hearin' 'em, I sez to
myself--

"Some wimmen are born fools, some achieve foolishness, and some have
foolishness thrust on 'em, and I guess them two had all three of 'em."

I said it to myself loud enough so's Josiah heard me, and he sez in
joyful axents--

"I am glad, Samantha, that you have come to your senses at last, and
have a realizin' sense of your sect's weaknesses and folly."

And I wuz that wrought up with different emotions that I wuz almost
perfectly by the side of myself, and I jest said to him--

"Shet up!"

I wouldn't argy with him. I wuz fearful excited a-contemplatin' the
heights of true womanhood and the depths of fashionable folly that a
few--a very few--of my sect yet waded round in.

But after I got quite a considerable distance off, I instinctively
turned and looked up to the face of that noble creeter, the Republic.

And I see that she didn't care what wuz said about her.

Her face wuz sot towards the free, fresh air of the future--the past wuz
behind her. The winds of Heaven wuz fannin' her noble fore-top, her eyes
wuz lookin' off into the fur depths of space, her lips wuz wreathed with
smiles caught from the sun and the dew, and the fire of the golden dawn.

She wuz riz up above the blame or praise--the belittlin', foolish,
personal babblin' of contemporary criticism.

Her head wuz lifted towards the stars.

But to resoom, and continue on.

CHAPTER XII.

After we reluctantly left off contemplatin' that statute of Woman, we
wended along to the buildin' of Manafactures and Liberal Arts, that
colossial structure that dwarfs all the other giants of the Exposition.

This is the largest buildin' ever constructed by any exposition
whatsoever.

It covers with its galleries forty acres of land--it is as big as the
hull of Elam Bobbet's farm--and Elam gets a good livin' offen that farm
for him and Amanda and eight children, and he raises all kinds of crops
on it, besides cows, and colts, and hens, grass land and pasture, and a
creek goes a-runnin' through it, besides a piece of wood lot.

And then, think to have one buildin' cover a place as large as Elam's
farm! Why, jest the idee on't would, I believe, stunt Amanda Bobbet, or
else throw her into spazzums.

For she has always felt dretful proud of their farm, and the size of it;
she has always said that it come hard on Elam to do all the work
himself on such a big farm. She has acted haughty.

And then, if I could have too