But she told us what it wuz.
Wall, as I say, there wuz displays of every other kind of Christian work, and a-lookin' over them records, and seein' the benign faces of them wimmen who had led on the fight aginst the banded powers of Hell--why, the tears jest run down my face some like rain water, and Josiah asked me anxiously, "If I wuz took with a cramp." And I sez, "No, fur from it.

I am took with the sperit of rejoicin', and wonder, and thanksgivin', and everything else." And he sez, "Wall, I wouldn't stand up and cry; if I wuz a-goin' to cry, I would set down to it." And agin I sez, as I had said before, "Josiah, you're not a woman." And he sez, "No, indeed; you wouldn't catch a man a-cryin' because he wuz tickled about sunthin'; he would more likely snap his fingers, and whistle." But I heeded not his remarks, and we wended onwards.
And I see, with everything else under the sun, moon, and stars, a collection of all the kinds of flowers in the country, clear from Maine to California; and lots of the flowers preserved in their nateral colors.
And if you think this is a easy job, I can tell you that you are very much mistaken.
Why, jest a-walkin' over to Miss Alexander Bobbet'ses, acrost lots, I have come acrost more than forty different kinds of wild flowers, and then, when I got there, I can't begin to tell how many flowers she had in her dooryard.
More than a hundred, anyway; and then if I come home by she that wuz Submit Tewksbury--why, my 'rithmetic would fairly gin out a-countin' before I got home; and then to think of all the broad acres of land, hills and valleys, mountains and forests between Oregon, and New Jersey, and Maine, and Florida, and California! Wuz it a easy job that wimmen took on to themselves, then?
No, indeed; no, indeed! But wimmen are ust to hard jobs, and if she begins 'em she will carry 'em out and finish 'em; as wuz proved by the cloak we see there, made of feathers, that took five years to make.
But when I go to talk about the paintin's, and statutes, and the embroideries my sect shows off in that buildin', then agin I draw deep breaths full of praise and admiration, sunthin' like sithes, only happier ones, to think mine eyes had been permitted to gaze on the marvels and wonders my own sect had wrought.
And then I thought of Isabelle, and I thought I would love to have her there to neighbor with; thinkses I, if it hadn't been for her we wouldn't have been discovered at all, as I know on, and then where would have been the Woman's Buildin'?
I thought I would love to talk it over with her; how, though she furnished the means for a man to discover us, yet four hundred years had to wear away before men thought that wimmen wuz capable of takin' part in any Internatinal Exposition.

I wanted Isabelle there that day--I wanted her like a dog.
But my thoughts wuz brought back from my rapt contemplation by my companion's voice.

He sez: "By Jocks! I hadn't no idee that wimmen had ever done so much work that is useful as well as ornamental." Sez he, "I had read a sight about the Lady Managers, and I had got the idee that them ladies couldn't do much more than to set down and tend poodles, and knit tattin'.

I hadn't no idee that they wuz a-goin' to swing out and make such a show as this." [Illustration: Josiah's "idee" of "them ladies."] Them remarks of hisen wuz wrung out of him by the glory of the display, as the sweet sap is brung out of the maple trees by the all-powerful influence and glory of the spring sun, and they show more plain than song or poem of the wonders about us.
Josiah don't love to praise wimmen--he hates to.