“Yes,” sez I, “I guess her feet will never be lifted altogether from the ground till they are turned up in their last rest.  But I wouldn’t try, Josiah Allen, to imitate that roarin’ and rakish set if I wuz in your place, you a member of the meetin’ house.”

“Oh, keep throwin’ that meetin’ house in my face, I should think you’d git tired ont but don’t spoze you will.”

And Blandina sez, “Oh, Aunt Samantha, don’t be too harsh on them happy young men, it is only their high sperits.  They would probable settle down and make the best of husbands if they had a tender and loving companion.  I wonder,” sez she, “if they wuz took from life and if they’re here to the Fair I do so like the looks of one on ’em, I believe we would be congenial.”

I hurried ’em along, the one she pinted out had his pistol raised the highest of the lot and he looked the most rakish.

But you forgot the looks of the cow-boys as you stood at the entrance and got a full view of the Pike.  A perfect flood of all the colors of the rainbow, and towers and steeples and domes and crescents, and ornaments of all kinds busts on your vision, and at the same time your ear-pans are assailed by a noise like the sound of many waters, it is the big crowd that is surgin’ through the Pike to and fro, fro and to, and keep at it night and day.

The great crowd seen here all the time shows how much the average human craves amusement and recreation.  For the Pike is the amusement street of the Exposition.  And a bystander standin’ by told us that it extended a mild and a half from the Lindel entrance where we entered clear up to the Skinker road.

“What Skinker is that?” sez Josiah to the man.  “Is he any relation to the Skinkerses up in Zoar?  Old Ethan Skinker had a boy who come West.  Most probable you’ve seen him here; I know most every stranger that comes to Jonesville.”

“Where is Zoar?” sez the man, an uppish lookin’ creeter, but sunk in ignorance, for when Josiah sez, “Zoar is four milds from Jonesville,” sez the man: 

“Where is Jonesville?”

And Josiah sez to me, “I’ll be jiggered, Samantha, if this man at this age of the world don’t know where Jonesville is.”

“Well,” sez I coolly, “we hain’t expected to civilize all creation, Josiah.”  And as we had jest come to the entrance of the Tyoleran Alps I wouldn’t let Josiah stop and parley with him any furder.  He wuz kinder snickerin’ to himself, a ignorant onmannerly creeter.

I had told Josiah and he fell in with the idee to once (he is clost) that we wouldn’t try to see all the sights of the Pike.  But this bein’ the first one we come to we thought we would enter and we found it wuz a highly interestin’ spectacle.

There wuz lofty snow-crowned mountains, some on ’em that seemed fur away, and some nigher by, a lake lyin’ smooth and placid at their feet.  Its shore wuz dotted with trees, and little picturesque cottages nestled on its banks.