ear light of affection that
shone from my pardner's eyes melted them arrows, and I suffered and wuz
calm. But anon I sez--

"Don't great emotions rise up in your soul, Josiah Allen, when you think
of Columbus and the World's work? Don't the mighty waves of the past and
the future dash up aginst your heart when you think of Christopher, and
what he found, and what is behind this nation, and what is in front of
it, a-bagonin' it onwards?"

"No," sez he calmly; "I look at it with the eye of a business man, and
with that eye," sez he, "I say less write the book."

He ceased his remarks, and agin silence rained in the room.

But to me the silence wuz filled with voices that he couldn't
hear--deep, prophetic voices that shook my soul. Eyes whose light the
dust fell on four hundred years ago shone agin on me in that quiet room
in Jonesville, and hanted me. Heroic hands that wuz clay centuries ago
bagoned to me to foller 'em where they led me. And so on down through
the centuries the viewless hosts passed before me and gin me the silent
countersign to let me pass into their ranks and jine the army. And then,
away out into the future, the Shadow Host defiled--fur off, fur
off--into the age of Freedom, and Justice, and Perfect rights for man
and woman, Love, Joy, Peace.

Josiah didn't see none of these performances.

No; two pardners may set side by side, and yet worlds lay between 'em.
He wuz agin immersed in his ambitious reveries.

I didn't tell him the heft or the size of my emotions as I mentally
tackled the job he proposed to me--there wuzn't no use on't. I only sez,
as I looked up at him over my specs--

"Josiah, We will write the book."

SAMANTHA AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.

CHAPTER I.

[Illustration: Drop Capital]

Christopher Columbus has always been a object of extreme interest and
admiration to me ever sence I first read about him in my old Olney's
Gography, up to the time when I hearn he wuz a-goin' to be celebrated in
Chicago.

I always looked up to Christopher, I always admired him, and in a modest
and meetin'-house sense, I will say boldly and with no fear of Josiah
before my eyes that I loved him.

Havin' such feelin's for Christopher Columbus, as I had, and havin' such
feelin's for New Discoverers, do you spoze I wuz a-goin' to have a
celebration gin for him, and also for us as bein' discovered by him,
without attendin' to it?

No, indeed! I made calculations ahead from the very first