I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future,--a contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra Christum, non ita._--H. W.] I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me. Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither (The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither), Now one on 'em 's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin', An' sawed it off, because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin'; I 'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther, Wy one should take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other, Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be; It took on so they took it off, an' thet 's enough fer me: There 's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,-- The liquor can't get into it ez 't used to in the true one; So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller could n't beg. A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg; It 's true a chap 's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum, But all the march I 'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.