For as they saw all its wonderful sights, studied its marvelous exhibits, and enjoyed its beautiful belongings, they would have been ready to say how proud, and glad, and happy they were to think that they were American girls and boys, living in this wonderful nineteenth century that has been more crowded with marvels, and mysteries, and triumphs than any one of the Arabian Nights ever contained.
But, whether you saw the Columbian Exhibition or not, you can say that.
And then stop and think what a parrot did.

That is one of the most singular things in all this wonder story you are reading.

Do you not remember how, when Columbus was slowly feeling his way westward, Captain Alonso Pinzon saw some parrots flying southward, and believing from this that the land they sought was off in that direction, he induced Columbus to change his course from the west to the south?
If Columbus had not changed his course and followed the parrots, the Santa Maria, with the Pinta and the Nina, would have sailed on until they had entered the harbor of Savannah or Charleston, or perhaps the broad waters of Chesapeake Bay.

Then the United States of to-day would have been discovered and settled by Spaniards, and the whole history of the land would have been quite different from what it has been.

Spanish blood has peopled, but not uplifted, the countries of South America and the Spanish Main.