Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition, Marietta Holley [classic english novels txt] 📗

the hull on 'em, no, it hain't reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over fifty thousand horse-power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII.

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

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

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

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

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

"Where did you lose him?" sez he.

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

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

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

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

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

Billy sez, "What did I tell you?"

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

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

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

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

But Blandina whispered to me, "Oh, be merciful, Aunt Samantha, men have such powerful intellects, that Shows that would almost ruin a woman, don't affect them hardly any. Speak