiah.

Yes, he's doin' a good job by his step-children, I guess they would be called that seein' he stepped in when they wuz poor and oppressed and took 'em under his care.

I honor him for it, but wish he would do as well by his steal children, the dark complexioned ones stole away from their own land to be slaves and drudges for his white children.

He'll mebby tell me they wuz ignorant and degraded and wuz better off here than in their own land, but I'll say back to him, "Samuel, Josiah and I would probable be in a better house and more high-toned society if some king or other should steal us and carry us away from our humble farm to their palace. But do you spoze we would enjoy ourselves as well? No indeed!"

And 'tennyrate they're here, the problem that lays so heavy on the Southern and Northern heart and conscience and the riddle gits harder and harder to solve. The lurid blaze of livin' torches makes bloody blindness in the eyes of them that look on and light them fires. The disgraceful glare flames out, shamin' you in the eyes of the world, and streams up to the pityin' heavens askin' for justice.

Mebby you'll tell me you don't see how you can help it, but Samuel, you must try, for though there are here and there oasises in the gloom lighted up by education and inteligence still there remains the great multitude of your steel children that you ort to help, you ort to do as well by them settin' in long rows right on your very doorstep as you're doin' for them six thousand milds off. Sinners must be punished by law, else what is law made for? Order must be kep', the helpless protected, but you know, Samuel, that if some of the disgraceful seens that are bein' enacted here right under your dear old nose took place amongst your adopted Philippine children or even amongst your protejays in Turkey or China you would send out a warship to once. I am sorry for you, Samuel, and think the world on you, but faithful are the woonds of a friend; you must hear the truth once in awhile or who knows what would become on you, you might puff up with proud flesh and have to have an operation, and I guess you will anyway before you git through with this problem.

I presoom you want me to advise you what to do, only bein' a man you hain't really wanted to come out and ask me. Josiah acts jest like that lots of times.

So I'll say to you, I honor you, Samuel, for what you're doin' for these foreign children, but I want you to do jest as much to home. I want you to send teachers and found schools at your own expense; you're four handed and able to do it. And Id'no but you had better buy land in their own home you stole them from, buy a small farm for each one that wants to go. Travelers say that in the Valley of the Nile, a country with similar climate and soil to the south land where they wuz born, is an unoccupied place big enough for each one to have a small farm of their own. I want you, Samuel, to buy this land for 'em, take 'em back there at your own expense, all that want to go. There are plenty of the young and enterprising who would go full of the hope of foundin' a new republic for their own race, where they can expand and grow strong away from parlyzing influence of racial and social hatred.

There would be lots of 'em who wouldn't want to go, and why can't you, Samuel, I'd say, buy them a little home here, for instance, on the vast unoccupied area of Florida? Let 'em have the hull state if necessary; let each family have their little piece of land, and then make 'em work it; send teachers, found schools, teach 'em to be self sustaining and self respecting.

Samuel would probable sass me back and say, You can't teach a nigger to respect himself and stand upright.

And I'd say, "'Tain't so, Sam, but if it wuz, centuries have been spent by the white race in teachin' this people to be dependent and helpless, to not think for themselves, to lean entirely on the judgment and justice of the white people (weak reeds to lean on anon or oftener)."

And then I'd say, "Samuel, you did a foolish thing after the Civil war, you did it with the best of motives, and you needn't be skairt, I hain't goin' to scold you for it, but it wuz jest like turnin' a company of babies out into the world and tellin' 'em they wuz jest as tall and inteligent as their pas and mas and they must go on and take care of themselves, and with their utter lack of all knowledge and strength take an equal part in public affairs. How could these babies do it, Samuel, I would say. But you wuz gropin' along most blind in them dark days, and you did the best you knowed how to then. But when you see you've made a mis-step you must draw your foot back and start off agin jest like a elephant crossin' a weak bridge, I've seen 'em go down into the water and wade ruther than resk it. You may have to wade through deep waters to fix it all right, but that would be better than to fall through a weak bridge and break your neck.

"It is because I think so much on you, Samuel, that I talk so plain to you, for I don't want you to git the name Miss Eben Simmons got. She jest spent her hull mind and income on foreign missions and let her own children go so dirty and ragged they wuz a disgrace to Jonesville. I want you and Miss Simmons to not scrimp in your foreign charities but begin to home and make your own dependent ones comfortable."

I presume I could convince him if I had time enough, but we are busy creeters, Samuel and I, both on us, and Id'no as he'd have time to argy back and forth with me, but it would be well for him if he did, men must have wimmen advise 'em if they ever expect to amount to anything.

