a septer in her hand, if they laid
out to keep her where she is now--under the rule of the lowest criminal
landed on our shores, and beneath niggers, and Injuns, and a-settin' on
the same bench in a even row with idiots, lunaticks, and criminals.

No; I think better of 'em; they are a-goin' to carry out the idee of
that silver image in the gold of practical justice, I believe.

If I hadn't thought so, I would a-histed up my umbrell and hit that
septer of hern, and knocked that globe out from under her feet.

And them four mountaineers, a-guardin' her with rifles in their hands,
might have led me off to prison for it if they had wanted too--I would a
done it anyway.

But, as I sez, I hope for better things, and what give me the most
courage of anything about it wuz that Justice had got her bandages off.

That is jest what I have wanted her to do for a long time. I had advised
Justice jest as if she had been my own Mother-in-law. I had argued with
her time and agin to take that bandage offen her eyes.

And when I see that she had took my advice, and meditated on what
happiness and freedom wuz ahead for my sect, and realized plain that it
wuz probable all my doin's--why, the proud and happy emotions that
swelled my breast most broke off four buttons offen my bask waist. And
onbeknown to me I carried myself in that proud and stately way that
Josiah asked me anxiously--

"If I had got a crick in my back?"

I told him, "No, I hadn't got any crick, but I had proud and lofty
emotions on the inside of my soul that no man could give or take away."

"Wall," sez he, "you walked considerable like our old peacock when she
wants to show off."

I pitied him for his short-sightedness, but unconsciously I did, I dare
presoom to say, onbend a little in my proud gait.

And we proceeded onwards.

Wall, on our way home we heard a bystander a-speakin' about the
beautiful vistas, and the other one replied, and said how wonderful and
beautiful he considered 'em.

And Josiah sez to me, "Where be them 'Vistas,' anyway? I've hearn more
talk about 'em than a little--do they keep 'em in cases, or be they
rolled up in rolls? I want to see 'em, anyway," and he turned and went
to go into one of the big palaces. Sez he, "He seemed to be a-pintin'
this way; we must have missed 'em the day we wuz here."

But I took holt of his arm and drawed him back, and I pinted down the
long, beautiful distance, the glorious view bounded by the snowy
s