They couldn't bring the volcano with 'em, as volcanoes can't be histed round and lifted up on camels, or packed with sawdust, specially when they're twenty-seven milds acrost. So they brung this great picter of it. I spoze it is a sight to see it. But Josiah felt that he couldn't afford to go in and see the sight, and he sez, "It is only a hole with some fire and ashes comin' out of the top of it." I sez ironically, "Some like our leech barrel, hain't it, with a few cinders on top?" "Why, yes; sunthin' like that," sez he. "It wouldn't pay to throw away money on ashes and fire that we can see any day to hum." I didn't argue with him, for I never took to volcanoes much--I never loved to git intimate with 'em. But it wuz a sight to behold, so Miss Plank said--she went in to see it. She said, "It took her breath away the sight on't, but she's got it back agin (the breath); she talked real diffuse about it. But to resoom. The Chinese Village wuz jest like goin' through China or bein' dropped down onbeknown to you into a China village. Two hundred Chinamen are here by a special dispensation of Uncle Sam. And next to China is the Captive Balloon. I had wondered a sight what that meant. Josiah thought that somebody had catched a young balloon, and wuz bringin' it up by hand, but I knew better than that. I knew that balloons didn't grow indigenious. And it wuz jest as I'd mistrusted--they had a big balloon here all tied up ready to start off at a minute's notice. You jest paid your money, and you could go on a trip up in it through the blue fields of air. I told Josiah "that it wouldn't be but a few years before folks would ride round in 'em jest as common as they do in wagons." Sez I, "Mebby we shall have a couple of our own stanchled up in our own barn." "You mean tied up," sez he, and I do spoze I did mean that. But now to look up at the great deep overhead, and consider the vastness of space, and consider the smallness of the ropes a-holdin' the balloon down, I said to myself, "Mebby it wuz jest as well not to tackle the job of ridin' out in it that day." Jest as I wuz a-meditatin' this Josiah spoke up, and sez, "I won't pay out no two dollars apiece to ride in it." And I sez, "I kinder want to go up in it, and I kinder don't want to." And he sez, "That is jest like wimmen--whifflin', onstabled, weak-livered." Sez I, "I believe you're afraid to go up in it." "Afraid!" sez he; "I wouldn't be afraid a mite if it broke loose and sailed off free into space." "Why don't you try it, then?" I urged. "Wall," he sez, a-lookin' round as if mebby he could find some excuse a-layin' round on the ground, or sailin' round in the air, "if I wuz," sez he--"if I had another vest on. I hain't dressed up exactly as I'd want to be to go a-balloon ridin'.