But to resoom forwards. These thoughts wuz runnin' through my head as we wended our way around, it did my soul good, as I said, to see the progress these Filipinos are makin', and to meditate on the fact how enterprisin' Uncle Samuel is when he sets out. Why jest think on't, he's taught them Filipinos more English in four years than the Spaniards taught 'em their language in the four hundred years they took care on 'em.

I wuz so proud and happy as I thought on't that I stepped considerable high as I walked along, and I hearn a profane bystander say (wicked creeter to think on't),

"That woman has took too much stimulant."

And Josiah sez, "What ails you, Samantha? You walk as if you wuz follerin' a band of music."

And I wuz, it wuz the music of the Future that sounds out in my ears anon or oftener, sweet inspirin' strains that even Josiah can't hear if his head lays on the same piller.

It sings of an ignorant, oppressed race changed into an enlightened prosperous one, this great work done by our own country, this song comes floatin' into my ears over the wide Pacific. And another louder strain comes from nigher by made tender and pathetic by years of oppression and suppressed suffering that could find expression in no other way than this heart searching pathos. And blending with it, ringing over and above it, triumphant happy echoes telling of real freedom of mind and conscience, the true liberty.



CHAPTER XV.

Well, Blandina wanted to go to the Anthropological Buildin'. She said Professor Todd had recommended it. I should knowed he would choose that spot in preference to any other. I hadn't a idee what it meant, but didn't feel obleeged to tell her so, but spozed it wuz sunthin' hard to tackle, judgin' from the name, but told her I wuz willin' to go to see it or her or him, not knowin' which it would turn out to be. But come to find out it wuz everything relatin' to the history of man, and spozed that wuz one reason why Blandina wuz interested in it.

It wuz a monstrous big buildin', and in it and outside on't wuz exhibits from all the different countries of the world, showin' the difference in the races of mankind, their difference through all the ages, anatomy, industries, customs, education, different religious rites, games, books and pictures, maps illustrating mankind and his works, etc., and I could fill a dozen pages with etcs., and not half exhaust the contents of the immense buildin'.

Blandina wuz in her glory here, she wuz studyin' in full magesty the history of her idol, man. But as I told her, I spozed the term, man, included woman also. But she looked dubersome, she didn't like the idee I could see, and Josiah didn't. But I knowed I wuz right, and I guess Molly thought so too.

This is the most complete gathering of the world's people and races that has ever been got together, and includes different types, from the smallest pigmies from Central Africa to the Patagonian giants. Josiah wuz delighted to learn of the strength of these pigmies, how they kill elephants and rhinocerhorses, and sez he, "I tell you, Samantha, it hain't size that counts, it is most always the smallest men that are the smartest, looked at Napoleon and me."

But I whispered to him to keep still, for he wuz attractin' attention, and I led the way to see the giants. But he looked coldly on 'em, and sez he:

"They hain't thought much on, it speaks about their mean statter in the guide books."

But I thought to myself how handy it would be to have one on 'em in the neighborhood to rent out by the day to whitewash overhead or shingle the barn; they wouldn't even have to git up in a chair, and Id'no but they could lay a chimbly standin' on the ground; they wuz immense.

And there wuz displays of the works and habits and native surroundin's of the lowest types from the beginnin' of the stun age up to the present finished glory of Jonesville and the world at large. And I wondered what, what would be the glory showed off a hundred years from now, what hites would men stand on, sailin' round through the air and comin' from other planets to the show like as not jest as easy as we come from Jonesville. And where will Josiah and I be then? That wuz another thought that hanted me, and what would we be lookin' on? 'Tennyrate I hope we will be together wherever it is.

But to resoom. There wuz the skin housen of the Indians from Mexico and the display of the Ainu tribes from Japan; red negroes from Central Africa, and all the Indian tribes left in North America, so fast meltin' away like the leaves of the forest before the march of winter. Basket makers from California and Arizonia, bead workers, arrow workers, all carryin' on their work before us and goin' through their ceremonies and playin' their games.

And there wuz the tradin' post, with the agent cheatin' the Injuns jest as nateral as life, so I spoze. Mexico had a wonderful collection, native books on Maguey paper, amulets of gold, sculpture, carved idols, remarkable lookin', though I wouldn't worship one on 'em not for a dollar bill.

Egypt, where Civilization first started, had to crumple down and send her best treasures to the fur away West. Oh, how fur, how fur Civilization has traveled since she left the Lotus land. And she hadn't better set down yet and fold her hands. She's got a good many jobs before her that I could pint out to her right here in America.

