e ones to the store--she
couldn't find shell-work."

"Then," sez I, "I shall go without shell-work."

But she said, "They wuz dretful ornamental to the foot, specially to the
instep, and she shouldn't want to go without 'em."

"But," sez I, "who is a-goin' to see your instep? You hain't a-goin'
round in that crowd with slips on, be you?"

"No," she said, "she didn't spoze she should, but she should feel better
to know that she had on nice stockin's, if there didn't anybody see
'em."

And I thought to myself that I should ruther be upheld by my principles
than the consciousness of shell-work stockin's. But I didn't say so
right out. I see that she wouldn't give up the idee.

And besides the stockin's, which wuz goin' to devour a fearful amount of
time, she had got to embroider three night-shirts for Whitfield with
fine linen floss.

Then I argued with her agin. Sez I, "Good land! I don't believe that
Christopher Columbus ever had any embroidered night-shirts." Sez I, "If
he had waited to have them embroidered, and shell-work stockin's knit,
we might have not been discovered to this day. But," sez I, "good,
sensible creeter, he knew better than to do it when he had everything
else on his hands. And," sez I, "with all your housework to do--and hot
weather a-comin' on--I don't see how you are a-goin' to git 'em all done
and git to the Fair."

And she said, "She had ruther come late, prepared, than to go early with
everything at loose ends."

"But," sez I, "good plain sensible night-shirts and Lyle-thread
stockin's hain't loose--they hain't so loose as them you are knittin'."

But I see that I couldn't break it up, so I desisted in my efforts.

Maggie, though she is only my daughter-in-law, takes after me more in a
good many things than Tirzah Ann duz, who is my own step-daughter.
Curious, but so it is.

Now, she and I felt jest alike in this.

Who--who wuz a-goin' to notice what you had on to the World's Fair; and
providin' we wuz clean and hull, and respectable-lookin', who wuz
a-goin' to know or care whether our stockin's wuz open work or plain
knittin'?

There, with all the wonder and glory of the hull world spread out before
our eyes, and the hull world there a-lookin' at it, a-gazin' at strange
people, strange customs, strange treasures and curiosities from every
land under the sun--wonders of the earth and wonders of the sea, marvels
of genius and invention, and marvels of grandeur and glory, of Art