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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family
+at the Great Fair, by Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair
+       Their Observations and Triumphs
+
+Author: Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
+
+Release Date: December 26, 2006 [EBook #20184]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE JEREMIAH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Verity White and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  +----------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Note:                                |
+  |                                                    |
+  | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document  |
+  | has been preserved.                                |
+  |                                                    |
+  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected;  |
+  | please see the end of the text for details.        |
+  +----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+The
+
+Adventures of
+
+Uncle Jeremiah
+
+and
+
+Family
+
+At The
+
+Great Fair
+
+60 Illustrations
+
+The Pastime Series--Issued monthly. By subscription, $8.00 per annum.
+No. 108. June, 1893, Entered at Chicago P. O. as second-class matter.
+
+Chicago
+
+LAIRD & LEE, Publishers
+
+1893
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Apples, pears, bananas, sweet oranges."]
+
+
+
+The Adventures
+
+OF
+
+UNCLE JEREMIAH
+
+AND FAMILY
+
+AT THE
+
+Great Fair
+
+_Their Observations and Triumphs_
+
+By "Quondam"
+
+With Sixty Illustrations
+
+Chicago
+
+LAIRD & LEE. Publishers
+
+1898
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY LAIRD & LEE
+
+(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
+
+
+
+
+_To
+UNCLE JEREMIAH AND FAMILY
+And to
+All those Interested
+in the
+WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION
+This Book
+Is Respectfully Dedicated_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                       PAGE
+     I. On the Way                               7
+    II. Now for the Fair                        20
+   III. Around the World for Twenty Cents       33
+    IV. Escort and Body Guard                   38
+     V. Columbia Avenue                         51
+    VI. Dancers of the Great City               63
+   VII. On Board the "Illinois"                 76
+  VIII. La Rabida                               87
+    IX. The Plaisance Prophecy                 102
+     X. Plaisance Society                      113
+    XI. A Startling Mystery                    128
+   XII. Beauty Show                            137
+  XIII. Sunday and Conscience                  148
+   XIV. Sight-seeing Galore                    163
+    XV. A Terrible Experience                  174
+   XVI. To Buy a Dog                           183
+  XVII. Cairo Street                           194
+ XVIII. Uncle in the Lock-up                   205
+   XIX. The Lost Found                         220
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE JEREMIAH AND FAMILY
+
+AT THE GREAT FAIR
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER I_
+
+ON THE WAY
+
+
+"Apples, pears, bananas, sweet oranges, five cents apiece."
+
+"Last call for dinner in the dining car."
+
+"Ah! this is comfortable," soliloquised Uncle Jeremiah. "All the nations
+of the earth contribute to our appetites, and millions are spent to
+transport us comfortably. Going to the World's Fair with Mary's two
+children, me and Sarah. Say, stranger, what time do you think we'll
+arrive?"
+
+"In about two hours if we are on time, but so many people are crowding
+on, that I doubt if we can get there before six o'clock."
+
+Uncle Jeremiah had addressed his question to a good-natured appearing
+young man just behind him who had been ostensibly reading a newspaper
+but really covertly watching with admiring glances Uncle Jeremiah's
+grand-daughter Fanny as she replaced the fragments of a lunch back into
+the basket. Uncle was in a communicative mood for he had just disposed
+of his share of one of Aunt Sarah's admirable lunches and squared
+himself round, as he called it, to talk with some one. Johnny was busy
+investigating a hole in the seat cushion and Aunt Sarah had laid her
+head against the window frame and was calmly viewing the flying scenery
+outside. The two seats turned together were occupied by Uncle Jeremiah
+and his family and a number of bundles and valises.
+
+"Yes, this is a great country; and, as I have lived in it nigh onto
+sixty year and fit for it without seeing much of it but what I tramped
+over with Sherman to the sea, I concluded to take the whole world in at
+once by spending a month or so at the Exposition. I told Sarah we'd take
+Mary's two children along, for I didn't like to leave them so long with
+our hired help. Then they'd be company for us. Mary was our girl, but
+she's dead now, and so Johnny and Fanny must take her place. Me and
+Sarah has worked hard for many a year, and we're going to enjoy this
+trip ef it takes more 'n a dozen of my best Jerseys to foot the bill.
+We've got the best farm and Jersey herd in Park County, and I've made up
+my mind that we can afford it."
+
+The stranger laid down his paper and seemed much interested in the
+talking farmer and his family. Fanny had stowed the lunch basket away
+under the seat and wearily laid her head against the back of the seat,
+unconscious of the respectful admiration bestowed upon her from the
+gentleman in conversation with her grandfather. Fanny was a very pretty
+miss, just reaching womanhood, and unsullied in thought or conduct by
+the usual desire for masculine attention. Her face was warm and full,
+and her light wavy hair reached her shoulders and turned up at the ends
+around her neck.
+
+Johnny was too industrious in his varied investigations to notice much
+that was occurring about him. His keen eyes just a little turned inward
+gave him the appearance of shrewdness that well befitted him. He always
+investigated what he did not understand and the World's Fair opened a
+field directly in his line.
+
+"As I was saying. I've brought along enough money to get everything we
+want and to enjoy life for once. I guess we can go back home then
+contented and have enough to talk about for the rest of our natural
+lives."
+
+Uncle's new-found friend was evidently a well-to-do commercial traveler
+and there was something about him that won Uncle's heart at once. It was
+not long till Uncle had relieved his mind of all that bore on it about
+himself or his neighbors or his church. Uncle was a deacon and he had
+many original ideas about the social and religious economics of the
+world. The only pride he had was in his Jerseys and in Fanny, and his
+only ambition was to be considered a kind of Socrates by his neighbors.
+
+The commercial traveler did not have much of a chance to talk, if he had
+been so inclined, but he listened with very respectful attention to the
+odd observations of Uncle Jeremiah. Uncle had not talked loud, but
+across the aisle were two young men who seemed to be listening more
+intently than befitted their opportunity to hear. They were faultlessly
+attired, and frequently exchanged observations with each other in low
+tones, covertly watching Uncle and his family as if they had become very
+interesting personages. Presently one moved to a seat a little nearer,
+and both apparently became absorbed in their own affairs.
+
+"But maybe I should beg pardon, Mister. I've been talking to you all
+this time without introducing myself. I know it isn't just the thing,
+but I'm not used to sassiety. I'm Jeremiah Jones, and what is your
+name?"
+
+"My name is Hezekiah Moses," said the traveling man, solemnly.
+
+"Ah," remarked Uncle, warmly, "that sounds a right smart like a Jew
+name, but you don't look like a Jew. I Judge your parents were very good
+people."
+
+"They were very pious people, and, of course, brought me up in the way
+I should go. You have quite a charming family."
+
+"There now, I knew you had good judgments and I am glad for you to say
+so. Of course me and Sarah are too old to be charming and Johnny is too
+bad, but I take no exceptions to Fanny."
+
+Mr. Moses thoroughly agreed with Uncle on the latter observation.
+
+"Johnny is all right but only last week he was training one of my Jersey
+calves to walk a plank like he saw the lions In the circus and it fell
+off and broke its neck and that was not a month after it had took the
+prize at our county fair. And, after I had took him atween my knees and
+talked to him about his responsibility to his Creator, he didn't wait
+two days till he cut off the colt's tail so as to make it bobbed like
+the British and it kicked and broke its leg on the cross bar. But I do
+believe he's got the making of a man in him after all. I think he must
+be like his father, though I never seed him. You see Mary she run off to
+marry some man she fell in with when she went off to school, and I
+forbid her letting him come to see her, for you see he might be some
+city fortune hunter; but Mary said she knowed, and so one day when we
+went to town somebody drove up to our house in a buggy and I never seed
+her any more. I didn't think she ought to take that way to somebody I
+didn't know. I must have been hard hearted them days, but somehow I
+couldn't help it. Sarah she went to see them lots of times over in the
+big town across in Ohio but I couldn't leave Indiana and when Johnny was
+born Mary she died a senden good words to me but I couldn't help it."
+
+The old man drew his sleeve across his eyes and continued, "You see
+Mary's man was all broke down, and he told Sarah to take the children
+and he'd go wandering around the world for a year or two. Mary was the
+only child we had living, and when she died I wanted to move away from
+where she used to play when she was a little girl, so in two years I
+got a good offer, and I sold out. All four of us went to see my sister
+in the city, and somehow didn't tell nobody where we were going, but I
+said I thought we would go on to California. Well, I found a stock farm
+in Illinois, and after a while we went back to our old home visiting,
+and the old neighbors told us a nice looking man had come soon after we
+left, and was nearly distracted to find us gone. He advertised and spent
+lots of money trying to find us, but at last went away broken-hearted.
+Then I sent Sarah right to Ohio, but Mary's man had sold his big
+clothing store, and some said he had gone to California, and others said
+one place and another, but he couldn't be found. He never came back to
+our old home place, nor to his old home place, for I've kept a writing
+ever since. Somehow he had to give us up. It broke me all down, and I've
+been doing all I could for the children. Fanny is getting a good
+education, for our town has got to be a big one now, and has a fine
+college in it; but I can't educate Johnny. He's always experimenting and
+doing damage. Howsumever, he's a great trader, and I'm going to give him
+a start some time. Why, I gave him a shote a month ago, and I don't
+believe there is a sled or a jack-knife in the hull neighborhood any
+more, for Johnny's got them in our garret, but the pig is gone.
+
+"But say, Mr. Moses, you haven't said a word about your business yet,
+and I've been a bragging about my farm and stock for half an hour."
+
+"Don't worry about that, Mr. Jones. I haven't got much to tell. I'm a
+traveling salesman for a Chicago house; and, like you, I intend to rest
+up for a couple of weeks and see the Fair. I am happy to say that I
+stand well with my firm, and I am to be taken in as the junior member
+soon. The head of the firm has been the friend to whom I owe all my
+advancement and advantage. I hope sometime to settle down into a quiet
+business life and enjoy a home once more. Your talk takes me back to my
+old Indiana home and its comforts."
+
+"Ah, that's it, Mr. Moses, it is plain your parents have given your mind
+a good mold. Here, newsboy, just bring over to me and Mr. Moses two of
+your best five cent cigars and we'll go into the smoker and have a
+smoke. I don't never smoke cigars, but these are extra days, and we can
+afford the luxuries."
+
+The idea seemed to amuse Mr. Moses, but he complied with the request of
+the friendly farmer, and, with a good-natured wink at the newsboy, took
+out a cigar and deftly stuck it into his pocket as he pulled out one of
+his own.
