n; if madness and ruin result from this Pandemonium, be
with me to the last."

He couldn't hear a word I said, the noise wuz that deafnin' and
tremendious. But he read the silent, tender language of the brown cotton
glove on his arm, and he cast a look of deep affection on me, and sez he
in soulfull axents--

"Hurry up, can't you? Wimmen are always so slow!"

I responded in the same earnest, heartfelt way. And anon, or perhaps a
little before, Thomas J. and Krit hurried us and our satchel bags into a
big roomy carriage, and we soon found ourselves a-wendin' our way
through the streets of the great Western city, the metropolis of the
Settin' Sun.

Street after street, mild after mild of high, towerin' buildin's did we
pass. Some on 'em I know wuz high enough for the tower of Babel--and old
Babel himself would have admitted it, I bet, if he had been there.

And as the immense size and magnitude of the city come over me like a
wave, I thought to myself some in Skripter and some in common readin'.

When I thought that fifty years ago the grassy prairie lay stretched out
in green repose where now wuz the hard pavements worn with the world's
commerce; when I thought that little prairie-dogs, and mush-rats, and
squirells wuz a-runnin' along ondisturbed where now stood high blocks
full of a busy city's enterprise; when I thought that little pretty,
timid birds wuz a-flyin' about where now wuz steeples and high
chimblys--why, when I thought of all this in common readin', then the
Skripter come in, and I sez to myself in deep, solemn axents--

"Who hath brought this thing to pass?"

And then anon I went to thinkin' in common readin' agin, and thinks'es
I--

A little feeble woman died a few days ago--not so very old either--who
wuz the first child born in Chicago--and I thought--

What a big, big day's work wuz done under her eye-sight! What a immense
house-warmin' she would had to had in order to warm up all the housen
built under her eye!

Millions of folks did she see move into her neighborhood.

And what a party would she had to gin to have took all her neighbors in!
What a immense amount of nut-cakes would she have had to fry, and
cookies!

Why, countin' two nut-cakes to a person--and that is a small estimate
for a healthy man to eat, judgin' by my own pardner--she would have had
to fry millions of nut-cakes. And millions of cookies, if they wuz made
after Mother's receipt handed down to me; that wouldn't have