Krit had gone on to Dakota, on business, they said, but wuz comin' back
anon--or mebby before.

Truly, if anybody had kep track of their pride and self-conceit, and
counted how many times it fell, and fell hard, too, durin' the World's
Fair, it would have been a lesson to 'em on the vanity of earthly
things, and a good lesson in rithmetic, too.

Why, they couldn't tell the number of times unless they could go up into
millions, and I d'no but trillions.

Why, it would keep a-fallin' and a-fallin' the hull durin' time you wuz
there, if you kep watch on it to see; but truly you didn't have no time
to, no more'n you did your breathin', only when it took a little deeper
fall than common, and then as it lay prostrate and wounded, it drawed
your attention to it.

Now, at Jonesville, the neighborin' wimmen had envied and looked up to
my transportation facilities.

Miss Gowdy and she that wuz Submit Tewksbury would often say to me--

"Oh, if I had your way of gittin' round--if I could only have your way
of goin' jest where you want to and when you want to!"

Such remarks had fed my vanity and pride.

And I will own right up, like a righteous sinner, that I had ofttimes,
though I had on the outside a becomin' appearance of modesty--

Yet on the inside I wuz all puffed up by a feelin' of my superior
advantages--

As I would set up easy on the back seat of the democrat, and the old
mair would bear me on gloriously, and admired by the neighborin' wimmen
who walked along the side of the road afoot, and anon the old mair
a-leavin' 'em fur behind.

And, like all high stations, that back seat in the democrat and that
noble old mair had brung down envy onto me and mean remarks.

It come straight back to me--Miss Lyman Tarbox told she that wuz Sally
Ann Mayhew, and she that wuz Sally Ann told the minister's wife, and she
told her aunt, and her aunt told my son-in-law's mother, and Miss
Minkley told Tirzah Ann, and she told me--it come straight--

"That Josiah Allen's wife looked like a fool, and acted like one,
a-settin' up a-ridin' whenever she went anywhere, while them that wuz
full as likely walked afoot!"

I took them remarks as a tribute to my greatness--a plain
acknowledgement of my superior means of locomotion and transportation.

They didn't break the puff ball of my vanity and pride, and let the wind
out--no, indeed!

But alas! alas! as I entered the Transportation Buildin', and looked
round me, there wuz no g