+
+Uncle could find no change and without more ado took out a roll of bills
+from his breast pocket. The smallest bill was ten dollars but neither
+Mr. Moses nor the boy could change it. One of the young men across the
+aisle volunteered to help them out of the difficulty and counted the
+change into Uncle's hand. Just then the newsboy's heel struck Mr. Moses'
+foot sharply and there was a quick response. The change went into one of
+Uncle's trouser's pockets and the roll of bills into the other, when he
+and Mr. Moses went into the smoking car and were soon behind a cloud of
+smoke.
+
+The newsboy came in presently and there were a few whispered words
+between him and Mr. Moses.
+
+"Apples, pears, bananas, sweet oranges, here, five cents apiece."
+
+There was no sale for anything eatable in the smoker just then and the
+boy returned to the rear cars.
+
+"You didn't notice when the gentleman across the aisle made change for
+you that you got flim-flamed did you?"
+
+"That I got what?" said Uncle.
+
+"That you got flim-flamed. Did you count your change when that young
+gent gave it to you? This is a money making occasion you know and the
+gentry are on the make."
+
+"Of course I counted the money. Nobody gets me that way."
+
+"I'll bet a cigar that you haven't got over seven dollars of that ten
+dollar bill."
+
+"It's a go," said Uncle as he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew
+out a handfull of coins. He laid his hat between his knees and counted
+the money into it. "Six dollars, six fifty, six seventy-five, seven,
+seven ten, seven fifteen."
+
+[Illustration: "UNCLE AND MR. MOSES WERE SOON BEHIND A CLOUD OF SMOKE."]
+
+"Ah, I've not got it all out of my pocket," and Uncle's hand dived
+hastily into his trousers but came out empty. A look of consternation
+came into his face as he looked at the laughing salesman.
+
+"Well, by Jove! I don't often lose my bets, but here, Uncle, is the
+cigar, for I've lost the bet. You have fifteen cents more than seven
+dollars. I didn't watch that gent's counting as well as I thought," and
+Uncle mechanically took the cigar he had so generously given to Mr.
+Moses a few minutes before.
+
+"It's worth it, Mr. Moses, it's worth it. I don't begrudge the fellow
+for his two dollars and six bits. I feel like I ought to go in and thank
+him for the lesson."
+
+"Cigars, gentlemen, best Havanas. Here, old man, is the rest uv yer
+change. The chappie back there wanted to kick, but he couldn't stand me
+look. I don't 'low no working uv me customers dat way. You see I wur
+next to him in a minute."
+
+"Ah, my boy, nobody can talk to me any more about dishonorable newsboys.
+You keep that money. I won't have a cent of it. I'm willin' to pay fer
+my teaching. And here's a dollar more for you to go right back there and
+supply my folks with whatever eating things you've got that they want.
+
+"You see, Mr. Moses, I know before I get through with them Arabs and
+Esquimaux, and Indians and African savages at Chicago I'm going to know
+a good deal more than I do now, and I never in my life got something for
+nothing, and it's too late for me to begin now."
+
+The first suburban station of the great World's Fair city was now passed
+and Mr. Moses said he must return to his seat and get his grip ready for
+leaving the train at the next station. He gave Uncle a card on which was
+printed:
+
+|------------------------------|
+|  _William Warner_            |
+|                              |
+|  _With The Clarendon Company |
+|  Wholesale Clothiers_        |
+|------------------------------|
+
+As he did so, he said, "Now Uncle, remember never to give a chance to
+pickpockets or confidence men, watch your change and take directions
+only from those you know to be responsible officers; and if at any time
+you need a friend, don't fail to call at the office of the firm and
+present that card."
+
+They returned to their seats and a frown came over Mr. Moses' face when
+he saw the companion of the disreputable money changer glibly talking to
+Aunt Sarah and Fanny. The young man bowed himself away very gracefully
+and went to his seat as Uncle and Mr. Moses came up.
+
+Uncle gave Mr. Moses a hearty hand shake and God bless you as he started
+for the car door; but, to the astonishment of Mr. Moses Aunt Sarah and
+Fanny looked scornfully at him and did not in any way acknowledge his
+parting salute.
+
+"Baggage, have your baggage checked?"
+
+"Well, what a town Chicago is, anyhow. Here they've sent a man to take
+care of our baggage. Now, I call that all-fired hospital. Get the checks
+quick, Sarah."
+
+"What hotel?" Inquired the agent.
+
+"We're not overly pertiklar. I was talkin' some with a young fellow back
+here who said he was a hotel agent; but I don't mind if I go where you
+say. How high are your rates?"
+
+"The Auditorium--as high as you want to go; the Northern, fourteen
+stories, and the Palmer, out of sight."
+
+"Well, Mister, we don't want to go out of sight, and we don't know how
+high we do want to go so I guess you'd better make it fourteen stories."
+
+The agent took the checks, gave him some tickets and passed on.
+
+In a few minutes a uniformed young man came along and said:
+
+"Mr. Jones, I'd like very much to book you for one of our down-town
+hotels. Every convenience, gas, baths, heat, and all the modern
+appliances; near car lines that land you right at the Exposition gates.
+Best place in the city. Take you right there free of cost."
+
+"But how high is it?"
+
+"Only one dollar a day apiece and up as high as you want to go."
+
+"Ah, that's it, young man. I see your mother taught you United States.
+You see the baggage man said fourteen stories and I didn't understand
+the city way of charging."
+
+"Shall I book you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+"O we may stay a month. May be less."
+
+"Say two weeks."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Here's your ticket with coupons. Fifty-six dollars please."
+
+"But I haven't seen the place nor got the money's worth. I'm Deacon
+Jones and I always pay my debts."
+
+"No difference, it's the rules."
+
+"Mr. Moses said not to deal only with responsible officers. How may I be
+sure you are a responsible officer?"
+
+"I'll prove it by the conductor."
+
+The conductor was called and Uncle Jeremiah paid over his money and
+received his printed directions.
+
+"Where are your baggage checks?"
+
+"O, I've already attended to that. I'll see to that myself."
+
+The hotel agent left and the two young men across the aisle watched with
+satisfaction as Uncle folded his big roll of bills and deposited them in
+his left trouser's pocket.
+
+"There it is--there is the White City," some one yelled, and the people
+rose from their seats and looked at the most favored spot of the earth
+as long as it could be seen. Houses flew by, stations were passed; the
+placid lake, flecked with many boats, lapped the shore as with some
+friendly greeting. The great buildings of Chicago's business center
+appeared in view, and the end of their journey was near at hand.
+
+"Chicago, all out!"
+
+"Listen at 'em," said Uncle, "they've got our money and now they're
+goin' to put us off. But I guess we must be there."
+
+[Illustration: "UNCLE WAS BEING ROUGHLY HANDLED BY THE TWO MEN."]
+
+All the people were standing as the magic words were yelled in at the
+front door by the brakeman. Uncle Jeremiah had not been as excited since
+he heard of the fall of Richmond.
+
+With a valise, packed almost to bursting, in each hand, Uncle was
+preparing to do whatever he saw others do. The two young men from across
+the aisle had also arisen and pressed into the crowd. One was directly
+in front of Uncle, and the one who had made the false change had crowded
+himself between Uncle and Aunt Sarah. The train slowed up as the depot
+was reached, and all crowded toward the door. There was a low chirrup,
+and Uncle was being roughly jostled about by the two men, when there was
+a cry of "pickpockets," and the train-boy was seen swinging on to the
+wrist of one of the men behind Uncle and yelling "let 'er go; let 'er
+go."
+
+[Illustration: "UNCLE GAVE HIS CHECKS TO THE NEAREST CAB DRIVER."]
+
+The man held a wallet in his hand, but with a curse he dropped it, tore
+loose from the boy and rushed through the door, disappearing in the
+crowd.
+
+"Here, Mister, is yer wad. Yer wants ter keep yer eye skinned fur them
+fellers."
+
+Uncle warmly thanked the boy but he received this second lesson with a
+little less complacency than the first. Following the crowd to the
+outside he presented his tickets to the first hack driver he came to.
+
+"You are pretty well supplied, aren't you dad. You have the right of way
+to two hotels. Which do you want?"
+
+"Take us to the one I've paid fer."
+
+"Which is that?"
+
+"Well, I guess it must be the down town hotel."
+
+"They are both down hotels. I see your baggage is booked for the
+Northern and I suppose you want to follow your baggage."
+
+Without more ado all four were placed into the uncomfortably crowded
+hack and shortly unloaded at the Northern. An obsequious porter ushered
+them into the office and Uncle was astounded with a demand for twenty
+dollars down. "But I've paid," Uncle protested. The clerk looked at his
+card and assured him he was at the wrong hotel. It was now dark and
+Uncle concluded to pay the money and start out anew the next day. They
+were shown to their rooms by way of the elevator and more dead than
+alive, to use Aunt Sarah's expression, they flung themselves into chairs
+and Johnny yelled, "This is Chicago, what I've heard them talk about."
+They went to the windows and could not repress a shudder as they saw the
+street lights so far below. Aunt Sarah did not see how she could sleep
+so high up, but when their evening meal was done and the events of the
+day discussed they became as sleepy and they felt as safe as they did
+with the whippoorwill singing in the orchard and the hogs grunting
+lazily in the lane.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER II_
+
+NOW FOR THE FAIR
+
+
+The next morning Uncle Jeremiah was up as usual at four o'clock, chafing
+like a caged stable horse that could not get out to fresh air and the
+tempting pastures.
+
+[Illustration: "I THINK OF EARTHQUAKES EVERY TIME I LOOK OUT."]
+
+"These confounded people won't let a fellow have his meals only at their
+own convenience, and the feelin' of earthquakes keeps a growing on me
+every time I look down out of that window. I've got to quit it." Aunt
+Sarah shared the same feeling, but John and Fanny decided that it was
+not half as high as they wanted to go before they left Chicago.
+
+[Illustration: "Say, Mister, I've paid fare once on this tarnal
+machine."]
+
+In due time the city awoke, with a rush and a roar, to the business of
+the day. Uncle found the office of the boarding house syndicate a few
+doors away, and the family were soon safely housed in more congenial
+quarters.
+
+"The Fair, Father, the Fair! When will we ever get to see the Fair? I
+just heard a man say that it's ten o'clock, and here we are a-fussing
+about in the rooms and missin' the sights."
+
+Johnny was impatient, but not long after, the family hailed a passing
+street car and were on their way at last.
+
+"Twenty cents is the fare for four of you."
+
+The conductor rang the fares and passed on. The new scenes of the city
+absorbed their attention, but Uncle soon began shifting in his seat, and
+at last whispered to Aunt Sarah: "Say, I noticed that we went clear
+'round a hull lot of blocks, and it 'pears ter me that we air goin'
+right backards to where we ought to go, or else this 'ere town has got
+two parts a blamed sight alike."
