arrangements to go together that mornin'--and Josiah tackled her about
the whale; and sez she briskly--

"Oh, yes; the whaleback Christopher Columbus! It would be a good idee to
go to the grounds in it; you can go down in it in half an hour--it is
only seven or eight milds."

So we fell in with her idee; and bein' ust to the place, she took the
lead, and also the street cars, and we soon found ourselves on board the
biggest floatin' ship I ever laid eyes on. And I couldn't see as it
looked much like a whale, unless it wuz that it wuz long, and kinder
pinted, and turned up at both ends, some the shape of a whale.

Wall, I guess the hull five thousand folks wuz on board, and had brung
their relations on both sides. It looked like it, and we steamed along
by the shore for quite a spell, the city a-layin' in plain view for mild
after mild--or that is, in as plain view as it could be under its
envelopin' curtain of smoke.

But bimeby the smoke all cleared away, the air wuz clear and pure, and
the lake lay fair and placid fur off as we could see. It might a been
the ocean, for all we could tell, for you can't see no further than you
_can_, anyway, and you can't see no further than that on the Atlantic or
the Pacific.

Way beyend what you can't see might stretch thousands and thousands of
milds and a new continent; or it might be a loggin' camp, or Kalamazoo.
It don't make no difference to your feelin's, it has all the illimitable
expanse, the vastness of the great ocean.