Wall, I didn’t make no objections to it; I thought I wouldn’t say a word or make a move to break it up, or make their burdens any heavier.  No; I jest stood still and see it go on.

Only I did talk some out to one side to my Josiah about it, about the curiosity of their behavior.

Sez I, “It seems as if, after what Columbus done for the country, he ort to be kep hull, and not be broke into, and split apart.  But howsumever,” sez I, “I sha’n’t make any move to stop it.”

And Josiah sez “he guessed it wouldn’t make much difference whether I made a move or not.  He guessed Chicago could take care of its own business, and would do it.”

I wuz a-pinnin’ the outside onto a comforter, and I had a lot of pins in my mouth, but before I put ’em in I sez—­

“Wall, it looks kind o’ shiftless to me, to think they hadn’t no place to put it, after all their actions.”

And as I resoomed my work, he went on: 

“Now, you imagine how you would feel, Samantha Allen, if you had bought a big elephant, bigger than Jumbo, and you knew it wuz on its way here, approachin’ nearer and nearer—­had got as fur as Old Bobbet’s, and we hadn’t a place to put it in that wuz suitable and strong enough—­we couldn’t git her head hardly in the stable, we couldn’t leave her out doors to rampage round and step over barns and knock down housen, and we couldn’t git it offen our hands any way, kill it, or give it away—­how would you feel?”

[Illustration:  We couldn’t git her head hardly in the stable.]

Then I took my pins out of my mouth, and sez—­

“I wouldn’t have bought the elephant till I had measured my barn.”

Then I put my pins in my mouth agin, for I thought like as not that I wouldn’t have to use my tongue agin.  I didn’t lay out to, for my mouth wuz full, and I wuz in a hurry for my comforter.

But Josiah sez, “O shaw! lots of folks buy things they hadn’t no idee of buyin’ till they see somebody else wants ’em bad.

“I remember that is the way I come to buy that two-year colt; I hadn’t a idee of wantin’ it till I see Old Bobbet and Deacon Sypher jest sot on havin’ it, and that whetted me right up, and I wuz jest bound to have that colt, and did.  I didn’t expect to find it profitable any of the time.  I knew it would kick like the old Harry and smash things, and it did.

“And that is jest the way with Chicago; she knew the World’s Fair wuzn’t over and above profitable to have round, besides bein’ dretful bothersome, but she see New York and St. Louis a-dickerin’ for it, and then she wanted it.”

“Wall,” sez I, considerable dry and sharp, for I had three pins in my mouth at the time—­

“She has got it!”

“Yes,” sez Josiah, “and you’ll see that she will put in and work lively, now she’s got it; she’ll show what she can do.”

“Yes,” sez I, dryer than ever, and more sharper; “before she got a stun laid for a foundation to rest the World’s Fair on, before she got a stick laid for Christopher to plant one of his feet on, she begun to buy up hull streets of housen to rig up for saloons, to make men drunk as fools, to make murderers and assassins of ’em.