A-keepin’ right on in their own spear, jest as usial, not intrudin’ themselves and a-pushin’, but ready to greet ’em and give ’em the best there wuz in ’em, if occasion called for it, and then ready to bid ’em a calm, well-meanin’ farewell when the time come to part.

It wuz a great surprise to me, and how they got there wuz a mystery.  But I spoze the nation collected ’em together and sot ’em up there because it sets such a store by me.  It is dretful fond of me, the nation is, and well it may be.  I have stood up for it time and agin, and then I’ve done a sight for it in the way of advisin’ and bracin’ it up.

As I stood and looked at them books I got carried a good ways off a-ridin’ on Wonder—­a-wonderin’ whether them books had done any good in the world.

I’d wanted ’em to, I’d wanted ’em to like a dog.  Sometimes I’d felt real riz up a-thinkin’ they had, and then agin I’ve felt dubersome.

But I knew they had gin great enjoyment, I’d hearn on’t.  Why, the minister up to Zoar had told me of as many as seven relations of hisen, who, when they wuz run down and weak, and had kinder lost their minds, had jest clung to them books.

In softenin’ of the brain now, or bein’ kicked on the head, or nateral brain weakness—­why, them books are invaluable, so I spoze.

But to resoom.  The corner pavilion, like all the rest of the buildin’, have each a open colonade above the main cornice.  Here are the hangin’ gardens, and also the committee rooms of the lady managers.

This palace of beauty wuz designed by a woman—­woman has got to have the credit for everything about it.

A woman designed the hull buildin’; a woman modelled the figgers that support the ruff; a woman won fairly in competition the right to decorate the cornice.  The interior decoration, much of it carved work, is done by wimmen; panels wuz carved by wimmen all over the country and brought here to decorate the walls.

And not only decorated, but in a good many rooms the woodwork wuz finished by wimmen.  California has a room walled and ceiled with redwood by wimmen.

And wimmen of all the States, from Maine and Florida, have joined to make the place beautiful.  Even the Indian wimmen made richly embroidered hangin’s for the doors and windows.

The wimmen managers wuz the first wimmen that wuz ever officially commissioned by Congress, and never have wimmen swung out so, or, to be poetical, never have they cut so wide and broad a swath on the seedy old fields of Time, as they do to this Fair.  They can exhibit with the best of the contestants, men or wimmen, and by act of Congress represent their own sect on the Jury of Award.

Congress did the fair thing by wimmen in this matter.  Let him step up one step higher on the hill of justice, and gin ’em the right to set on the jury of award or punishment when their own honor is at the stake.

It has let wimmen tell which is the best piece of woosted work, or tattin’; now let her be judged by her peers when life or death is the award meted out to ’em.  But to resoom.