to look at.

And then there wuz a giant fern from Australia that measured thirty-two
feet--the largest, so I wuz told, in Europe or America. Thirty-two feet!
And there I have felt so good and even proud-sperited over my fern I
took up out of our woods and brung home and sot out in Mother Smith's
old blue sugar-bowl. Why, that fern wuz so large and beautiful, and
attracted the envious and admirin' attention of so many Jonesvillians,
that I had strong idees of takin' it to the Fair!

Philury said she "hadn't a doubt of my gittin' the first prize medal
on't." "Why," sez she, "it is as long as Ury's arm!" And it wuz. Miss
Lum thought it would be a good thing to take it, to let Chicago and the
rest of the world see what vegetation wuz nateral to Jonesville, feelin'
that they would most likely have a deep interest in it.

And Deacon Henzy thought "it might draw population there."

And the schoolmaster thought that "it would be useful to the foreign
powers to see to what height swamp culture had attained in the growth of
its idigenious plants."

I didn't really understand everything he said--there wuz a number more
big words in his talk--but I presoom he did, and felt comforted to use
'em.

Why, as I said, I had boasted that fern wuz as long as my arm.

But thirty-two feet--as high as Josiah, and his father, and his
grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather,