I wanted to go and see Great Britain, and Josiah wanted to go to Vermont (he has got a third cousin a-livin' there, and he wanted to see him). "Wall," sez I, "we've got a mother to tend to; the Mother Country calls for a little filial attention." "Oh, shaw!" sez he; "I guess you feel more related than they do; and," sez he, "I shall go to Vermont. Mebby I shall meet Bildad Allen right there in the settin'-room." So there it wuz--we wuz both determined. I see by my companion's mean that it wouldn't do to insist on Great Britain. But a woman hates to give in awful. So I suggested makin' a compromise on California. [Illustration: A woman hates to give in awful, so I suggested a compromise on California.] And he agreed to it. He, too, had seen a look of marble determination on my mean, and he dassent press the Vermont question too hard. So we directed our steps towards the California Buildin'. It is a exact reproduction of the old Monastery of San Diego, and one hundred thousand square feet is the size on't. It is full of the products of California. Sech fruit and flowers I never see, and don't expect to agin. The flowers wuz gorgeous, and perfectly beautiful, and I spoze, though I don't really want to twit 'em of it, yet I do spoze they brought every mite of fruit out of California for this occasion. I don't spoze there wuz a orange left there, or a grape, nor anything else in the line of fruit. Mebby there might a been one or two green oranges left, but I doubt it. And as for canned and dried fruit, I don't spoze there wuz a teacupful left in the hull State. Why, jest think of the dried prunes it must have took to make that horse that wuz rared up there seven feet from the floor! And wuzn't that horse a sight to see?--jest as nateral as though he wuz made of flesh instead of fruit. I hearn, but mebby it come from some of their own folks--but I hearn that California had the best exhibits of all kinds of any of the States. But I wouldn't want it told from me. I don't want to git thirty or forty States mad as a hen at me; the States are dretful touchy, anyway, in the matter of State Rights and pride. But the show wuz impressive--dretful. This house wuz built, I spoze, in honor of Spain, like a old Spanish Mission Buildin'; and up in the towers which rise up on the four corners are belfrys, in which are some of the old Spanish bells, that still ring out and call to prayers, when the good old Fathers that used to hear 'em, and the Injun converts, generations and generations of 'em, have slept so sound that the bells can't wake 'em. And the bells still swing out over this restless and ambitious generation, and they will swing and echo jest the same when we too have gone to sleep, and sleep sound. Queer, hain't it, that a little dead lump of metal should outlive the beatin' human heart--the active, outreachin' human life, with its world-wide activities and Heaven-high aspiration?