As curious a look as I ever see; and if I hain’t seen curious looks in my time, then I will say nobody has.  Yes, indeed!  I have seen curious looks in my journey through life, curious as a dog, and curiouser.

But there she stood, no matter what looks wuz cast on her from friend or foe—­and I guess it would sound better to say from friend or lover, for nobody could be a foe to that radiant-faced, beautiful creeter.

There she stood, in sun or shade, knee-deep in them fresh green grasses, a-lookin’ off onto them sunset clouds always rosy and golden, by the side of that streamlet that always had the sparkle on its tiny waves.

I might be tired and weak as a cat, and Mr. Freeman might have the headache, and Josiah Allen be cross, and all fagged out—­

But her face wuz always serene, and lit up with the glow of joy and health, and her sweet, deep eyes always held the secret that she couldn’t be made to tell.

Mr. Bolster was a stout, middle-aged man, with bald head, side whiskers, and a double chin.  And his big blue eyes kinder stood out from his face some.  He was a real estate agent, so Miss Plank said.  But his principal business seemed to be a-praisin’ up Chicago, and a-puffin’ up the World’s Fair.

Good land!  Columbus didn’t need none of his patronizin’ and puffin’ up, and Chicago didn’t, not by his tell.

Josiah wuz dretful impressed by him.  We didn’t lead off to the Fair ground the next day after our arrival.  No; at my request, we took life easy—­onpacked our trunks and got good and rested, and the mornin’ follerin’ we got up middlin’ early, bein’ used to keepin’ good hours in Jonesville, and on goin’ down to the breakfast-table we found that there wuzn’t nobody there but Mr. Bolster.  He always had a early breakfast, and drove his own horse into the city to his place of business.

He looked that wide awake and active as if he never had been asleep, and never meant to.

And my companion bein’ willin’, and Mr. Bolster bein’ more than willin’, they plunged to once into a conversation concernin’ Chicago, Miss Plank and I a-listenin’ to ’em some of the time, and some of the time a-talkin’ on our own hook, as is the ways of wimmen.

Mr. Bolster—­and I believe he knew that we wuz from York State, and did it partly in a boastin’ way—­he begun most to once to prove that Chicago wuz the only place in America at all suitable to hold the World’s Fair in.

And I gin him to understand that I thought that New York would have been a good place for it, and it wuz a disapintment to me and to several other men and wimmen in the State to not have it there.

But Mr. Bolster says, “Why, Chicago is the only place at all proper for it.  Why,” sez he, “in a way of politeness, Chicago is the only place for it.  In what other city could the foreigners be welcomed by their own people as they can here?” Sez he—­

“In Chicago over 75 per cent of the population is foreign.”