Piddock said that "if Mr. Piddock had been alive that he could say
truly that he could sympathize with him in every respect, for that dear
departed man had known, if anybody had, true connubial bliss."

And then she brung up such piles of reminiscences of that man, that I
felt as if I must sink under 'em.

But I didn't; I managed to keep my head above 'em, and keep on
a-breathin' as calm and stiddy as I could.

Even Nony acted a trifle less bitter and austeer when he heard the news,
and made the remark, "That he hoped that he would be happy." But there
wuz a dark and shudderin' oncertainty and onbelief in his cold eyes as
he said that "Hope" that wuz dretful deprestin' to me--not to Mr.
Freeman; no, that blessed creeter wuz too happy to be affected by such
glacial congratulations as Nony Piddock's.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of course, feelin' as I did about my Uncle Samuel, it wouldn't have done
to not gone to the Government Buildin', where he makes his headquarters,
so to say.

Like the other palaces, this is so vast that it seemed as we stepped up
to it some like wadin' out into Lake Michigan to examine her.

We couldn't do it--we couldn't do justice to Michigan with one pair of
feet and eyes--no, indeed.

Wall, no more we couldn't do justice to these buildin's unless we laid
out to live as long as Methusleah did, and hang round here for a hundred
years or so.

We had to go by a lot of officers all dressed up in uniforms. But we
wuzn't afraid--we knew we hadn't done anything to make us afraid.

Josiah wuz considerable interested in the enormous display of rifles,
and all the machinery for makin' 'em, and showin' how and where the
destructive instruments used in war are made.

And then there wuz dummy cavalry horses, and men, and ponies, and
cattle, showin' the early means for transportation of the mails,
compared with the modern way of carryin' it on lightnin' coaches.

But it wuz a treat indeed to me to see the original papers writ by our
noble forefathers.

To be sure, they wuz considerable faded out, so that I couldn't read 'em
much of any; but it wuz a treat indeed to jest see the paper on which
the hands of them good old creeters had rested while they shaped the
Destinies of the New World.

They held the pen, but the Almighty held the hands, and guided them over
the paper.

When I see with my own two eyes, and my Josiah's eyes, which makes four
eyes of my own (for are we two not one? Yes, indee