+
+"Fare, please!"
+
+"Say, Mister, I've paid fare once on this tarnal machine. How often do
+you have to pay--every once in a while?"
+
+"Are you riding around for your health, or do you want to go somewhere?"
+
+"That's it, Mister, exactly. I wish you'd drive this riding machine at
+once to the World's Fair. You've got it pasted on the front of your
+engine, and yet you're takin' us right back past where we got on."
+
+"Sure, old man, you're all right, only you got on a car going the wrong
+way, and so went on around the loop. But you're all right now. I'll land
+you at the grounds; but twenty cents, please."
+
+Twenty cents were forthcoming, and shortly the family found themselves
+in a maze of booths, people, streets and vehicles. It was not difficult
+to follow the crowd, and in a few minutes the amazed family were walking
+the streets of the great White City.
+
+"Guides, World's Fair Guides!"
+
+Uncle stopped a moment as a boy planted himself in front of him, thus
+calling him from the amazement of the wonderful city down to the
+realities of the earth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Guides, Mister, only twenty-five cents. This little book contains all
+you want to know about yonder lovely city--for the price of one small
+quarter you have a key to all the doors of the Fair--with this book no
+Columbian guard can call you down--you are free and independent of
+everybody with this book in your hands--it's only a quarter, remember,
+only twenty-five cents! Illustrated, tells you everything."
+
+"That's it Sarah, let's buy one of these books and go home. It tells us
+every thing and it is illustrated. What's the use of wearing our eyes
+out and our feet off when we can learn it all out of this feller's book.
+I feel all done up on the first sight. It's too big a job fer me to
+undertake. I didn't calculate on such a big show."
+
+"No, my boy. I wish I could accommodate ye but you see I ain't got no
+time on the grounds for reading or I'd a brought the Scriptures along. I
+judge it prophesied this when it spoke of signs and wonders appearing."
+
+"Only a quarter, sir."
+
+Uncle shook his head, but Fanny produced a quarter and took one of the
+books.
+
+Near by was a booth where camp stools were to be leased.
+
+"That is what Sarah and I will need. These young ones can walk all day."
+Directly Johnny had a folded camp chair in each hand and they went on
+following the crowd toward the Administration building. They did not go
+inside as most of the people did but continued on around till the basin
+between the Peristyle and the Administration building appeared in view.
+Through the columns of the Peristyle at the far end of the basin they
+could see the blue lake meeting the summer clouds; above them rose the
+dome of the Administration building till it seemed almost to pierce the
+clouds. They were looking upon a scene never before excelled in grandeur
+by the art of man. The basin was filled with gondolas gracefully plied
+by Venetians, launches moving both by steam and by electricity and gay
+sailboats of every description. In the far end of the basin was to be
+seen the Statue of the Republic sixty-five feet tall and standing forty
+feet above the water on its great stone foundation. The MacMonnies
+fountain was roaring with the fall of water and the heroic figures of
+Columbia enthroned in her triumphal barge guided by Time and heralded by
+Fame was outlined against the Agricultural building. From the dome of
+that massive structure, exhibiting the produce of our land, Diana with
+her drawn bow seemed to be aiming directly at them.
+
+"Let us sit down," said Aunt, as the first wave of the wonderful vision
+passed over them.
+
+"I feel more like saying, let us kneel down," said Uncle.
+
+Fanny read from the front of the Administration building the
+inscriptions there about Columbus and his work.
+
+High over the north entrance were the words:
+
+"Columbus received from Ferdinand and Isabel, Sovereigns of Spain, a
+commission as Admiral of an exploring fleet, April 30, 1492."
+
+Over the east entrance she read:
+
+"Columbus sailed from Palos with three small vessels, Aug. 3, and landed
+on one of the Bahama Islands."
+
+What common-place facts so simply stated! But they brought forth
+thoughts and emotions greater and greater of the wonderful consequences
+to mankind.
+
+"Grandpa, you see how we have come here to learn of the world and its
+progress to this greatness."
+
+"Do not speak to me now, child; I want to think," and Uncle bowed his
+head in his hands.
+
+No one said anything for a few minutes, when Johnny startled them by
+yelling "Gorgeous! gorgeous!"
+
+"Of course it's gorgeous," said Fanny; "but you needn't yell that way.
+You must not forget that you are not in our barnyard now."
+
+Johnny subsided. He had expressed his opinion, and he was ready to move
+on.
+
+Uncle arose and said: "I guess we are able to go to the next scene now,
+and I warn you all that the word gorgeous is as high as we will be
+allowed to go in expressing ourselves, no matter what we see. There has
+got to be a limit somewhere, and I judge that gorgeous is far enough."
+
+"Is that the statyure of Mrs. Columbus?" asked Johnny.
+
+"No, it's the Statue of the Republic."
+
+"I declare I've been watching them things on that Statue of the
+Republic, and I really believe they're men instead of being pigeons."
+
+"They are men," said Fanny. "No wonder that they look so little, for the
+book here says her forefinger is four feet long. Look at that figure on
+the top of the big building yonder. That Is Diana, the huntress. How
+tall do you think she is?"
+
+"Nine feet," said Johnny, promptly.
+
+"Life-size," said Uncle.
+
+"Both wrong. The book says she is eighteen feet tall."
+
+"Well, well, my girl, this looks like a dream, but it ain't, is it?"
+
+There was a band-stand in front of them, and beyond that was a massive
+building, which Fanny found was Machinery hall. As they went on to it,
+Fanny read to them that it covered over twenty acres of ground and cost
+nearly a million and a half dollars. As they entered the door they saw
+one awful mass of moving machinery.
+
+Uncle said he thought they had better sit down again and think awhile
+before venturing further, but Johnny urged them to come on so they could
+see something and do their thinking afterward.
+
+They came to one of the doors of the power house, and Uncle sat down.
+
+"I can't stand this pressure," he said, "I tell you I've got to sit down
+and look at this thing." At his left he could see into the power house
+nearly five hundred feet long and full from one end to the other of
+great boilers with the red fires glowing underneath.
+
+On the right he looked across the hall where the great power wheel was
+flying and saw five hundred feet of whirling wheels, while before him
+there was an unobstructed view of machines but little short of a
+thousand feet.
+
+They went over to the middle aisle and on past the larger machinery.
+
+"Why Grandma, you are walking by me with your eyes shut. What's the
+matter?"
+
+"Well you see, Fanny, it's too much to look at so many millions of
+things so I just shut my eyes and think. What's the difference if I do
+miss a few thousand sights."
+
+"That's so, Fanny, we aint got used to looking yet. It looks like they
+had everything a working here but my old shaving horse. I wouldn't be
+surprised any minute to see that it had walked away from the woodshed
+and come over to show itself off in this here exposition. I believe I'll
+go over and offer them my old barlow knife. It's a score of years old
+but it'll bore a hole for a hame string all right yet."
+
+They came to the place where they were making watches with the complex,
+automatic machinery that defies the eye to detect its movements, then
+there was the sewing machine with a man riding it like a bicycle and
+sewing carpet in strips a hundred feet long. There were knitting
+machines and clothing machines, and carving and molding machines, and
+type-setting machines, till the day was spent and they had seen only how
+much there was to see.
+
+"It takes taste to paint pictures, and art to make sculpture, and mind
+to write books, and genius to carry on war, but I tell you, my girl,"
+said Uncle, "that it takes brains to make machinery."
+
+Passing through a south door they went on around Machinery hall. Some
+working men were passing by singly or in twos and threes. One had a
+wrench in one hand and a queer looking bottle in the other. The
+ludicrous side of the exposition now began to appear. Nothing can become
+so great that amusing things will not occur. They are the relaxations of
+mental life. One of the guards saw the man and his bottle.
+
+"Hi, there," he shouted. The workman came to a stop, the bottle being
+ostensibly concealed behind his apron. "What are you bringing beer into
+machinery hall for?"
+
+"I ain't got any beer," replied the workman.
+
+"Don't tell me any such stuff. You've got a bottle under your apron."
+
+[Illustration: "The Guard was determined to do his duty."]
+
+"No I haven't," and the culprit as if by accident let a portion of the
+bottle drop into sight. The guard made a grab for it and held it up
+before the seemingly confused workman.
+
+"I'll just take you to the station-house," declared the officer. "What
+did you mean by telling me you had no beer?"
+
+"It ain't beer. It's--it's--ginger ale."
+
+The prisoner was lying. That was evident to the guard. At the same time
+he did not want to be placed in the position of disobeying orders
+against making trivial arrests. He knew by the color of the liquid it
+was not ginger ale. A brilliant thought came to him. He would test the
+beer and thus have the evidence. But here a difficulty was encountered.
+While the rule prohibiting employees from bringing intoxicants into the
+grounds is a strict one, there is a much severer regulation against
+guards tasting the stuff while on duty. What if his sergeant should see
+him with a bottle of beer to his lips! To meet this obstacle the guard
+led his prisoner to a secluded place behind a big packing case, and
+after looking fearfully around hastily uncorked the bottle and sent a
+huge swallow of the contents down his throat.
+
+The result was unexpected so far as the blue coat was concerned. With a
+howl of anguish he dropped the bottle. Both eyes started from his head
+and his face turned to ashen paleness as he danced about the floor
+shrieking "I am poisoned." Finally he sank down with a moan and the men
+attracted by his cries carried him to a bench and laid him down. On the
+edge of the human circle about him the guard beheld the face of his
+prisoner. Beckoning him to his side the guard feebly said, "What was
+that stuff in the bottle?"
+
+"Lard oil and naphtha," replied the workman.
+
+The guard was removed to the hospital, while the workmen were laughing
+their heartiest. In an hour the stricken officer was back at his post.
+
+That afternoon, as the family climbed the stairs to the station on their
+way back to the hotel, Uncle Jeremiah was a study to the student of
+human nature. The size of the Exposition had dazed and awed him. He wore
+a neat paper collar with an old-fashioned ready-made necktie pushed
+under the points. The slouch hat was down over his ears, as a heavy wind
+was tearing across the high landing. His manner was that of one
+oppressed by a great sorrow. He looked at the turrets and domes and the
+hundreds of dancing flags and shook his head solemnly. When the people
+around him gabbled and pointed their fingers and piled up the same old
+adjectives he glanced around at them timidly and then stepped softly
+away where he could gaze without being interrupted. After boarding the
+car he stood up between the seats and held on to the railing. At each
+curve of the track, as new visions swung into view, he shook his head
+again and again, but said nothing. He had been for a good many years
+taking in a daily landscape of stubble-field, orchard and straight
+country roads. His experience had taught him that a red two-story hay
+press was a big building. To him the huddle of huckster stands at the
+county fair made a pretty lively spectacle. Then he was rushed into
+Chicago. With the roar of wheels still in his ears and the points of the
+compass hopelessly mixed, he found himself being fed into the Exposition
+gate with a lot of strange people. The magnitude of the great enterprise
+was more than any intellect could fully grasp. His mind perceived so
+much that was strange and new that he became as that one who saw men as
+trees walking. His eyes were opened to a new world. He was now a living
+part of the intellectual vision and prophecy of the "Dream City."
