CHAPTER XVIII.
Of course, feelin' as I did about my Uncle Samuel, it wouldn't have done to not gone to the Government Buildin', where he makes his headquarters, so to say.
Like the other palaces, this is so vast that it seemed as we stepped up to it some like wadin' out into Lake Michigan to examine her.
We couldn't do it--we couldn't do justice to Michigan with one pair of feet and eyes--no, indeed.
Wall, no more we couldn't do justice to these buildin's unless we laid out to live as long as Methusleah did, and hang round here for a hundred years or so.
We had to go by a lot of officers all dressed up in uniforms.

But we wuzn't afraid--we knew we hadn't done anything to make us afraid.
Josiah wuz considerable interested in the enormous display of rifles, and all the machinery for makin' 'em, and showin' how and where the destructive instruments used in war are made.
And then there wuz dummy cavalry horses, and men, and ponies, and cattle, showin' the early means for transportation of the mails, compared with the modern way of carryin' it on lightnin' coaches.
But it wuz a treat indeed to me to see the original papers writ by our noble forefathers.
To be sure, they wuz considerable faded out, so that I couldn't read 'em much of any; but it wuz a treat indeed to jest see the paper on which the hands of them good old creeters had rested while they shaped the Destinies of the New World.
They held the pen, but the Almighty held the hands, and guided them over the paper.
When I see with my own two eyes, and my Josiah's eyes, which makes four eyes of my own (for are we two not one?
Yes, indeed, 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 means that it is so dextrous in wavin' that branch round and gittin' holt of what it wants.
"And holdin' in its sinister talons a bunch of arrows." Sez I, "That means that in war it is so awful sinister, and lets them arrows fly onto its enemies where they are needed most." And then the Eagle holds in its beak a strip of paper with "E.

Pluribus Unum" on it, which means "One formed out of many." And how many countries will wheel into the procession and become part of the great one as the centuries go on?
I don't believe Uncle Sam has the least idee; I know I hain't, nor Josiah.
For on the back part is a pyramiad unfinished; no knowin' how many bricks will yet be laid on top of that pyramiad, or how high it will shoot up into the heavens.
And then there is a big eye surrounded with a Glory.
The eye of the United States most likely, and I spozed mebby it meant big I and little You.
I didn't know exactly what it did mean till I catched sight of the words above, meanin' "The eye of Providence is favorable to our undertakin's." And then I felt better, and hoped it wuz so.
Down under the pyramiad is words meanin' "A New Order of Centuries." That riz me up still more, for I knew it wuz true.

Yes; when Columbus pinted the prow of that caraval of hisen towards the New World, the water broke on each side of it, a-washin' back towards the Old World the decayin' creeds and orders of the Old World, and the ripples that danced ahead on't, clear acrost the Atlantic, wuz a-carryin' new laws, new governments; and hoverin' over the prow as it swept on in the darkness and the dawn, onseen to any eye, not even the prophetic eye of the discoverer, hovered the great angels Liberty, Equal Rights, and Human Brotherhood.
For them angels could see further than we can; they could see clear ahead when the iron chains should fall from black wrists, and as mighty chains, though wrought with gold, mebby, should fall from the delicate white wrists of mother, and wife, and sister.
It could see that this indeed wuz "A New Order of Centuries." And then we see--kep jest as careful as though it wuz pure gold and diamonds--the petition of the Colonies to the King of England.