us all over the city and out into the suburbs, and display all the
strange sights to us, or they would take us to the beautiful parks,
through the long, smooth, beautiful boulevards.

And no city in the world can go ahead of Chicago in this, or so it seems
to me--the number and beauty of their parks, and the approaches to them.
There wuz a considerable number of railroads to cross, and I wuz afraid
of bein' killed time and agin a-crossin' of 'em, and would mention the
fact anon, if not oftener; but I didn't git killed, not once.

Wall, so Time run along; roses and ripe fruit wreathed his old
hour-glass, and we didn't hardly realize how fast he wuz a-swingin' his
old scythe, and how rapid he was a-walkin'.

Isabelle had promised to come and stay a week with me jest as soon as a
room was vacant.

And so the day that Gertrude Plank left I writ a affectionate note to
her, and reminded her of her promise, and that I should expect her that
evenin' without fail.

I sent the note in the mornin', and at my pardner's request, and also
agreeable to my own wishes, we meandered out into the Fair grounds agin.

There wuz a number of things that we hadn't seen yet, and so there
would have been if we had stayed there a hull year.

But that day we thought we would tackle the Battle Ship, so we went
straight to it the nearest way.

Wall, as I looked off and got a plain view of the Illinois, it was
headed towards me jest right, and I thought it wuz shaped some like my
biggest flat-iron, or sad-iron, as some call 'em.

And I don't know why, I am sure, unless it is because wimmen are
middlin' sad when they git a big ironin' in the clothes-basket, and only
one pair of hands to do it, and mebby green wood, or like as not have to
pick up their wood, only jest them arms to do it all, them and their
sad-irons.

Wall, as I say, it wuz headed jest right, so it did look shaped for all
the world like that old flat-iron that fell on to me from Mother Allen.

Of course it wuz bigger, fur bigger, and had a hull string of flags
hitched from each end on't to the middle. Wall, it wuz a high,
good-lookin' banner a-risin' out and perched on top of a curius-lookin'
smoke-stack.

And for all the world, if that line of flags didn't look some like a
line of calico clothes a-hangin' out to dry, hitched up in the middle to
the top of the cherry-tree, and then dwindlin' down each end to the
corner of the house, and the horse barn.

But I wouldn't h