Now, she and I felt jest alike in this.

Who—­who wuz a-goin’ to notice what you had on to the World’s Fair; and providin’ we wuz clean and hull, and respectable-lookin’, who wuz a-goin’ to know or care whether our stockin’s wuz open work or plain knittin’?

There, with all the wonder and glory of the hull world spread out before our eyes, and the hull world there a-lookin’ at it, a-gazin’ at strange people, strange customs, strange treasures and curiosities from every land under the sun—­wonders of the earth and wonders of the sea, marvels of genius and invention, and marvels of grandeur and glory, of Art and Nature, and the hull world a-lookin’ on, and a-marvellin’ at ’em.  And then to suppose that anybody would be a-lookin’ out for shell-work stockin’s, a-carin’ whether they wuz clam-shell pattern, or oyster shell.

The idee!

That is the way Maggie and I felt; why, if you’ll believe it, that sweet little creeter never took but one dress with her, besides a old wrapper to put on mornin’s.  She took a good plain black silk dress, with two waists to it—­a thick one for cool days and a thin one for hot days—­and some under-clothes, and some old shoes that didn’t hurt her feet, and looked decent.  And there she wuz all ready.

She never bought a thing, I don’t believe, not one.  You wouldn’t ketch her waitin’ to embroider night-shirts for Thomas Jefferson—­no, indeed!  She felt jest as I did.  What would the Christopher Columbus World’s Fair care for the particular make of Thomas J’s night-shirts?  That had bigger things on its old mind than to stop and admire a particular posey or runnin’ vine worked on a man’s nightly bosom.  Yes, indeed!

But Tirzah Ann felt jest that way, and I couldn’t make her over at that late day, even if I had time to tackle the job.  She took it honest—­it come onto her from her Pa.

The preperations that man would have made if he had had his head would have outdone Tirzah Ann’s, and that is sayin’ enough, and more’n enough.

And the size of the shoes that man would have sot out with if he had been left alone would have been a shame and a disgrace to the name of decency as long as the world stands.

Why, his feet would have been two smokin’ sacrifices laid on the altar of corns and bunions.  Yes, indeed!  But I broke it up.

I sez, “Do you lay out and calculate to hobble round in that pair of leather vises and toe-screws,” sez I, “when you have got to be on foot from mornin’ till night, day after day?  Why under the sun don’t you wear your good old leather shoes, and feel comfortable?”

And he said (true father of Tirzah Ann), “He wuz afraid it would make talk.”

[Illustration:  “Leather vises and toe-screws.”]

Sez I, “The idee of the World’s Fair, with all it has got on its mind, a noticin’ or carin’ whether you had on shoes or went barefoot!  But if you are afraid of talk,” sez I, “I guess that it would make full as much talk to see you a-goin’ round a-groanin’ and a-cryin’ out loud.  And that is what them shoes would bring you to,” sez I.