oaded cannon and argy with it if she thought it would help destroy
the Saloon, and after she had convinced the cannon she would be
perfectly willin' to be blowed up by it if the Saloon wuz blowed up
too.

Well, I sot thinkin' of all this till Tommy waked up and we all went
out into the dining car and had a good meal. We wuz a little over two
days goin' from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, and durin' that time
I calculated that I eat enough dirt, that bitter alkali sand, to last
lawful all my life. I believe one peck of dirt is all the law allows
one person to consume durin' their life. It seems as if I eat more
than enough to meet legal requirements for me and Josiah, and I seemed
to have a thick coatin' of it on my hull person. And poor little
Tommy! I tried to keep his face clean and that wuz all I could do.

But as we drew nearer to California the weather became so balmy and
delightful that it condoned for much that wuz onpleasant, and I sez to
myself, the lovely views I have seen between Chicago and California I
shall never forgit as long as memory sets up in her high chair.

What a panorama it wuz--beautiful, grand, delightful, majestic,
sublime--no words of mine can do it justice. No. I can never describe
the views that opened on our admirin' and almost awe-struck vision as
the cars advanced through natural openin's in the mountains and anon
artificial ones.

Why, I had thought that the hill in front of old Grout Nickelson's wuz
steep, and the road a skittish one that wound around it above the
creek. But imagine goin' along a road where you could look down
thousands of feet into running water, and right up on the other side
of you mountains thousands of feet high. And you between, poor specks
of clay with only a breath of steam to keep you agoin' and prevent
your dashin' down into that enormous abyss.

But Grandeur sot on them mountain tops, Glory wuz enthroned on them
sublime heights and depths, too beautiful for words to describe, too
grand for human speech to reproduce agin, the soul felt it and must
leave it to other souls to see and feel.

On, on through mountain, valley, gorge and summit, waves of
green foliage, rocks all the beautiful colors of the rainbow,
majestic shapes, seemin'ly fashioned for a home for the gods; white
peaks--sun-glorified, thousands of feet high with blue sky above;
ravines thousands of feet deep with a glint of blue water in the
depths, seemin' to mirror to us the truth that