CHAPTER XI.

Wall, the next mornin’—­such is the wonderful balm of onbroken sleep that any one takes in onbeknown to themselves—­we felt considerable brisk.

And Josiah proposed that we should go and pay attention to the Buildin’ of Liberal Arts and Manafactures that day.

Havin’ had my way the day before on goin’ to the home and headquarters of my sect first, I thought it wuzn’t no more than right that my pardner should have his way that day as to what buildin’ we should pay attention to, and he wanted to go to the biggest one next.

He said that, “When he wuz a-shearin’ sheep he always wanted to tackle the biggest one first, and he felt jest so about any hard job.”

I kinder wanted to go to the Art Gallery that mornin’; first wimmen, and then Art—­them wuz my choices.  But Love prevailed.  And the feelin’ that, after seein’ the display that wimmen had wrought, that mebby it wuz best to go next to the largest house on the grounds, and the most liberal one.

So we sot off, after a good breakfast.

We thought we would meander kinder slow that mornin’, and examine things closely.  Truly we had been too much overcome by that first visit the day before to take much notice of things in particular.

When that seen had bust onto us it wuz some like a blind man comin’ to his sight in the middle of a June day.  He wouldn’t pay any particular attention to each separate glory that made up the seen—­blue sky, green fields, sunshine, white clouds, sparklin’ waters, rustlin’ trees, wavin’ grass, roses, green fields, and so forth and so forth.

No, it would all mingle in one dazzlin’ picture before his astounded eyeballs.  So it had been with us, or with me, at any rate.

Now we laid out to go slower and take things in more separate—­one by one, as it were; and we seemed to realize more than we had sensed it the immense—­immense size of the depot, the rumble of the elevated trains overhead, and the abundance of the facilities to git into the Columbian World’s Fair.

Why, there is about fifty places right there to git tickets, and ninety-six turnstiles—­most a hundred!  The idee!

Wall, with no casualities worth enumeratin’, we found ourselves in that glorious Court of Honor, and pretty nigh that gorgeous fountain of MacMonnies.  This matchless work of art occupies the place of honor amidst the incomparable group of wonders in that Court of Honor, and it deserves it.  Yes, indeed! its size is immense, but it don’t show it, owin’ to the size of the buildin’s surroundin’ it.

Here in this fountain, as elsewhere at Columbus’s doin’s, female wimmen are put forward in the highest and loftiest places.

High up, enthroned in a mammoth boat, stately and beautiful in design, sets a impressive female figger, her face all lit up with Truth and Earnest Purpose as she towers up above the others.  The boat seems to be a-goin’ aginst the wind, as boats that amount to anything and git there always have in the past, and most likely will in the future.  And the keen wind wuz a-blowin’ hard aginst the female figger that wuz a-standin’ up in front of the boat, but she didn’t care; it blowed her drapery back some, but it only floated out her wings better.