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER III_
+
+AROUND THE WORLD FOR TWENTY CENTS
+
+
+The next day, when the "Alley L" road let them off at the station next
+to the electric road, they decided to ride around and view the "White
+City" from that elevated position. The intramural road is about three
+miles around, and makes the trip in seventeen minutes. It was like going
+around the world in that time, so much was to be seen on either side.
+
+The four made a fine picture of age and youth gathering mental breadth
+from this great exhibition of human wisdom and achievement. They passed
+around the west end of Machinery hall and along the south side of it,
+then between the Agricultural annex and the stock pavilion. Here they
+emerged into what seemed to be the waste yard of the Exposition, debris
+of all kinds, beer houses, lunch rooms, hundreds of windmills flying in
+the breeze and heavily loaded cars, back of which could be seen bonfires
+of waste materials, these making a striking contrast to the white beauty
+and massive art on the opposite side of the car.
+
+The queer looking Forestry building flew by, the leather exhibit was
+passed, and the train ran around a station not far from the Krupp gun
+works. They had not yet made the grand tour of the grounds, but another
+investment in tickets sent them back again, the way they had come, on
+the parallel track. When they reached the west side they looked away
+from the massive buildings across Stony Island avenue at the amusing
+medley of hotels, booths for lunches, and tents for blue snakes, sea
+monsters, and fat women strung along the front. Little merry-go-rounds
+buzzed like tops in cramped corners between pine lemonade stands and
+cheap shooting-galleries. Looking eastward, the eye rests with
+satisfaction upon the gilded satin of the Administration dome, and then
+it may take an observation to the westward of a flaunting placard:
+
+|-------------------------|
+| _Four Tintypes          |
+| for Twenty-five Cents_  |
+|-------------------------|
+
+Back of the sandwich counters and fortune-telling booths are stored the
+World's Fair hotels, looking like overgrown store boxes, with holes
+punched in them.
+
+The train flew on, and uncle saw little of the outside because of his
+interest in the strange machinery that was propelling them forward. The
+engineer pulled a lever and then there was a buzz and a whirr; another
+lever was turned, and the car would come to a standstill at some
+station. It was amazing to see such simple movements by one man control
+such unseen energy. From the farm to the Exposition grounds was as
+marvelous a change as from one world to another, and to the simple
+genius of rural work it was like going from the peaceful valley to the
+mysteries beyond the clouds.
+
+Past the Esquimau village, the richly varied city of state and foreign
+buildings came into view. All the varieties of architectural genius from
+the different countries of the world appeared one after another and it
+was easy to imagine a flight of incredible speed all over the earth. The
+terminal station at the northeast was reached and uncle wanted to ride
+back again. In this way the panorama of the great Fair was quite well
+fixed in their minds when they descended from the southeast station at
+the entrance of Agricultural hall. For once Uncle felt at home when he
+walked into that paradise of grass and grain.
+
+[Illustration: "HE STOOD CHEWING A WISP OF HAY."]
+
+"Every body but me and Sarah can scatter and we'll all meet at the far
+end of this house, or if not there at the south side of the Sixty-third
+street gate at six o'clock." Fanny and Johnny took Uncle at his word and
+were soon strolling among the booths, but they were more intent upon
+watching the maneuvers of the various types of people than of observing
+what the earth is able to produce out of its soil. They heard a band
+playing somewhere in the distance and they moved on that way.
+
+As a curious observer of this moving world, Fanny made note of the many
+interesting exhibitions about her of country ignorance and enthusiasm.
+At one place she stopped near a tall, lank farmer, whose cowhide boots
+had left their massive imprint on every roadway on the grounds. He stood
+chewing a wisp of hay plucked from an exhibit, while he gazed in delight
+at the harvesters, plows and sheaves of wheat which stretched away
+before him in an endless vista.
+
+"Wall, I swan," he at length confided to the dignified guard, who stood
+like a sign-post near the door, "this 'ere's the only thing I've seed
+'minded me of hum. Bin tramping raound these 'ere grounds, scence 7
+o'clock, b'gosh, an' ain't seen a blamed thing did my ole heart so much
+good as this show right here. By George! wish I'd a struck this buildin'
+fust thing I come in. Would a saved me a power of walkin'. Say, had a
+great show out our way a spell ago. Had a corn palace--Sioux City, you
+know. Be they goin' to have a corn palace at this 'ere fair?"
+
+The guard unbent enough to guess not.
+
+"Sho! y' don't say so. Wall, that's curious. Corn palace out to hum was
+the biggest show ever give out that way. And crowd! Say, I'll bet a
+nickel I've seed as many as hundreds of people thar in one day. In one
+day, reclect, all just looking at that there corn palace. Wonder these
+fellows didn't think of that. Would a drawd all the folks from out in
+our section, shore. Tell you what I don't like about this show," he went
+on, waxing confidential, "Too much furrin stuff here. Don't see nothing
+from Keokuk, Sioux City, Independence or even old Davenport. But all
+London and Berlin and Paris, and all them other places where they's
+kings and things. Ought to a give the folks here more of a show, b'gosh,
+same as we did out to hum. Why, they wasn't none of this statoo stuff
+thar, I tell you. Wasn't no picters and the like of that. What good is
+them picters over there, I'd like to know? Why, some on 'em, the folks
+ain't got a stitch of clothes on 'em, and you couldn't hang them air
+picters in a barn. Ought to have more of these things here--oats and
+wheat and seedin' machines. Them's what people want to see. And say, I
+was daown here below this mornin', and by gum, I seed the damdest
+lookin' fellows I ever seen in all my born days. They was heathen Turks,
+I reckon, with rags round their heads and wimmin's clo'es on all o' 'em.
+I was a-scared to stay there, b'gosh, and I jest lit out, I tell ye.
+Well, I'm goin' through here and see what you've got, but I jest tell
+you this is the part of this show that'll do. Yes, sir." And the rural
+visitor stalked away.
+
+In less than two hours the brother and sister had reached the west
+doorway, but uncle and aunt were nowhere to be seen. Then they went up
+into the gallery to hear the musicians again. It was very evident that
+Agricultural hall had swallowed their grandparents for that day and the
+grandchildren were left to shift for themselves. It was now past noon
+and they were both hungry enough to welcome the first lunch counter they
+could find. One o'clock found them again wandering listlessly about the
+gallery absorbed in the sights about them.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER IV_
+
+ESCORT AND BODY GUARD
+
+
+"Hist, me boys," said one of a group of young men near the band-stand,
+who were watching the people moving about them, "Me eye has caught sight
+of something forbidden to all the rest of the world. You can look but
+you must mustn't touch. Give me your prayers boys." He sauntered away
+from them and came near to Fanny and Johnny as if intensely interested
+in all that was about him. Fanny was standing near the balustrade that
+was around the gallery, when the opportunity the young man was watching
+for soon came. Some rude man hurrying by struck her arm in such a way as
+to knock her hand-satchel out of her hand and it fell to the main floor
+far below. In an instant the young man lifted his hat, and bowing to her
+ran down the near flight of stairs; taking the satchel from some one
+near whom it had fallen, he hurried back and gave it to her with a
+profound bow. Seeming to recognize her all at once he made another bow
+and said, "Ah, pardon me but I see I have just had the honor of serving
+Miss Jones, whom I met on the train a few days ago." Hardly knowing just
+what to do, she thanked him and hesitated, but he was not slow to turn
+the tide in his favor and was soon chatting in such a very agreeable way
+about the many scenes that she soon forgot all doubts as to propriety.
+It was now three o'clock in the afternoon and she thought of her
+grandparents and what they would think; but the three hours till meeting
+time at 60th street gate flew by under the interesting guidance of the
+young man on whose card Fanny read
+
+  |-----------------------|
+  | _Arthur Blair         |
+  |  Attorney             |
+  |Masonic Temple_ [S.S.] |
+  |-----------------------|
+
+He explained that (S. S.) was a sign that meant "Secret Service" as he
+had told her before how he had been sent out to shadow Mr. Moses. They
+rested for awhile on one of the seats in the gallery and Mr. Blair took
+great interest in showing Fanny his official papers and commissions.
+Surely he was a very honorable and talented man.
+
+[Illustration: "He bowed to her, and then ran down the near flight of
+stairs."]
+
+While he was pointing out his name on one of these papers, a gentleman
+came by who started on seeing them, as if in the most pained surprise.
+
+"That man means her some harm," he said to himself, "and I feel as if I
+have no manhood if I do not undertake somehow to prevent it. But he has
+told her something terrible against me and I have no way to approach
+her."
+
+The two arose to go and the gentleman walked not far behind.
+
+"You do not know how it pains me, Mr. Blair, to know that such a noble
+looking young man as Mr. Moses, is a man under police surveilance. He
+has such an agreeable and gentlemanly appearance."
+
+"That is true Miss Jones, but you have no idea how perfectly these
+criminals can assume an appearance of culture and high social standing."
+
+Six o'clock had come swiftly and as they approached the gate Uncle and
+Aunt were seen sitting on their camp stools at the appointed place. The
+young man excused himself before reaching them and bowed himself away,
+but not before he had learned her address and that they came every day
+through the 60th street gates at nine o'clock in the morning.
+
+"Where is Johnny?" anxiously inquired Aunt as Fanny came up alone.
+
+For the first time Fanny seemed to realize that Johnny had not been with
+her for some time. She told Aunt that she had been for two or three
+hours with the young gentleman who had warned them on the train of Mr.
+Moses.
+
+They waited and waited, growing more and more anxious about Johnny.
+
+"Yer, yer, yer, all of you, come on out!" They knew Johnny's voice, and
+turned about just in time to see one of the guards holding Johnny fast
+by the ear as they disappeared around the corner of the wall and through
+the gates.
+
+"There, you young scamp," as he gave Johnny an extra box on the ear,
+"let me see you trying to sneak through the gates again and you won't
+get off so easy."
+
+"Well, ain't I been tellin' you fer an hour that the folks was a waitin'
+fer me inside and you wouldn't tell 'em fur me," and Johnny, with a
+disgusted shake of the head, joined the family as they came out.
+
+"Where on earth have you been?" said Uncle, in a chiding tone of voice.
