families where children are suffering for food and clothing."
Sez Josiah (he don't love to give and wuz afraid of the dreen on his resources if I took it into my head to succor the hull fifty families), "in lots of places the parents are lazy or drink."
"But," sez I warmly, "the children are not to blame, they are more to be pitied."
"That is so, Mother," sez Thomas J.
"But," sez Josiah, "the town ort to take care on 'em."
"Sometimes they are too proud to apply to the town," sez Thomas J.
Josiah wuz openin' his mouth to argy some more (he is dretful clost) when we felt and heard a great commotion runnin' through the crowd, we wuz standin' out a little to one side, and Thomas J. spoke real low, he had too good taste to openly show that he thought that Heathen might divide up a little with native sufferers. But, on advancin' a little, we see the cause of the excitement. Miss Greene Smythe wuz advancin' out of the hotel towards the big tent where she wuz goin' to stand, and all who wanted to wuz led in by a usher to take her hand and kiss it, or jest shake it, as they wanted to.
Well, she wuz a sight, a sight as she passed onwards. She wuz dressed as Queen Elizabeth in that identical dress I had seen with the boddist a mass of jeweled embroidery, a great white ruff standin' up round her face, with strings of precious stuns hung round her neck and blazin' in her crown and strung on her dress everywhere, and her velvet skirt behind her trailin' more than as fur from our front door to the gate, or so it seemed, all
