In the German Exhibit wuz as awful a picter as I want to see. It was
Julia, old Mr. Serviuses girl--Miss Tarquin that now is--a-ridin' over
her pa and killin' him a purpose, so she could git his property.
To see Miss Tarquin, that wicked, wicked creeter, a-doin' that wicked
act, is enough to make a perfect race of old maids and bacheldors.
The idea of havin' a lot of children to take care on and then be rid
over by 'em!
But I shall always believe that she wuz put up to it by the Tarquin
boys. I never liked 'em--they wuzn't likely.
But the picter is a sight--dretful big and skairful.
And in that section is a beautiful picter by Fritz Uhele, whose figgers,
folks say, are the best in the world.
"The Angels Appearing to the Shepherds."
Oh, what glowin' faces the angels had! You read in 'em what the
shepherds did:
"Love, Good Will to Man."
There wuz some little picters there about six inches square, and marked:
"Little Picters for a Child's Album."
And Josiah sez to me, "I believe I'll buy one of 'em for Babe's album
that I got her last Christmas."
Sez he, "I've got ten cents in change, but probable," sez he, "it won't
be over eight cents."
Sez I, "Don't be too sanguine, Josiah Allen."
Sez he, "I am never sanguinary without good horse sense to back it up.
They throwed in a chromo three feet square with the last calico dress
you bought at Jonesville, and this hain't over five or six inches big."
"Wall," sez I, "buy it if you want to."
"Wall," sez he, "that's what I lay out to do, mom."
So he accosted a Columbus Guard that stood nigh, and sez he--
"I'm a-goin' to buy that little picter, and I want to know if I can take
it home now in my vest pocket?"
[Illustration: "I'm a-goin' to buy that little picter, and I want to
know if I can take it home now in my vest pocket?"]
"That picter," sez he, "is twenty thousand dollars. It is owned by the
German National Gallery, and is loaned by them," and sez he, with a
ready flow of knowledge inherent to them Guards, "the artist, Adolph
Menzel, is to German art what Meissonier is to the French. His picters
are all bought by the National Gallery, and bring enormous sums."
Josiah almost swooned away. Nothin' but pride kep him up--
I didn't say nothin' to add to his mortification. Only I simply said--
"Babe will prize that picter, Josiah Allen."
And he sez, "Be a fool if you want to; I'm a-goin' to git sunthin' to
eat."
[Illustration: "Be a fool if you want to."]
And he hurried me along at almost a dog-trot, but I would stop to look
at a "Spring Day in Bavaria," and the "Fish Market in Amsterdam," and
the "Nun," and some others, I would--they wuz all beautiful in the
extreme.
Wall, after we come back into the gallery agin, the first picter we went
to see wuz "Christ Before Pilate," by Mr. Muncaxey.
There He stood, the Man of Sorrows, with His tall figure full of patient
dignity, and His face full of love, and pity, and anguish, all bent into
a indescribable majesty and power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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