Wall, I wuz almost lost in my thoughts in hangin' over that old bell. It
had took me back into the dim old green forest isles and onbroken
wilderness, when I heard a bystander a-sayin' to another one--"There is
Columbuses relations; there is the Duke of Veragua."

And on lookin' up, I indeed see Columbuses own relation on his own side,
with his wife and daughter.

The relation on Columbuses side wuz a middlin' good-lookin' and a
good-natered lookin' man, no taller than Josiah, with blue eyes, gray
hair, and short whiskers.

[Illustration: Columbuses own relation on his own side, with his
wife and daughter.]

His wife wuz a good-lookin', plump woman, some younger apparently than
he wuz, and the daughter wuz pretty and fresh-lookin' as a pink rose.

I liked their looks first rate.

And jest the minute my eyes fell on 'em, so quick my intellect moves, I
knew what was incumbent on me to do.

It wuz my place, it would be expected of me--I must welcome them to
America; I must, in the name of my own dignity, and the power of the
Nation, gin 'em the freedom of Jonesville. I must not slight them for
their own sakes, and their noble ancestors.

One human weakness might be discovered in me by a clost observer in that
rapt hour: I didn't really know how to address the wife of the Duke.