+
+"Why, I came up to the gate about two hours ago and I seed Louis Burjois
+here a-peekin' through, an' I come out and we've been a-takin' in the
+circuses along Stony Island avenue. Say, Gran'pa, I've engaged Louis fer
+bodyguard fer next week when he comes back from his next run on the
+train. I gives him a salary of goin' wheresomever I go."
+
+Uncle looked at the boy standing by Johnny and recognized him as the
+train-boy who had twice saved him from the loss of money.
+
+"All right, Johnny," said Uncle, as he shook the train-boy's hand, "how
+much extra allowance will that take?"
+
+[Illustration: "LOUIS STUCK A PIN IN HER WHILE SHE WAS ASLEEP."]
+
+"Just double and a half for a regular time of it. You ought to a seen us
+a doin' the side-shows. You see Louis knows 'em. The fat woman is there,
+but not an ounce bigger than Sal Johnson at Villaville, and she's part
+stuffed, for Louis stuck a pin in her while she was asleep, and she
+never flinched. The sea monster and the man with two bootblacks at each
+shoe, and just as tall as the shoetops, is not much bigger than Bill
+Mason to hum. And the four-legged woman is no good, fer Louis he pinched
+one of them and it didn't kick, and the show that's got a man with his
+body cut off just below his head is busted. You see Louis said ef I'd
+pay the way in of half a dozen kids whut he picked out and instructed,
+he'd bust the show and prove thet the man's hed had a body. I agreed,
+and we all got pea-shooters at my expense, and in we went. When they
+drawed the curtin up my blood run cold fer there was a hed humping
+itself about on a table and I could see clear under the table and there
+was no body around there. I forgot to shoot, but Louis give the sign,
+and all the rest just fired the peas at his head and he howled and the
+head it shook awful ghastly, and then they all fired again, and the head
+it jest raised right up and turned the table over and shook, and the
+whole thing raised up and shook his fists at us and then Louis said
+"jiggers," and you ought to have seen us a gittin' out from under the
+bottom of the tent and over behind Buffalo Bill's show. They was after
+us, but couldn't catch us."
+
+[Illustration: "LOUIS SAID 'JIGGERS.'"]
+
+"Johnny, Johnny," said Uncle sternly, "don't you know what I've told you
+about letting other people's business alone?"
+
+"But you see, grandpa, that was a fake and you know it's everybody's
+duty to uproot the fakes."
+
+"That's all right, Johnny," said Aunt, "You can uproot the things
+needing uprooting on the farm but you must let Chicago people uproot
+their own foolishness."
+
+The sage advice was unheeded for Johnny was too full of the day's
+adventures with his body guard and guide.
+
+So far they had seen little of the city of Chicago, and it was a great
+rest and pleasure for them to sit at the windows of their rooms or in
+the balcony and look out over the busy street before them or talk of the
+events of the day.
+
+Uncle had gone ahead of the rest and taken his seat in a rocker at their
+room window.
+
+"O grandpa, there you are," called out Fanny's clear voice as she
+entered the door and came quickly up to his side. "I ran ahead, and
+grandma and Johnny are coming."
+
+In her face was the sweet look of guileless girlhood, and her dark hair
+waving back in the breeze coming through the window crowned her sweet
+face with the tenderest beauty. Her eyes were bright and sparkling with
+the interest and enthusiasm of young life. They told of a woman's soul
+that would one day shine out and help to make this bright world more
+bright and holy.
+
+When the grandmother and Johnny joined them these four stood there with
+no petty jealousies or bad feeling of any description to mar their
+happiness as a family. The sinking sun came out from the western clouds
+and lit up their faces as if they all rested under God's smile of peace.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE SMOOTHED BACK THE HAIR ON HIS FOREHEAD."]
+
+"Well, Fanny, I am closing my days on earth mighty satisfactory to me. I
+have been mighty alarmed about what the "Zion's Herald" said about the
+world's meanness, but I tell you what I have seed wasn't made by mean
+men. I believe I have felt more of the Lord in my soul in the last few
+days than I ever did before in so many years. I've seen ribbons, and
+threshing machines and wheat and corn for a long time but I never had
+any idea how much brains people had before this. I went to some of the
+farmer's meetings fer I felt oppressed myself and thought I was just
+about doing it all myself but when I come here I see I haint nowhere. I
+used to be afraid that the government was all a going to pieces and that
+my fighting for the union and that the blood of your Uncle Sam at
+Gettysburg was of no use but I ain't any more now afraid of the world a
+bustin' up. People that made the machinery that I've seen and all that
+have too much sense. My mind is at rest now about all such things. When
+I seed the big engine I didn't say nothing for I never had any use
+before to learn words that suited such things, so I just said nothing."
+
+Fanny understood her grandfather's mood, and she smoothed back the hair
+on his forehead and gently stroked his cheeks with her hands.
+
+"Papers, papers! 'Daily Columbian'!"
+
+A childish voice at the door broke their reverie.
+
+"Grandpa, you must be like city folks and read the papers."
+
+"Here, little boy, is five cents for the morning 'Columbian' and one
+cent for your evening paper."
+
+"Now, Grandpa, I want you to read. Let's see the headlines."
+
+"_ENTHUSIASTIC THOUSANDS_"
+
+"I was one of that crowd," said Uncle, "but it was too big to be
+enthusiastic over."
+
+"_Many of the World's Distinguished People Present_"
+
+"That may be right, Fanny, but I don't believe they are very
+distinguished after they get inside. I know I felt like I had just got
+extinguished or something."
+
+  "_The Colossal Manufacturers' Exhibit Amazes the
+  Great Crowd of Visitors. The United States
+  and the Foreign Nations join in Creating
+  the Greatest Display in the
+  World's History. Shown like a
+  Jewel in a Frame of Light_"
+
+"Ah, my little girl, that's my Fanny when she comes between me and the
+window, a jewel in a frame of light."
+
+Fanny put her hand over his mouth and said, "Grandpa, I don't want you
+to scold me so unless when I deserve it."
+
+Uncle Jeremiah having read all that interested him, turned the paper
+over, when his eye fell on the columns of advertisements. He had never
+read any of them before, and it attracted his interest at once.
+
+"Look hyar, Johnny! Here is a position you might git if you had only
+done as I have teached and learnt your lesson at school." And Uncle
+read, slowly:
+
+
+  Wanted.--A BRIGHT, HONEST, IN-
+  telligent boy: good Christian; A No. 1
+  writer; quick at figures, not fond of
+  play; never reads novels or smokes, or sets
+  a bad example in any way before children.
+  Address, * * * * *
+
+
+"Grandpa, that is a sad reminder," said Fanny, as she came up and looked
+over his shoulder at the paper.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because God loves a shining mark, and all those boys are dead. On their
+tombs should be written: 'Here lies one who lived not wisely, but too
+well.'"
+
+"Tut! tut! child, how you do talk!"
+
+"Here, father, here is the one. You know I've always wanted a parrot."
+
+  Exchange.--WILL EXCHANGE FINE
+  Parrot, good talker, for a pet monkey.
+  Address, * * * * * *
+
+"But, Fanny, where's the monkey to exchange?"
+
+"Why, Johnny, of course. I know it would be a trade," she said,
+rapturously.
+
+Johnny had come up in the meantime, and was leaning on Uncle's right
+shoulder. At Fanny's words he eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and
+then, pointing his finger at another advertisement, said: "Father, send
+Fanny to that place at once. Her first meal will take the people a month
+to digest, and that will be a big saving, for she won't have to make but
+one meal a month, and she will never be bothered about doing so much
+fixing up." The advertisement read:
+
+  Cook WANTED.--NEED NOT WASH.
+  Address, * * * * * *
+
+Uncle crumpled the paper up in his hand and said emphatically, "O you
+children git out."
+
+But they felt more like talking as they were accustomed to do of
+evenings at the farm. Johnny had told his adventures and Uncle and Aunt
+had seen wonderful things which they knew were only interesting to them.
+What they had seen was to them an awful revelation of what the world was
+doing in the various lines of work while the farmers were busy with the
+cares of the farm and isolated from the great industries of life where
+genius subdues and achieves.
+
+"Somebody brought a heap of wool all the way from New South Wales in
+Australia, and I felt ashamed of myself when I seed farm products that
+was brought all the way from the Cape of Good Hope and I hadn't brought
+nothing from Villaville. We seen farmers from Japan, and China, and
+Ceylon. I was shocked to see how them Japanese like to have snakes and
+hobgoblins a crawling round their pavilions but when I seed the
+Americans jammed all around when there was nicer products in the other
+places, I just concluded that maybe after all it was our people that
+liked 'em too, and so made 'em set the fashion here.
+
+"The Canadians tried to beat everything with their twenty-two thousand
+pound cheese. There is lots of fool extravagance in that place but I
+guess it was necessary to show what we farmers can do when we make up
+our minds."
+
+Fanny told about meeting Mr. Blair and how interestingly he explained
+everything. As she looked up at her Grandma, she saw a troubled look on
+her face.
+
+"It's nothing," said Grandma, "but I didn't meet young folks that way
+when I was a girl, and I am afeard now for you; but I've always tried to
+teach you right, and I know no body can make you believe I haven't
+teached you just right. I will trust ye. I trusted your mamma when
+nobody else did, and she didn't do no wrong."
+
+Fanny went over and laid her cheek against her grandma's face and
+whispered: "Grandma, any body can kill me, but nobody can make me
+wilfully do wrong."
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER V_
+
+COLUMBIA AVENUE
+
+
+Several unnoteworthy days were spent by Uncle and his family in which
+they saw through the official buildings of the states and nations;
+through the Forestry building, showing the forestry wealth of the world;
+through the leather exhibits, showing the wonders done to the skins of
+beasts; all over Wooded Island, with its curiosities of Davy Crockett's
+cabin and the Javanese Hooden; through the clam bakes and the Casino,
+with the miscellaneous objects of interest about them. Uncle thought he
+was entering the Liberal Arts building when he walked past the guard at
+the southeast entrance of the Casino. He wandered into a labyrinth of
+side-rooms, where he heard an amazing medley of excited voices in as
+many different languages. They were evidently quarreling over something
+that displeased them very much. Presently a guard caught him by the arm.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WAS A MEDLEY OF EXCITED VOICES."]
+
+"Are you a musician, sir?"
+
+"Well, I used ter play a Jew's harp a leetle."
+
+"The Casino will open again at three o'clock. You are not allowed in
+here."
+
+The rest of the family had remained on the outside, suspicious of
+Uncle's venture. As he returned, led out in rather an undignified way by
+the guard, Uncle did not relish the amused looks of his family and the
+casual observers.
+
+"Ah, ha," yelled Johnny in glee, "Grandpa's the first of us to get took
+by the cop. I'll tell everybody at Villaville about you getting led
+out."
