d, we are a good deal
of the time)--

Wall, when I see with these four eyes the very paper that Washington,
the Immortal Founder of His Country, had rested his own hand on--when I
see the very handwritin' of his right hand and the written thoughts of
hisen, which made it seem some like lookin' into the inside of that
revered and noble head, my feelin's riz up so that they wuz almost
beyend my control, and I had to lean back hard on the pillow of
megumness that I always carry with me to stiddy myself with.

I had to lean hard, or I should have been perfectly wobblin' and broke
up.

And then to see Jefferson's writin', and Hamilton's, and Benjamin
Franklin's--he who also discovered a New World, the mystic World that we
draw on with such a stiddy and increasin' demand for supplies of light,
and heat, and motion, and everything--

When I see the very writin' of that hand that had drawed down the
lightnin', and had hitched it to the car of commerce and progress--

Oh, what feelin's I felt, and how many of 'em--it wuz a sight.

And then I see the Proclamation of the President; and though I always
made a practice of skippin' 'em when I see 'em in the newspaper, somehow
they looked different to me here.

[Illustration: I see the Proclamation of the President.]

And then there wuz agreements with Foreign Powers, and some of them
Powers' own handwritin' photographed; and lots of treaties made by Uncle
Sam--some of 'em, especially them with the Injuns, I guess the least
said about the soonest mended, but the biggest heft on 'em I guess he
has kept--

Treaties of peace and alliance, pardon of Louisiana and Florida, Alaska,
etc., all in Uncle Sam's own handwritin'.

And then there wuz the arms of the United States--and hain't it a sight
how fur them arms reach out north and south, east and west--protectin'
and fosterin' arms a good deal of the time they are, and then how strong
they can hit when they feel like it!

And then there wuz the big seal of the United States.

I had read a description of it to Josiah that mornin', and had explained
it all out to him--all about the Argant, and Jules, and the breast of
the American Eagle displayed proper.

I sez, "That means that it is proper for a bird to display its breast in
public places; and," sez I, "though it don't speak right out, it
probable means to gin a strong hint to fashionable wimmen.

"And then," says I, "it holds in its dexter talons a olive branch. That
mea