These seeds are in good shape, but they won’t sprout.  That shows plain how much older these mummies are than the Egyptian ones, for the seeds found by them will sprout and grow, but these are too old—­the life in the seeds is gone, as well as the life in the dead forms by ’em, centuries ago, mebby.

Wall, it wuz a sight—­a sight to see that city, and then to see a-windin’ up the face of the cliff the windin’ trail, and the little burros a-climbin’ up slowly from the valley, and the strange four-horned sheep of the Navago herds a-grazin’ amongst the high rocks.

It wuz one of the most impressive sights of all the wonderful sights of the Columbus Fair, and so I told Josiah.

Wall, seein’ we wuz right there, we thought we would pay attention to the Forestry Buildin’.

And if I ever felt ashamed of myself, and mortified, I did there; of which more anon.

It wuz quite a big buildin’, kinder long and low—­about two and a half acres big, I should judge.

Every house has its peculiarities, the same as folks do, and the peculiar kink in this house wuz it hadn’t a nail or a bit of iron in it anywhere from top to bottom—­bolts and pegs made of wood a-holdin’ it together.

Wall, I hadn’t no idee that there wuz so many kinds of wood in the hull world, from Asia and Greenland to Jonesville, as I see there in five minutes.

Of course I had been round enough in our woods and the swamp to know that there wuz several different kinds of wood—­ellum and butnut, cedar and dog-wood, and so forth.

But good land! to see the hundreds and thousands of kinds that I see here made anybody feel curious, curious as a dog, and made ’em feel, too, how enormous big the world is—­and how little he or she is, as the case may be.

The sides of the buildin’ are made of slabs, with the bark took off, and the roof is thatched with tan-bark and other barks.

The winder-frames are made in the same rustic, wooden way.

The main entrances are made of different kinds of wood, cut and carved first-rate.

All around this buildin’ is a veranda, and supportin’ its roof is a long row of columns, each composed of three tree trunks twenty-five feet in length—­one big one and the other two smaller.

These wuz contributed by the different States and Territories and by foreign countries, each sendin’ specimens of its most noted trees.

And right here wuz when I felt mad at myself, mad as a settin’ hen, to think how forgetful I had been, and how lackin’ in what belongs to good manners and politeness.

Why hadn’t I brung some of our native Jonesville trees, hallowed by the presence of Josiah Allen’s wife?

Why hadn’t I brung some of the maples from our dooryard, that shakes out its green and crimson banners over our heads every spring and fall?

Or why hadn’t I brung one of the low-spreadin’ apple-trees out of Mother Smith’s orchard, where I used to climb in search of robins’ nests in June mornin’s?