[Samantha at the World’s Fair by Marietta Holley]@TWC D-Link bookSamantha at the World’s Fair CHAPTER XVIII 4/14
It weighs two hundred and seventy thousand pounds, and is forty-seven feet long. It will hit anything sixteen miles off, and with perfect accuracy and effect at a distance of twelve miles. Good land! further than from Zoar to Shackville. It costs one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to discharge it once.
As Josiah looked at it, sez he-- "Oh, how I do wish I had sech a gun! How I could rake off the crows with it in plantin' time! Why," sez he, "by shootin' it off once or twice I could clear the hull country of 'em from Jonesville to Loontown." "Yes," sez I; "and have you got a thousand dollars to pay for every batch of crows you kill, besides damages--heavy damages--for killin' human bein's, and horses, and cows, and sech ?" And he gin in that it wouldn't be feasible to own one.
And I sez, "I wouldn't have one on the premises if Mr.Krupp should give me one." So we wended onwards. Wall, about the most interestin' and surprisin' hours I enjoyed at Columbuses doin's wuz to the stately house set apart for that great wizard of the 19th century--Electricity. As wuz befittin', most the first thing that our eyes fell on wuz a big, noble statute of Benjamin Franklin.
He stands with his kite in his hand, a-lookin' up with a rapt look as if waitin' for instructions from on high. He seemed to be guardin' the entrance to this temple, and he looked as if he wuz glad to be there, and I truly wuz glad to have him there. For he ort to be put side by side with Christopher Columbus.
Both sailed out on the onknown, both discovered a new world. Columbuses world we have got the lay on now considerable, and we have mapped it out and counted the inhabitants. But who--who shall map out this vast realm that Benjamin F.discovered? We stand jest by the sea-shore.
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