And there wuz a hull Egyptian tomb, mummies, ancient pottery, necklaces and beads took out of old Egyptian tombs. Oh, where wuz the throbbin' hearts that beat agin them with boundin' life and joy? So much stronger and greater than the fragile things, yet gone to dust and ashes centuries ago, while these senseless toys outlive 'em and are brought thousands of milds to be looked on by a strange race. And there wuz scarabes, symbols, strange lookin' things as I ever see and piles on 'em.

And there wuz a display showing how they first started fire, which they worshipped when first discovered as the Red Flower God, and everything up to its present development. And so with the earliest attempts at makin' weapons, blades of bamboo and wood, hammered copper up to the deadly life destroyers of to-day.

And in one room wuz the priceless treasures of the Vatican, and a exquisite collection of the Jubilee presents of the Widder Albert carved ivory gems, beautifully set jewels, fans, feathers, leather work and wrought gold, carved ebony, sandal-wood, embroidered silk and velvet caskets, silver prayer wheel (though she never used it I'll warrant, no quicker than I would) gold boxes from Africa, Burmah and all her provinces; gold and velvet harnesses and saddle cloths, chains and plumes; a chair of state of carved ivory; kneeling cushion in rich embroidered velvet; elephants' tusks mounted on ebony and on rosewood; there are thirty cases in all, and as I looked on 'em, lent to this Exposition by his Gracious Majesty, King Edward VII, jest as willin' as I'd lend sister Bobbett a drawin' of tea, my feelin's pretty nigh overpowered me and I almost bust into tears, but knowin' Josiah's state of nerves I kep' up and restrained myself in a measure.

But I noticed Blandina wuz beginin' to act restless and looked at her watch, and finally she said that Professor Todd had promised to meet her at the Anthropometric Display.

Sez I, "I should know that of all the places in the world that would be his chosen rondevoo."

"Yes," sez she, "he has got such exquisite taste—in dress."

I don't believe she had a idee what it wuz, I believe she thought from what she said that it wuz some kind of men's clothes, or scarf pins mebby. I myself didn't even hazard a inward guess, but made up my mind to be resigned to the sight whatever it wuz and bear up under it the best I could.

But we found out it included all kinds of measures, attitudes and angles, photographs, moulds, casts and rates of pulsation, measurements of respiration, tryin' to measure and estimate as well as they can the different physical values of the different races and people, it wuz a sight to see it.

Sure enough Professor Todd wuz there, and I willin'ly resigned her into his care. He offerin' to see her home after the illumination. I knowed he wuz to be trusted, and they went off, Blandina lookin' up happy and adorin', he happy, patronizin' and lookin' down. Both on 'em contented creeters. He leadin' her a willin' victim to where the biggest named articles wuz and explainin' 'em to her in words more'n two inches long, I'll bet, but if anybody is happy that's enough. And though it is puttin' the wagon considerable ways before the horse, I may as well tell a conversation I overheard between Professor Todd and Blandina later in the day. Molly and Josiah wuz interested in lookin' at a display a little ways off, and I'd sot down for a spell restin' my tired head on my hand, and closed my eyes, for they too wuz so weary I felt I should almost be ashamed to face them two gray orbs in the lookin'-glass, for I knowed I had worked 'em too hard, and no knowin' when they would git any rest, for it seemed as though the more we see the more there wuz to see.

And I sot there lost in wistful retrospection of the view from our back door where there wuz but one object in front of me, and that wuz a plain barn with no cupolas or minarets, or towers or domes on it. No, jest a plain barn with a slidin' door enriched and bejeweled when open only by the form of my beloved pardner. And the only vista visible the grassy path that led round the hen house to the ash-barrel, and the only ornamental water, the waterin' trough embellished only by the green moss on its sides.

I felt I'd seen too many ornaments, I most knowed I should never hanker agin for a minaret or a mosque, or a steeple or a crescent, or a wavin' banner, or gildin', I felt that my heart would never more long and pine for water to squirt up in the air or drizzle down three or four hundred feet, nor for statutes or peaks or pillers. No, I almost felt I should have Dave Yerden saw off the top of the whatnot because it riz up in a sort of ornamental fashion, and I almost despised the thought of the M. E. steeple in Jonesville, to such wicked and reckless lengths will over-weariness lead one. But jest as I wuz rebukin' myself to myself, I hearn jest on the other side on me the voices of Blandina and Professor Aspire Todd. He wuz evidently continuing a conversation begun sometime before.

"Oh, that lost companion of mine! oh, that beauchious female so humilitous in her sweet humility, so super-conscious of man's superior attainments, she seemingly only existed to minister to my corporial necessities."

"Well she might, Professor, well she might," sez Blandina. "Any woman of right feelin' would feel only too blest and honored to do the same."