“Why, yes; sunthin’ like that,” sez he.  “It wouldn’t pay to throw away money on ashes and fire that we can see any day to hum.”

I didn’t argue with him, for I never took to volcanoes much—­I never loved to git intimate with ’em.  But it wuz a sight to behold, so Miss Plank said—­she went in to see it.  She said, “It took her breath away the sight on’t, but she’s got it back agin (the breath); she talked real diffuse about it.  But to resoom.  The Chinese Village wuz jest like goin’ through China or bein’ dropped down onbeknown to you into a China village.

Two hundred Chinamen are here by a special dispensation of Uncle Sam.

And next to China is the Captive Balloon.  I had wondered a sight what that meant.

Josiah thought that somebody had catched a young balloon, and wuz bringin’ it up by hand, but I knew better than that.  I knew that balloons didn’t grow indigenious.

And it wuz jest as I’d mistrusted—­they had a big balloon here all tied up ready to start off at a minute’s notice.

You jest paid your money, and you could go on a trip up in it through the blue fields of air.  I told Josiah “that it wouldn’t be but a few years before folks would ride round in ’em jest as common as they do in wagons.”  Sez I, “Mebby we shall have a couple of our own stanchled up in our own barn.”

“You mean tied up,” sez he, and I do spoze I did mean that.

But now to look up at the great deep overhead, and consider the vastness of space, and consider the smallness of the ropes a-holdin’ the balloon down, I said to myself, “Mebby it wuz jest as well not to tackle the job of ridin’ out in it that day.”

Jest as I wuz a-meditatin’ this Josiah spoke up, and sez, “I won’t pay out no two dollars apiece to ride in it.”

And I sez, “I kinder want to go up in it, and I kinder don’t want to.”

And he sez, “That is jest like wimmen—­whifflin’, onstabled, weak-livered.”

Sez I, “I believe you’re afraid to go up in it.”

“Afraid!” sez he; “I wouldn’t be afraid a mite if it broke loose and sailed off free into space.”

“Why don’t you try it, then?” I urged.  “Wall,” he sez, a-lookin’ round as if mebby he could find some excuse a-layin’ round on the ground, or sailin’ round in the air, “if I wuz,” sez he—­“if I had another vest on.  I hain’t dressed up exactly as I’d want to be to go a-balloon ridin’.

“And then,” sez he, a-brightenin’ up, “I don’t want to skair you.  You’d most probable be skairt into a fit if it should break loose and start off independent into space.  And it would take away all my enjoyment of such a pleasure excursion to see you a-layin’ on the earth in a fit.”

Sez I, “It hain’t vests or affection that holds you back, Josiah Allen—­it’s fear.”

“Fear!” sez he; “I don’t know the meanin’ of that word only from what I’ve read about it in the dictionary.  Men don’t know what it is to be afraid, and that is why,” sez he, “that I’ve always been so anxious to have wimmen keep in her own spear, where men could watch over her, humble, domestic, grateful.