+
+From here they went on around to the north end of the greatest building
+on the grounds where were stored the miscellaneous educational
+achievements of the world.
+
+As they entered the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts building through one
+of the small entrances on the north, the greatness of that more than
+forty-four acres of exhibits did not impress itself upon them. The first
+objects that met their gaze were the graphophones or phonographs. Some
+nickles were soon in the slots and the family for the first time
+listening to music coming from some where by singers unseen. Johnny had
+a face covered with smiles as he listened to some loud-mouthed artist
+singing "Throw him down McClosky." Between each verse Johnny told the
+boy who stood in open-mouthed wonder near him that the "feller is a
+singer from way back." He could not realize that he was not in a concert
+hall and that all standing about were not hearing what he heard. When
+the music ceased and he withdrew the tubes from his ears he said to
+the boy, "Wasn't that out of sight?"
+
+[Illustration: "They listened to melodies by musicians unseen, and from
+somewhere unknown."]
+
+"Sure, and out of my hearing too, but I guess I got a nickle to try it
+on," and his nickle disappeared in the slot and the unwearied singer hid
+away in the machine told again his story of the great fight.
+
+When Uncle took the tubes from his ears his eyes were full of tears.
+
+"Why, Grandpa, what's the matter?" asked Fanny who had just listened to
+some selection by the Marine band.
+
+"Well, you see, I heard something that I used to hear long time ago, and
+I couldn't tell just who was a singin' it to me. It was some woman,
+though, and I let myself think it was somebody else, and I was a
+thankin' God for lettin' me hear her once more. I thought it was Mary
+singin' "Old Folks at Home" for me, jest like she used to, and I thought
+for a while that she had come back to me. I wanted to talk to her, and
+it hurt me when I seed that I couldn't."
+
+There was a stairway near by, and Fanny suggested that they should first
+go above. They came to the place where they could look out into the main
+floor. They were near the great clock tower just as the chimes began to
+peal forth their weird melodies.
+
+"What's that?" cried Aunt, in awe-struck tones.
+
+"It's the chime of the bells," cried Fanny, in delight, "listen!
+listen!"
+
+Clear and plain through the vast building and to the streets on the
+outside came the slow measured notes of that nation-thrilling air, "My
+Country, 'tis of Thee."
+
+All stood entranced before a scene never before reached by human means.
+When the chimes were done, Uncle said: "Let us go down to the main
+floor. I want to walk from end to tother of that aisle."
+
+Johnny held in each hand a camp-stool for Uncle and Aunt, and he
+arranged the stools for them to sit awhile before that wonderful scene.
+Not long after, they were marching down that aisle called Columbia
+avenue. They felt themselves every inch as citizens of a great republic.
+It is not a very long thoroughfare--only a third of a mile--but they
+were two hours on the way. Uncle was a common, everyday American citizen
+when he started. At each step it seemed to him he swelled in his own
+estimation. At the clock tower he was proud enough to ascend that
+structure and make a Fourth of July speech. At the end of his walk he
+wanted to wear an eagle on his hat and shout till his throat should be
+stiff. It was not solely as an American that he was filled with
+exultation but as a member of the human race. He was lifted up with
+pride in the achievements of his fellow-man and in satisfaction that his
+own country was the host of such a splendid company.
+
+Columbia avenue is the broad thoroughfare which traverses the center of
+the greatest building that ever was. It runs through the Manufactures
+and Liberal Arts building from the grand court to the plaza at the
+northern end. A walk down this thoroughfare is like a tour of the world
+in sixty minutes. Though, if you are to do it in sixty minutes, you must
+fifty times repress an impulse to linger beside some new marvel in the
+handiwork of man and go marching on. You cannot beat the record in a
+trip around the world and stop and see all the grand cathedrals and
+picturesque ruins and beautiful women and inviting galleries of art.
+
+Columbia avenue is a picture never to be surpassed. It is a cleanly and
+an attractive thoroughfare for the world of tourists who throng the way.
+The path is no longer littered with lumber and boxes and kegs of paints.
+The horizon--for this vast enclosure has its horizon--is no more filled
+with a fine, white mist rising from the efforts of workmen to push and
+chisel blocks of staff into their appropriate places. It is a colossal
+field of process and a panorama of result. The world can not produce a
+more noble and inspiring place. It is the avenue down which the man on
+whom fate has fallen and whose steps in this world are few should choose
+to expend the last remaining atoms of his strength.
+
+Uncle, as an American citizen, came in pride and exultation into the
+avenue from the central court. He had not been there before. The first
+thing he did was to stand fully five minutes gazing at the immensity of
+the enclosure trying to comprehend it, instinctively but vainly seeking
+adjectives with which to characterize it, and finally giving it all up,
+as a man gives up trying to measure the ocean or count the stars,
+conceding it to be too vast and wonderful for the range alike of his
+vision and his mind. No one told him which way to go, but away over his
+head, he couldn't guess how many hundred feet, was a line of pendent
+stars and stripes extending so far in a perspective of red and white
+that he could not see the fartherest. For aught he knew to the contrary
+the line led away to the sunny South. But knowing that where the stars
+and stripes led the way, he could go as he had done in the years of war,
+he passed on through a maze of wonders greater than even a Solomon could
+dream.
+
+Not a word had been spoken for some time. Fanny had stopped at a
+millinery booth.
+
+"Well, now come on Fanny, you wouldn't let me look at them harrows to my
+heart's content so come on, for you might get ideas into your head that
+would cost me lots of money and you know these times are expensive
+enough anyhow."
+
+At the south end of the hall they ascended to the galleries again and
+soon, came past the educational exhibits that cover every department of
+human training. There was a booth of educational temperance. Here they
+read:
+
+  |---------------------------|
+  |  _The Star of Hope        |
+  |  of the Temperance Reform |
+  |  stands over the          |
+  |  School House_            |
+  |---------------------------|
+
+These letters were on a banner of beautifully wrought silk, and near by
+was a map of the United States, with seven states distinguished from the
+rest by being in the darkest black.
+
+"Those states," explained the ladies in charge, "have no school
+legislation for teaching temperance."
+
+"Yes," soliloquized Uncle, "the school house, the pulpit and the press,
+are the three forces of freedom and progress in our welfare, but our
+lives and our natures are not alone molded by these. The fathers and
+mothers in the home holds greater destinies for the world than all the
+rest of the forces of the earth together." Then they went through a
+modeling department. Uncle could not see any use of these things.
+
+"Now, Fanny, I'm tired of these mixing wax and realities together.
+Here's a man's head four feet across in this glass case. What does it
+mean?"
+
+"O, that's just an enlarged figure to show the anatomy."
+
+"Well, I didn't come here to see 'natomy, so let's pass on and leave it
+to other folks that like sich."
+
+Just then some good country people came up and they were almost wild for
+knowledge as to where the Exposition people dug up that awful giant, and
+as to how long he lived before the flood, and if it might not be Goilah.
+Fanny could not stand such an error, and she pointed out to the little
+girl the card below explaining what the figure intended to show.
+
+They went on past states and foreign countries, and booth after booth of
+books and papers of the great publishing companies.
+
+"Come here, come this way, all of ye!"
+
+Johnny was wildly motioning to his folks, who had stopped to examine
+some books in a booth near the north end of the Liberal Arts hall. As
+they came up to him, he said: "Say, you remember the Century plant,
+don't you, down in the Horticultural hall, wot's jest bloomed? Well,
+I've found a Century company, an' I want Fanny to go in thar an' ask the
+gurl wot hes charge if we kin see it bloomin'."
+
+"They are the people who publish so much about the war and about
+Lincoln. Let us go in and I'll take some notes about what they have."
+
+Fanny took out her pencil and notebook as they approached the entrance
+of the booth. All went in together, and the lady in charge, seeing Fanny
+with a notebook in her hand, came over to her from the opposite side of
+the room with a rush that almost took the young observer's breath away.
+
+"Are you a reporter, Miss?"
+
+"No, no," said Fanny.
+
+"Oh! Just taking notes for your own amusement."
+
+"Well, not exactly that. I may use them some time."
+
+Fanny had in mind the things she would have to tell to her less
+fortunate friends at home.
+
+"O I see, going to weave them into a book or a lecture. Just come this
+way;" and, followed by Johnny, Uncle and Aunt, Fanny went the rounds of
+the place listening attentively to the interesting talk of the lady in
+charge as she explained the processes in detail of making a great
+magazine, the evolution of the English dictionary and of dictionary
+making in all its phases. She showed them many interesting relics and
+among them the original letters and documents of the company's great war
+articles and their life of the martyred president. The lady never had
+more interested listeners or people more grateful for the trouble she
+had taken to instruct them.
+
+[Illustration: "UNCLE DID NOT RECOGNIZE HIM."]
+
+"No, don't go till you have registered."
+
+Fanny went over and registered for all of them and Uncle went away
+feeling as if he now had a literary education and could write anything
+from a war article to a dictionary.
+
+They passed on down and out of the building more impressed than ever
+concerning the greatness of the world. Aunt rarely said much but now she
+remarked that she loved their farm and their Jerseys more than ever but
+she could see that God's mercies and blessings did not rest alone on
+them and their neighbors. There was indeed a world beyond what she had
+ever seen or been able to dream.
+
+As they passed on to the gate a family evidently from off the farm
+passed them.
+
+The eyes of Uncle and the farmer happened to meet and the farmer nodded
+to him.
+
+"Now look at that," exclaimed Uncle. "How cityfied I'm getting. I didn't
+nod to that feller. The fust few days I was here I nodded to everybody
+who looked at me but when they stared back at me like I was an idiot, I
+quit."
+
+As they came by the Administration building a gentleman passed near them
+and politely lifted his hat. Without response Aunt and Fanny went on but
+Uncle grasped the gentleman by the hand and said, "Mr. Moses, I am so
+glad to see you. I ain't been tuck up yet by the perlice nor lost any
+money but I guess I would if you hadn't give me such good advice."
+
+"Uncle, I must tell you that my name is Warner, as you have it on my
+card and not Moses. I told you that name just for a joke because I
+didn't expect to see you again and you know we don't often tell our
+names and business to people we meet on the trains."
+
+Uncle was very much troubled. He could not see any joke in a false name
+being given. He remembered then that Fanny said a young man on the train
+was shadowing Mr. Moses, and this false name made it look bad for Mr.
+Warner.
+
+"Well Mr. Warner I am sorry you deceived me for I liked you very much
+and I aimed to call on you, but maybe I hadn't orter not."
+
+Without another ward Uncle went on to join his waiting family, sadly
+shaking his head as he thought of the misplaced confidence he had
+bestowed.
