Chapter 27 - Page 2

know you're doing all you can, and I don't want to seem repining and ungrateful--for I'm not, Beriah--you know I'm not, don't you?"

"Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that ever lived--that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme for you with all my might. And I'll bring things all right yet, honey --cheer up and don't you fear. The railroad----"

"Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad--tell me about the railroad."

"Aha, my girl, don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they? Now I didn't forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment--just figure up a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this waiter St. Louis.

"And we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to this potato, which is Slouchburg:

"Then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from Slouchburg to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper:

"Then we run along the--yes--the comb--to the tumbler that's Brimstone:

"Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar:

"Thence to, to--that quill--Catfish--hand me the pincushion, Marie Antoinette:

"Thence right along these shears to this horse, Babylon:

"Then by the spoon to Bloody Run--thank you, the ink:

"Thence to Hail Columbia--snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and saucer close up, that's Hail Columbia:

"Then--let me open my knife--to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we'll put the candle-stick--only a little distance from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the-Tomb--down-grade all the way.

"And there we strike Columbus River--pass me two or throe skeins of thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean--and you can see how much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence to Corruptionville.

"Now then-them you are! It's a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff Thompson can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid, or a theodolite, or whatever they call it--he calls it sometimes one and sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, I reckon. But ain't it a ripping toad, though? I tell you, it'll make a stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it goes through. There's your onions at Slouchburg--noblest onion country that graces God's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around Doodleville --bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips--if there's any in