Then how loath they wuz to even listen to Columbuses pathetic appeals and prayers!  But they did at last touch the heart of a woman.  That woman believed him, while the rest of Spain sneered at him.  Had she lived, Columbus wouldn’t have been sent to prison in chains.  No, indeed!  But she passed away, and Spain misused him.  But now they send their royalties to meet with all the kings and queens of the earth to bow down to his memory.

As we wended out, the caravels lay there in the calm water—­the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, all becalmed in front of the convent.

No more rough seas in front of ’em; they furl their sails in the sunlight of success.

All is glory, all is rejoicing, all is praise.

Four hundred years after the brave soul that planned and accomplished it all died heart-broken and in chains, despised and rejected by men, persecuted by his enemies, betrayed by his friends.

True, brave heart, I wonder if the God he trusted in, and tried to honor, lets him come back on some fair mornin’ or cloudless moonlight evenin’, and look down and see what the nations are sayin’ and doin’ for him in eighteen hundred and ninety-three!

I don’t know, nor Josiah don’t.

But as I stood a-thinkin’ of this, the sun come out from under a cloud and lit up the caravels with its golden light, and lay on the water like a long, shinin’ path leadin’ into glory.

And a light breeze stirred the white sails of the Santa Maria, some as though it wuz a-goin’ to set sail agin.

And the shadders almost seemed alive that lay on the narrer deck.

After we left La Rabida, Josiah wanted to go and see the exhibit called Man and his Works.

Sez he, “I’ll show you now, Samantha, what our works are.  I’ll show you the most beautiful and august exposition on the grounds.”

Sez he, “You boasted high about wimmen’s doin’s, and they wuz fair,” sez he, “what I call fair to middlin’.  But in this you’ll see grandeur and True Greatness.”

Josiah didn’t know a thing about the show, only what he gathered from its name; and feelin’ as he did about himself and his sect, he naterally expected wonders.

So, leanin’ on the arm of Justice, I accompanied him into the buildin’, which wuzn’t fur from La Rabida.

But almost the first room we went into, Josiah almost swooned at the sight, and I clung to his arm instinctively.  There we wuz amongst more than three thousand skeletons and skulls.

Why, the goose pimples that rose on me didn’t subside till most night.

And in the very next room wuz a collection of mummies, the humbliest ones that I ever sot my eyes on in my hull life—­two or three hundred on ’em, from Peru, Utah, New Mexico, Egypt, British Columbia, etc., etc.

When Josiah’s eyes fell onto ’em, my poor pardner sez, “Samantha, less be a-goin’.”

Sez I, “Are you satisfied, Josiah Allen, with the Works of Man?”