+
+"There," said Mr. Warner, "I have estranged the good opinion of the old
+man and in his mind made the words of the confidence man seem true. But
+somehow I feel sure that I shall meet her in a different way."
+
+As he looked after her he said, "There goes the dearest girl on earth to
+me."
+
+[Illustration: "HE LOOKED AROUND AFTER HER."]
+
+It was arranged that the next day the old people should rest at their
+hotel all day and at two o'clock Fanny would go to one of the big retail
+stores to do some needful shopping with Johnny as an escort.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER VI_
+
+DANGERS OF THE GREAT CITY
+
+
+Johnny was listlessly walking along in front of Dearborn Station, on
+Polk street, when he saw some fine looking apples on one of the fruit
+stands. Instantly the old orchard at home came into his mind, and with
+it a hunger for apples that could not be downed. Fishing up a dime from
+his pocket, it was not long till two apples were his, one of them
+undergoing a carving that only a country boy hungry for apples could
+perform. As he turned the corner he passed a number of bootblacks
+tossing pennies to the edge of the curbing, the one lodging his penny
+nearest the edge winning all the other pennies. Johnny watched them long
+enough to understand their gambling game and then moved on.
+
+"Hi ther, kids," said one, "watch me git a free lunch."
+
+He came quickly up behind the unsuspecting boy and struck one of the
+apples out of his hand. But before he could pick it up, Johnny gave him
+a shove that sent him sprawling in the mud. Johnny stooped to regain his
+apple, but half a dozen of the other boys ran up and began striking him
+from all sides. His knife was open in his hand, and some one struck him
+a blow on the hand that knocked the knife into the gutter. Warding off
+the uncomfortable blows as fast as he could, he ran to get his knife. In
+an instant he was tripped down upon his face with half a dozen boys
+cuffing him about the head and shoulders.
+
+"What you skates a-doin' there. Come off now; let a feller have a
+show!"
+
+The boys were thrust back, and Johnny scrambled to his feet.
+
+"Hello! If it ain't de kid wot's got de purty sister an' helped me to
+pepper de fake on Stony Island avenoo. Bin a-crapin', have ye, an' them
+fellers wuz a-doing ye up." It was the train-boy who had been of such
+service to Johnny's grandfather as they came into the city.
+
+[Illustration: "BEEN A CRAPIN', HAVE YE!"]
+
+Johnny explained how it all happened, and they went away from the crowd.
+Johnny's clothes were soiled and his knife and apples were gone, but he
+was glad to get out of such a rough crowd.
+
+"Where wuz ye goin'?"
+
+"I've got an hour yet, when I am to meet Fanny at the north entrance to
+the store she's tradin' at. I couldn't stand taggin' after her, so she
+let me go."
+
+Johnny had wandered from the store into the neighborhood of one of the
+most disreputable places in the city. He and his friend were coming up
+the street when the train-boy exclaimed: "Hi, thar, wot's yer sis doin'
+on dis devilish street wid dat thief yonder?"
+
+Johnny looked where the boy was pointing, and, sure enough, Johnny saw
+his sister being escorted along the street by Mr. Blair, who had spoken
+to them of Mr. Moses on the train, and who had been with Fanny one day
+at the Fair.
+
+"Why, ain't he all right," said John.
+
+"Nary all right. Wusn't he helping to rob your grandad as he was a
+coming out of the train, and did'nt I nab his pal with the wad of stuff
+in his hand? He works with the feller what give yer old dad the short
+change."
+
+Johnny would have started on a run after his sister but Louis said,
+"Hold on pard, I'm a running this. Ef your sis is all right, that feller
+is liable to git to travel over the road fer it. I've got it in fer that
+feller and you see if I don't git him pulled. I tell you if he gits your
+sis into one of them houses, she'll never come out alive fer she'll kill
+herself."
+
+Johnny was white with fright but Louis laid his hand on Johnny's
+shoulder and said: "Now you watch the show."
+
+A policeman was at the next corner and Louis walked up to him with the
+air of one who had a most important communication to make.
+
+"Me name is Louis Burjois, and dis is de brudder of dat gal wot you see
+walkin' over dere. She is an innercent gal, which dat feller is
+a-tollin' of her off. He's a pickpocket, and I'm one wot kin swear to
+it. We want him arrested an' jugged. We'll see to all de
+responsibility."
+
+"Ah, you Arabs don't take me in that way. Git out. The gal knows her
+biz."
+
+By this time Louis saw that the confidence man had stopped at one of the
+most prepossessing houses on the street. It was also one of the vilest
+and most dangerous places in the city. The door-bell had been rung, and
+there was not a moment to lose.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE'S AN INNERCENT GIRL WHAT'S A GITTIN' TOLLED OFF."]
+
+"For God's sake run and yell!" and he gave Johnny a push in their
+direction, which was all he needed to send him flying up the street
+yelling and waving his hat and calling "Fanny! Fanny! Fanny!" like a boy
+gone mad.
+
+The door had opened and Fanny was about to step inside, when she heard
+her name called. She turned around, but the young man crowded up behind
+her.
+
+"Who is calling me?" she said. "It must be Johnny. Yes, it's his voice."
+
+"No, it's only a bootblack," her companion said, harshly and excitedly.
+
+"I know its Johnny," and she dodged by him out of the door. He tried to
+catch her by the arm, but, missing that, seized her dress, nearly
+tearing it off of her waist. At this moment Johnny dashed up, and,
+throwing his arms around her, cried: "O Fanny! Fanny! come quick! come
+away! don't wait a minute!" and he fairly dragged her to the sidewalk.
+
+The young man disappeared through the door but not before he saw Louis
+come running up and shaking his fist at him yelling at the top of his
+voice, "O you horrible old cheese, I'll get your mug behind the bars
+some of these days in spite of yourself."
+
+The policeman was placidly watching the scene, but concluding at last
+that something unusual was happening he came up and went into the house.
+A few minutes after he came out alone and walked measuredly on toward
+the end of his beat.
+
+Fanny in the meantime had pinned her dress and was walking away with the
+two boys. She was not less excited than they were.
+
+"What is the matter? I can't think. What has happened; there must be
+something awfully wrong."
+
+"Well, you see, miss, that feller is the pall of the man what tried to
+rob your grandad and he was a taking of you to one of the worstestes
+places in Chicago."
+
+"Why he showed me his detective star and also papers and business cards
+the other day at the Fair. I met him this time in the store. While we
+were talking there he showed me a blue book which he said was a list of
+the best society of Chicago, and he showed me his name and his
+sisters'. I didn't know anything how to trade at the big stores and he
+said it would please him so much to take me and introduce me to his
+mother and sisters, who lived only three or four blocks away, and one of
+his sisters would come back with me and I could do my trading in half
+the time and to so much better advantage. He talked so nicely that I
+didn't see how I could refuse to go."
+
+"That's the chap exactly. He's a bad man, and I'm a going to run him in
+yet."
+
+Louis gave a self satisfied toss of the head, clinched his fists and
+said, "Its lucky, awful lucky that I seed ye." Fanny shuddered and she
+whispered a fervent prayer of thankfulness.
+
+They had now arrived at the store and Louis acted as ready escort to the
+various booths where Fanny desired to trade.
+
+"Don't you forgit that you have to meet me at the Sixtieth street gate
+at nine o'clock next Monday morning for to be my body guard the whole
+week and I think I can get our grandpa to throw in about two dollars a
+day for ye for general services. Anyhow, I don't see how any of us can
+feel safe any more without you being around. I expect if you come out to
+our farm, I'd save your life about a dozen times a day for the first
+week, you'd need me around pretty bad for the first month."
+
+"It's very glad I am that I struck you," said Louis, "for my dad got
+killed cause he stuck by his engine and I have to help the folks so much
+that I couldn't get into the Fair only by scheming somehow, and I might
+not hit the combination."
+
+Fanny and Johnny, still bewildered over their adventures, now took a
+cable car and in a little while were telling their astonished
+grandparents about their day's experiences and Fanny's wonderful escape
+from the confidence man. Uncle could not remember Mr. Blair, but it was
+a good occasion for one of his impressive lectures on the providence of
+God.
+
+It was an evening for the electric display at the grounds and at eight
+o'clock they were seated near the statue of the Republic on the south
+side of the basin waiting to see the crowning achievement of modern
+intellect.
+
+No wonder that the papers of the next morning spoke of the "White City
+in a blaze of glory," and that "thousands viewed the sight, entranced
+with the marvelous exhibition." It was a sight to inspire the writers of
+the day, and of all the descriptions that Fanny culled none were more
+appropriate for recalling the memories of what she saw, and to record
+what she had experienced, than the reportorial sketches of this night.
+The hour approached for the most wonderful illumination since God said:
+"Let there be light."
+
+Slowly night came on, and slowly night was turned back into day. A few
+stars came out and shone for a little while, and then disappeared from
+man because of the blaze of light he was in.
+
+To the north and west a heavy pall of smoke brooded over the city. Above
+it a broad band of gorgeous crimson, shot with purple and yellow, marked
+the dying glories of the day. Overhead scattered clouds floated against
+a gray sky, and through them yellow stars were shining. Looking down
+into the grand basin the white walls of the palaces which bound it
+loomed gray and ghostly. On the southern horizon the chimneys of a blast
+furnace belched their red flames high into the darkness.
+
+One by one white globes of light glittered about the graceful sweep of
+the basin. They cast deep black shadows on the walls behind them, and
+threw burnished, rippling ribbons over the dark water below. The broad
+avenue leading to the north between the Mines and Mining and the
+Electricity buildings grew brilliant on either side. At its far northern
+end a clump of tangled shrubbery lay in heavy shadow, and still beyond,
+stretching away for miles, a hundred thousand scattered yellow sparks
+told that the great city was awake. Far off on the dark lagoon, men
+were singing, and the echo of their voices rose faintly through the
+silence.
+
+Suddenly a single beam of yellow light, like a falling star, flickered
+and grew bright on the high dome of the Administration building. Then
+lines of fire ran down its splendid sweep, and outlined in flame it
+stood out in splendor against the night. About its base circled a wheel
+of light, while above a hundred torches flared into the darkness. Within
+the great buildings about the basin electric coronas were ablaze and the
+giant pillars of the colonnades loomed white against the shadows. From
+their caps huge figures of the arts of peace leaned out over the black
+abyss beneath. Along the top of the peristyle flickered a yellow ribbon
+of flame, and above, dim and gray against the sky, senators and heathen
+gods look down upon the glory.
+
+Between these lay the dark waters of the basin, seamed with faint,
+waving bars of light. Over them, like long black shadows, graceful
+gondolas slipped in silence, and electric launches with their fiery eyes
+crept across the vista.
