a congregation of country loafers in a city
saloon--learnin' in one day more lessons in the height and depth of
depravity than years of country livin' would teach 'em.
"These places, and worse ones, legalized places of devils' pastime, will
lure and beckon the raw youth of the country. They will flaunt their
gaudy attractions on every side, and appeal to every sense but the sense
of decency.
"And I would feel fur safer about the hull ten of 'em, if I knew they
wuz safe in the art galleries, full of beauty and sublimity, drawin'
their minds and hearts insensibly and in spite of themselves upward and
onward, or lookin' at the glory and wonders of practical and mechanical
beauty--the beauty of use and invention.
"After walkin' through a buildin' forty-five acres big, and some more of
'em about as roomy, I should be pretty sure that they wouldn't git out
of it in time to go any great lengths in sin that day; and they would be
apt to be too fagged out and dead tired to foller on after Satan any
great distance."
"Well," says Miss Snyder, "I d'no but I should feel safer about my Jim
and John to have 'em there in the Fair buildin's than runnin' loose in
the streets of Chicago. They won't go to meetin' every Sunday, and I
can't make 'em; and if they do go, they will go in the mornin' late, and
git out as soon as the Amen is said.
"My boys are as good as the average--full as good; but I know when they
hain't got anything to do, and git with other boys, they will cut up and
act."
"Well," says Miss Cornelius Cork, "I know that my Cornelius will never
disgrace himself or me by any low acts."
She wuz tellin' a big story, for Cornelius Jr. had been carried home
more'n once too drunk to walk, besides other mean acts that wuz worse;
so we didn't say anything, but we all looked queer; and Arville kinder
sniffed, and turned up her nose, and nudged Miss Snyder. But Miss Cork
kep right on--she is real high-headed and conceited, Miss Cork is.
And, sez she, "Much as I want to see the Fair, and much as I want
Cornelius and Cornelius Jr. to go to it, and the rest of the country, I
would ruther not have it take place at all than to have it open
Sundays."
"And I feel jest so," sez Miss Henzy.
Then young Lihu Widrig spoke up. He is old Elihu Widrig's only son, and
he has been off to college, and is home on a vacation.
He is dretful deep learnt, has studied Greek and lots of other languages
that are dead, and some that are
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