We had hard work to git through the gorgeous lookin' crowd, every country and every nation wuz represented. Queens, flashin' with jewels; flower girls, carryin' baskets of flowers; kings, cardinals, monks, officers in brilliant uniform, fairies, Night covered with stars and a pale pearl moon in her forehead, and Mornin' dressed in a rosy cloud with a sunburst of diamonds on her brow; Injuns, male and female, clad in short embroidered skirts and leggins and feathers in their long, straight locks. Eastern men and wimmen with long flowin' robes, the wimmen with veils on, the men with strange simeters and weepons at their sides. And, in fact, think of any costoom under the sun and there is wuz before you. And, sure enough, the girl wuz right, lots and lots of folks appeared in their own clothes and wuz here as themselves.
Well, at last we come to the first booth, and I bought a little fan and a mite of a handkerchief for Delight, both dearer than beautiful, but havin' that sufferin' Heathen in my mind I paid quite cheerful, Josiah groanin' some at the money I lavished on them two articles. But I whispered, "Remember what is said of the cheerful giver. Groans don't become this enterprise and occasion, Josiah Allen."
And then, hearin' the money clink merrily down into the boxes of the booth tenders, I sez almost onbeknown to myself to the pretty girl who wuz doin' up my things:
