The biggest crowd we see in the Horticultural Hall wuz round what you may call the humblest thing—­a tree, something like old Bobbetses calf, with five legs.

There wuz a fern from Japan, two separate varieties growin’ together in one plant.

There wuz Japanese dwarf trees one hundred years old and about as big as gooseberries.

A travellin’ tree from Madagascar wuz one of the most interestin’ things to look at.

And then there wuz a giant fern from Australia that measured thirty-two feet—­the largest, so I wuz told, in Europe or America.  Thirty-two feet!  And there I have felt so good and even proud-sperited over my fern I took up out of our woods and brung home and sot out in Mother Smith’s old blue sugar-bowl.  Why, that fern wuz so large and beautiful, and attracted the envious and admirin’ attention of so many Jonesvillians, that I had strong idees of takin’ it to the Fair!

Philury said she “hadn’t a doubt of my gittin’ the first prize medal on’t.”  “Why,” sez she, “it is as long as Ury’s arm!” And it wuz.  Miss Lum thought it would be a good thing to take it, to let Chicago and the rest of the world see what vegetation wuz nateral to Jonesville, feelin’ that they would most likely have a deep interest in it.

And Deacon Henzy thought “it might draw population there.”

And the schoolmaster thought that “it would be useful to the foreign powers to see to what height swamp culture had attained in the growth of its idigenious plants.”

I didn’t really understand everything he said—­there wuz a number more big words in his talk—­but I presoom he did, and felt comforted to use ’em.

Why, as I said, I had boasted that fern wuz as long as my arm.

But thirty-two feet—­as high as Josiah, and his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather, and Ury on top.

Where, where wuz my boastin’?  Gone, washed away utterly on the sea of wonder and or.

And then there wuz a century plant with a blossom stem thirty feet high, and a posey accordin’, one posey agin as high as my Josiah, and his father, and etc., etc., etc., and Ury.

Oh, good gracious! oh, dear me suz!

That plant wuzn’t expected to blow out in several years, but all of a sudden it shot up that immense stalk, up, up to thirty feet.

It wuz as if the Queen of the Flowery Kingdom had come with the rest of the kings and princesses of the earth to the Columbus World’s Fair.

Had changed her plans to come with the rest of the royal family.  It wuz a sight.

Wall, after roamin’ there the best part of two hours, I said to my companion, “Less go and see the Wooded Island.”  And he said with a deep sithe, “I am ready, and more than ready.  The name sounds good to me.  I would love to see some good plain wood, either corded up or in sled length.”