Far below us lay the illuminated city, for it wuz night, and a beautiful seen but sort o’ melancholy.  And sure enough, as if to prove my words true, here at the very top of the tower wuz an air-ship on which we took flight through the boundless fields of air.  Paris died on our vision, then we floated over many cities and harbors, up the English Channel, anon the lights of London are passed and we are high up above the ocean.  Weird and wild is the seen, the moon comes up, black clouds rise, and the voice of the winds is heard, then the rumbling of thunder and the forked lightning darts its baleful glare at us.

Josiah whispers, “Samantha, have you got on your gold beads?”

[Illustration]

I wear ’em under my collar but most always take ’em off in a thunder storm not wantin’ to be struck in my neck.  And I seen him furtively gittin’ ready to throw away his jack-knife.  But at that minute the storm calms down and Josiah replaces his knife jest as we enter New York harbor.  A flight over sea and land, forest and city, and we land agin at the Exposition.

As we disembarked Josiah grasped holt of my hand ostensibly to help me but really in tender greeting, and sez in fervid axents, “I wouldn’t have you take that trip alone, Samantha, without me with you to protect you, not for worlds.”

“No,” sez Blandina, “what would we have done without dear Uncle Josiah by our side?”

I didn’t argy but felt that he wouldn’t with his size and weight made much headway agin them whales and water monsters to say nothin’ of danger by drowndin’ and fallin’ from the sky.  But he felt neat and we wended our way on.

Josiah said he didn’t care about goin’ to Asia, and I said it wuz a pity not to when we wuz so nigh, but he kinder hurried me on.

I told him that the Streets of Seville interested me, for it wuz planned by a woman, the only woman who ever received a concession in a amusement street of a Exposition.

And Josiah sez, “I shall spend my money on sunthin’ of more importance; it probable all runs to crazy quilts and tattin.”

But it wuz no such thing, it wuz perfectly beautiful, as I’ve hearn folks say that have been there.  But I see he wuz beginnin’ to look kinder mauger, and as first chaperone I sez anxiously, “Where do you want to go, dear Josiah?  Do you want to go to Hagenbecks Animal Show?”

“No, I don’t; I shall see animals enough when I git home in my own barnyard.”

“Well, do you want to go to the Hereafter, Josiah?”

“No, we shall git there all right if we keep on without my payin’ out money.  I told you I wuzn’t goin’ to pay to go in to all these places.”

“Well, do you want to go to France or Ceylon or Persia?  Or Cairo?  Or where do you want to go?”

Sez he, cross as a bear, “I want to go where I can git sunthin’ to eat.”

And I sez, “Dear Josiah, I’ve been so took up I forgot your appetite; we will go to once.”  And havin’ heard that good food could be got in Japan we hastened thither.