There wuz all sorts of boats, theatre junks and concert junks and plain junks, and Josiah wuz dretful took with this floatin' city, and sez to once that he should build a house boat as soon as he got home--he and Ury. He said that he could use the old hay-rack to start it--that and the old corn-house would most make it.
"Oh, on the creek or the canal," sez he. "It will be so uneek for us to dwell when we want to, on the briny deep."
"I guess there hain't much brine in the creek or the canal," Josiah.
"Well, I said that for poetical purposes. But you know that it would be very stylish to live in a boat, and any time we wanted to, when onexpected company wuz comin', or the tax collector or book agent, jest hist the sail and move off, it would be dretful handy as well as stylish."
"Well, well," sez I, "you can't build it till you git home." I felt that he would forgit it before then. Arvilly looked thoughtfully at 'em and wondered how she wuz goin' to canvass 'em, and if they would do as Josiah intimated if they see her comin'. Miss Meechim wondered if they could git to meetin' in time, they seemed to move so slow, and Robert Strong said to Dorothy:
"Well, a poor man can feel that he owns the site his home stands on, as well as the rich man can, and that would be a hopeless attempt for him in our large American cities, and he can't be turned out of his home by some one who claims the land."
And Tommy wondered how the little boys could play ball, and if they didn't want to slide down hill, or climb trees, or pick berries, and so on and so on. And every one on us see what wuz for us to see in the movin' panoramy.
Canton is a real queer city. The streets are so narrer that you can almost reach out your hands and touch the houses on both sides, they are not more than seven or eight feet wide. There are no horses in Canton, and you have to git about on "shanks's horses," as Josiah calls it, your own limbs you know, or else sedan chairs, and the streets are so narrer, some on 'em, that once when we met some big Chinese man, a Mandarin I believe they called him, we had to hurry into one of the shops till he got by, and sometimes in turnin' a corner the poles of our chairs had to be run way inside of the shops, and Josiah said: