Why, we had gin as high as fourteen dollars for the ornimental work on that steeple, and the Jonesvillians, and the Loontowns, and the Zoarites come from fur and near to look at it and admire it, the Jonesvillians in pride and the others in envy, and a-hankerin’ to have one like it.

[Illustration:  The Jonesvillians, and the Loontowns, and the Zoarites came from fur and near to admire it.]

But truly our pride in that steeple tottered and fell when we hove in sight of that Agricultural Hall.

And when you look at the size of that buildin’, and the grandeur of it, you can see plain what sort of a place Agriculture holds in the minds of the world, and how much store folks set on eatin’; and truly, how could the world git along without it?  It would run right down.

Why, imagine, if you can, eight hundred feet one way and five hundred the other way, all orniments and pillows, pillows and orniments, and one big towerin’ dome in the centre, and lots of smaller ones, each one topped off with the most beautiful figger, and groups of figgers, you ever laid eyes on.

Where wuz Father Allen’s pillow, and our steeple?  Gone, crushed down under twenty-six hundred feet of clear pillows and orniments.

On top of the great central dome stands the beautiful figger of Diana, who had flown away from Madison Square, New York, and had settled down here on purpose to delight the beholders of the United Globe with her beauty and grace.

She wuz still a-holdin’ her arrows in her hand, still a-turnin’ her beautiful face around so everybody could see it, still a-kickin’ at the wind with her pretty heel.  But, as in the past, so now, let her kick ever so hard, she couldn’t turn the wind a mite when it got its mind made up to blow from any particular pint of the compass.

And besides this figger on the dome, every little while on the four corners of the buildin’ wuz long, low groups of female wimmen a-holdin’ garlands, depicterin’ the four seasons.

And the long line of pillows would be broken by noble piers, with a beautiful group of figgers on every one on ’em, and some flags a-wavin’ out, as if to draw attention to the perfectness of the statutes.

One on ’em wuz a good-lookin’ man a-holdin’ two prancin’ horses, and I sez to myself, I am glad to see a man a-holdin’ the bits for once.

But come to look closter, I see that there wuz two figgers—­little girls, I guess—­that wuz holt of the horses’ heads.  And then I see the man had a sword in one hand and a club in the other.  He wuzn’t to blame—­he couldn’t hold ’em.  Jest like Josiah; lots of times he would be real glad to do things, only his hands are full.

And then another group wuz a beautiful female a-standin’ up between two great, big, long-horned oxen, a-holdin’ them powerful-lookin’ beasts with a rope made of posies.

Good land!  I wouldn’t held ’em with iron chains.  They looked so high-headed, and their horns looked so long, and it seemed too bad to put her at such a dangerous job.