And there wuz machines for makin’ clocks, and watches, and jewelry, and buttons, and pins, and all kinds of appliances ever used in machinery, and stun, sawin’, and glass-grindin’ machinery a-grindin’ and makin’ bricks and pottery, and used in makin’ artificial stun—­the idee!

You’d a thought the stun wuz all made before the Lord rested.

And there wuz rollin’ mills a-rollin’, and forges a-forgin’, and rollin’ trains, and harnesses, and squeezers a-squeezin’—­and every machine that wuz ever made to shape metals and tire mills, and mills that wuzn’t tired, I guess—­I didn’t see any, but I spoze they wuz there.  But they all looked tired to me—­tired as a dog, but I spoze it wuz my feelin’s.

I see all through this buildin’ that there wuz more wimmen than men there—­which shows what interest wimmen takes in solid things as well as ornimental.

Wall, we hung around there till I wuz fearfully wore out—­with the sights I see and the noise I hearn—­and it wuz a relief to my eyes and ears (and I believe them ear pans never will be the pans they wuz before I went in there)—­it wuz a relief when my companion begun to feel the nawin’s of hunger.  And after we went through Machinery Hall we went through the machine shops, at a pretty good jog, and the power-house, where there is the biggest engine in the world—­24,000 horse power.

Good land! and in Jonesville we consider 4 horses hitched to a load very powerful; but jest think of it, twenty-four thousand horses jest hitched along in front of each other—­why, they would reach from our house clear to Zoar—­the idee!

But Josiah’s inward state grew worse and worse, and finally sez he, in pitiful axents—­

“Samantha, I am in a starvin’ state,” and Miss Plank looked quite bad.

So at their request we went a little further south to the White Horse Inn.

This inn is a exact reproduction of the famous White Horse Inn in England.  Thinkin’ so much of Dickens as I do (introduced to him by Thomas Jefferson), it wuz a comfort to see over the mantlery-piece the well-known form of “Sam Weller,” the old maid, and others of Dickenses characters, that seem jest as real to me as Thomas Jefferson, or Tirzah Ann.

Over the main entrance is a statute of a white horse, lookin’ considerable like our old mair, only more high-headed.

The original inn had a open court, where stage-coaches drove in to unload, and from which Mr. Pickwick and his faithful Sam Weller often alighted.

But instead of using it for horses now, they use it for a smokin’-room for men; they can’t use it for both of ’em, for horses don’t want to go in there—­horses don’t smoke; tobacco makes ’em sick—­sick as a snipe.

Man is the only animal, so fur as I know, who can have tobacco in any shape put into his mouth without resentin’ it, it is so nasty.

Wall, we got a good clean meal there at a reasonable price, though Miss Plank thought there wuzn’t enough emptin’ in the bread, and the sponge cake lacked sugar.  But I think they know how to cook there—­that inn is the headquarters of the Pickwick Club.  Lots of English folks go there, as is nateral.