All but Miss Plank, and a few old maids and widders, and such, who mebby had had hopes. Miss Plank looked and acted as flat and crushed down as one of her favorite cakes, or as if she wuz a-layin' under her own sirname.

She said she hated to lose the profit of such a boarder, and mebby that wuz it--I don't say it wuzn't. But this I know, wimmen will keep up hopes, moles or no moles, and age has no power to keep out expectations.

But I make no insinuations, nor will take none. She said that it wuz money she hated to lose, and mebby it wuz.

But on that question I riz up her hopes agin, for Mr. Freeman wuz bound on bein' married imegatly and to once, and he said that they would remain right there for the remainder of the year at least.

Isabelle hung off, and wanted to go back to Jonesville and be married to our house, as I warmly urged 'em to.

But Mr. Freeman, lookin' decided and firm as anything you ever see, he sez to Isabelle--

"Do you suppose I am ever goin' to lose sight of you agin? No indeed!"

And I sez, "Wall, come right home with us to Jonesville, and keep your eyes on her."

I wuz as happy as a king, and he knew it. And he thinks a sight of me, for it wuz through me, he sez, that their meetin' wuz brought about.

He didn't say he wouldn't do that, so I wuz greatly in hopes that that would be the way it would turn out.

I thought to myself, "Oh, how I would love to have 'em married in my parlor, right back of the hangin' lamp!"

The semi-detatched widder said she got a letter about that time bringin'

her bad news, trials, and tribulations, so it wuzn't to be wondered that she looked sad and worried. Mebby she did git such a letter.

But anyway she and Miss Plank made up with each other. They become clost friends. Miss Plank told me, "She loved her like a sister."

And the semi-detatched widder told me, "If she ever see a woman that she thought more on than she did her own mother, it wuz Miss Plank."

Wall, I wuz glad enough to see 'em reconciled, for they had been at such sword's pints, as you may say, that it made it dretful disagreeable to the other boarders.

Miss Piddock acted, and I believe wuz tickled, to see Mr. Freeman's happiness; for he didn't make any secret of it, and couldn't, if he wanted to. For radiant eyes and blissful smiles would have told the story of his joy, if his lips hadn't.

Miss Piddock said that "if Mr. Piddock had been alive that he could say truly that he could sympathize with him in every respect, for that dear departed man had known, if anybody had, true connubial bliss."

And then she brung up such piles of reminiscences of that man, that I felt as if I must sink under 'em.

But I didn't; I managed to keep my head above 'em, and keep on a-breathin' as calm and stiddy as I could.

Even Nony acted a trifle less bitter and austeer when he heard the news, and made the remark, "That he hoped that he would be happy." But there wuz a dark and shudderin' oncertainty and onbelief in his cold eyes as he said that "Hope" that wuz dretful deprestin' to me--not to Mr.

Freeman; no, that blessed creeter wuz too happy to be affected by such glacial congratulations as Nony Piddock's.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of course, feelin' as I did about my Uncle Samuel, it wouldn't have done to not gone to the Government Buildin', where he makes his headquarters, so to say.

Like the other palaces, this is so vast that it seemed as we stepped up to it some like wadin' out into Lake Michigan to examine her.

We couldn't do it--we couldn't do justice to Michigan with one pair of feet and eyes--no, indeed.

Wall, no more we couldn't do justice to these buildin's unless we laid out to live as long as Methusleah did, and hang round here for a hundred years or so.

We had to go by a lot of officers all dressed up in uniforms. But we wuzn't afraid--we knew we hadn't done anything to make us afraid.

Josiah wuz considerable interested in the enormous display of rifles, and all the machinery for makin' 'em, and showin' how and where the destructive instruments used in war are made.

And then there wuz dummy cavalry horses, and men, and ponies, and cattle, showin' the early means for transportation of the mails, compared with the modern way of carryin' it on lightnin' coaches.

But it wuz a treat indeed to me to see the original papers writ by our n.o.ble forefathers.

To be sure, they wuz considerable faded out, so that I couldn't read 'em much of any; but it wuz a treat indeed to jest see the paper on which the hands of them good old creeters had rested while they shaped the Destinies of the New World.

They held the pen, but the Almighty held the hands, and guided them over the paper.

When I see with my own two eyes, and my Josiah's eyes, which makes four eyes of my own (for are we two not one? Yes, indeed, we are a good deal of the time)--

Wall, when I see with these four eyes the very paper that Washington, the Immortal Founder of His Country, had rested his own hand on--when I see the very handwritin' of his right hand and the written thoughts of hisen, which made it seem some like lookin' into the inside of that revered and n.o.ble head, my feelin's riz up so that they wuz almost beyend my control, and I had to lean back hard on the pillow of megumness that I always carry with me to stiddy myself with.

I had to lean hard, or I should have been perfectly wobblin' and broke up.

And then to see Jefferson's writin', and Hamilton's, and Benjamin Franklin's--he who also discovered a New World, the mystic World that we draw on with such a stiddy and increasin' demand for supplies of light, and heat, and motion, and everything--

When I see the very writin' of that hand that had drawed down the lightnin', and had hitched it to the car of commerce and progress--

Oh, what feelin's I felt, and how many of 'em--it wuz a sight.

And then I see the Proclamation of the President; and though I always made a practice of skippin' 'em when I see 'em in the newspaper, somehow they looked different to me here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I see the Proclamation of the President.]

And then there wuz agreements with Foreign Powers, and some of them Powers' own handwritin' photographed; and lots of treaties made by Uncle Sam--some of 'em, especially them with the Injuns, I guess the least said about the soonest mended, but the biggest heft on 'em I guess he has kept--

Treaties of peace and alliance, pardon of Louisiana and Florida, Alaska, etc., all in Uncle Sam's own handwritin'.

And then there wuz the arms of the United States--and hain't it a sight how fur them arms reach out north and south, east and west--protectin'

and fosterin' arms a good deal of the time they are, and then how strong they can hit when they feel like it!

And then there wuz the big seal of the United States.

I had read a description of it to Josiah that mornin', and had explained it all out to him--all about the Argant, and Jules, and the breast of the American Eagle displayed proper.

I sez, "That means that it is proper for a bird to display its breast in public places; and," sez I, "though it don't speak right out, it probable means to gin a strong hint to fashionable wimmen.

"And then," says I, "it holds in its dexter talons a olive branch. That means that it is so dextrous in wavin' that branch round and gittin'

holt of what it wants.