+
+From the roof of Music hall a wide pyramid of fierce white light was
+thrown upon the Administration dome. Its blazonry of yellow died away,
+and under the new glare the delicate, lace-like tracery of gold and
+white was brought into strong relief. From the roofs of the buildings of
+Manufactures and Agriculture twin search-lights beat down upon the
+MacMonnies fountain. Behind it the plaza was black with men, and its
+pure white figures shone as if carved from Parian marble.
+
+Then the light was changed, and in a glory of crimson the ship Columbia,
+with its white-armed rowers, sailed on before the people. From his high
+pillar on either side, Neptune, leaning on his trident, looked down
+serenely. The search-lights swept the horizon, and for a moment graceful
+Diana loomed against the sky like a figure suspended in midair. At the
+east end of the basin the Golden Republic glittered against the night,
+lifting her golden eagle high above the crowd. Smoke from a passing
+engine rose about the dome of the Administration building, and its fiery
+outlines flickered and grew faint. The triumphant goddess seated high on
+the galley in the central fountain was bathed in a glory of green fire,
+and then yellow, changing again to its spotless white.
+
+Under the great central entrance to Electricity building stood all the
+while the figure of an old-time Quaker. His eyes looked upward, and he
+held in his hand the feeble instrument which made possible the glories
+of this night. Franklin, with his kite, looked out upon the consummation
+of what he dreamt of when he drew lightning from the summer cloud. For
+two hours the "White City" blossomed in new beauty. The great basin was
+bathed in a flood of fairy moonlight. Outside the peristyle the lake
+beat its monotone against the walls. On the plaza the great orchestra of
+more than 100 men played patriotic music, and the people were filled and
+lifted with the spirit of the night.
+
+The search light was a great surprise. It went dancing along the fronts
+of opposite buildings, climbed up the towers and brought out golden
+Diana. It flashed against the statue of the Republic, and kept it for a
+full minute resplendent as though carved from a block of flame and then
+flickered away, leaving the great figure in twilight uncertainty. After
+a time three irregular splashes of light were playing hide-and-seek
+along the basin and up the fronts of the big building. The lights
+changed their colors. Sometimes they were green and again they were blue
+or red.
+
+While several thousand people were admiring this picture, a rocket of
+light shone out from one of the high corners of the agriculture building
+and flooded the MacMonnies fountain in a whiteness which made all the
+other light seem dim and lifeless. Under its focus the golden caravels
+and the draped figures showed strange contrasts of chalky pallor and
+deep shade. Only a moment later a second bar of light leaped out from
+a sky-high nook of the Manufactures building and swept the surface of
+the basin. It struck a moving gondola, and in a flash showed the gay
+Venetians bending to their long oars, the bright colors of the boat
+and the muffled forms of the passengers.
+
+Johnny had left the others absorbed in their trance of delight. He
+sought other sights. Directly he came to the Electricity building, with
+its marvels of light. It burst on his childish mind, seeking for
+novelties, as greater than the scenes outside. It was something that
+Fanny and Uncle and Aunt must see. He ran in the greatest haste to bring
+them. When they came in, Johnny showed them where to sit to see the
+great illumination in the center of the building. It was then quite dark
+about them, but Johnny knew the marvelous sight he had said was there
+would soon appear.
+
+Four rows of colored bulbs containing incandescent lights and placed on
+zig-zag frame works forty feet long in different directions are about a
+pillar around which are twined strings of two thousand electric bulbs of
+red, white and blue. The pillar is covered with bits of reflecting
+colored glass, thus making a magic intermingling of lights that almost
+rival the lightning in startling brilliancy and produce a pillar of fire
+scarcely surpassed even by that one which led the Israelites across the
+sea.
+
+When the illumination came the weird ingenuity of the electric magicians
+struck Aunt Sarah with a sublimity almost more than she could endure. As
+the flashes of light struck out about the pillar and the ball of fire
+fell as if dropped from some creating hand she screamed, "O my God, what
+blasphemy is this that men have achieved. Can they snatch the fire from
+heaven and make the lightening a plaything?"
+
+She sank upon a chair and gazed stupefied for some minutes at the awful
+scene. Then as they passed on she said, "I have seen the wonderful
+machinery great and small. I have seen the old relics which they say are
+the remains of men's hopes long gone by, but when man can take the light
+that comes out from the storms and put it up for show, it seems to me
+that I am seeing forbidden things and that the skill of men has gone too
+far."
+
+[Illustration: "The light shot across the sky."]
+
+At the next flash from the tower there was a shriek and a crowd began to
+gather about a man just across the hall. The cry came from a man who
+could receive the terrible grandeur but he did not have the strength of
+mind to sustain it.
+
+He was gazing upon the incandescent globe-studded column, as in a
+trance, and again one of the electricians turned on the current and the
+shaft changed to living fire. The man seemed horrified by the unearthly
+beauty of the spectacle. It continued but a minute, when the current was
+turned off and the blinding light disappeared almost as suddenly as it
+had come.
+
+A bystander whose attention happened to be directed toward him says that
+he stood gazing at the column for fully three minutes after the light
+had been turned off and that his countenance betrayed overwhelming
+bewilderment. Once or twice he raised a hand and drew it across his
+forehead. Then he was seen to press his temples with both palms, all the
+while gazing in an awe-stricken way at the great pillar. The attention
+of several visitors was attracted to the farmer, and one of them stepped
+to his side to inquire if anything was wrong with him. As the gentleman
+reached his side the latter threw his arms upward and, with a shriek
+that started the echoes, fell forward upon his face. Two or three guards
+rushed to the prostrate man's assistance, but before they reached his
+side he leaped to his feet and, screaming at the top of his voice, ran
+through the aisle toward the entrance facing the lagoon.
+
+In a moment all was excitement, and the great crowd of visitors,
+becoming panic-stricken, ran in a dozen different directions or hid
+behind exhibits. The madman, pursued by a half-dozen guards, dashed down
+a side aisle and, leaping over boxes and machines, made a complete
+circuit of the General Electric company's exhibit and then paused again
+before the central column. Two guards seized him, but he threw them off
+as though they had been infants and again he started on a wild hurdle
+race through the building. He had not gone far when he tripped and fell,
+and in a moment three bluecoats were upon him.
+
+Struggling and shrieking, the poor man was half led, half carried, to
+the north entrance of the building, where was waiting a patrol wagon. It
+required the combined strength of five guards to get the unfortunate man
+into the patrol wagon. Throughout the short drive to the patrol barn the
+prisoner fought like a wild animal and the officers had their hands full
+in keeping him aboard. When brought before the sergeant the prisoner
+became exceedingly quiet and spoke rationally while giving his name and
+address.
+
+One of the guards then began to detail the offense of the prisoner. The
+recital had but just begun when the man became greatly excited and began
+screaming once more. The sergeant placed his hand in a kindly way upon
+his shoulder and gently forced him into a chair. The man grew quiet
+again and listened to the guard relate the story of the arrest without
+interruption. When the officer had finished the man arose and, walking
+up to the sergeant, said:
+
+"Don't harm me, I didn't put all those bottles there. I'll tell you how
+it was. Somebody has stuck those bottles on that post and covered them
+up with a white cloth. When they raised the cloth the bottles turned to
+fire. I am not to blame. I don't know how those bottles came there.
+There are millions of them. They were all right at first, but the devils
+poured red fire into them. Don't hurt me. I had nothing to do with it."
+
+The sergeant talked kindly to the man, and when he was quieted led him
+to the hospital, where a doctor attended to him. Here he entered into a
+long description of the pillar of "bottles," by which he evidently meant
+the incandescent globes. The doctor gave his patient a quieting potion,
+and in a short time he fell into a sleep. When he awoke from his sleep
+he was quiet, but his mind still dwelt on the pillar of "bottles," and
+he insisted on repeating his version of the affair to all the doctors.
+In the evening a carriage took the patient away, supposedly to the
+detention hospital.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER VII_
+
+ON BOARD THE "ILLINOIS"
+
+
+"Now for the battleship," said Johnny, "that's what I want to see." As
+they came on board the brick ship, the first words they heard were quite
+nautical.
+
+"It's eight bells."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!"
+
+The bos'un, or whoever it was that received the order from the
+Lieutenant, climbed up and tapped out eight strokes on the big brass
+bell. About twenty people, with lunch baskets and camp-chairs, ran after
+him and watched the performance.
+
+"What's that for?" asked a young woman.
+
+"That tells the time of day," answered her escort.
+
+"But it's after 12 o'clock by my watch and he struck it only eight
+times."
+
+"Well, they--ah--they have a system of their own. It's very
+complicated."
+
+"Look at that crooked thing there," said one of the visitors, pointing
+to the air-tube leading to the stoker. "Is that their foghorn I've heerd
+about?"
+
+"They don't need no foghorns on warships. I jedge it's a shootin'-iron
+of some kind or other, maybe a gattlin' gun what jest blows the shot
+out. You see it's pointin' out like at an enemy."
+
+An elderly woman stepped up to the Lieutenant and said: "I'd like mighty
+well to see some of the Gatling guns."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, you will find them at the foretop."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"At the turret in the fore-top."
+
+[Illustration: "MAYBE ITS A FOG HORN, OR A GATLING GUN."]
+
+"Do you mean up in the little round cupola?"
+
+"Cupola, great heavens," murmured the officer under his breath. Then he
+called a marine and had him show the woman to the fore-top. It is the
+experience of a lifetime for a naval officer who has cruised in the
+Mediterranean and rocked over the high waves of the south Atlantic to be
+placed in command of a brick battleship, which rests peacefully
+alongside a little pier and is boarded by hundreds of reckless
+sight-seers every day. The conning towers are of sheet-iron and some of
+the formidable guns are simply painted wood. It is said that if anything
+larger than a six-inch gun should be fired from the deck of the mimic
+battleship the recoil would upset the masonry and jolt the whole
+structure into a shapeless mass.
+
+Below the water line the Illinois is a hollow mockery, but the two
+decks, the turrets and the heavy battery are made so realistic that any
+one who had not seen the brick laid and the plating put on might suppose
+it was a real war vessel that had stranded well in toward the beach. As
+a matter of fact, about one-third of the visitors are deceived, which
+fact may be vouched for by any one of the marines parading the deck. A
+man who looked as though he read the newspapers, called a sergeant of
+marines "Cap," and remarked that it was a very fine vessel.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir," replied the sergeant.
+
+"She'll be here all summer, will she?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Did this boat take part in the review at New York?"
+
+"No, sir; this battleship is stuck fast here. It is a shell of brick,
+built up from a stone foundation, and is intended to represent a model
+battleship."
+
+"You don't tell me. Made of brick, eh?" Uncle, listening to the talk,
+shared the countryman's disgust.
+
+"There, Fanny, how do you excuse them for that piece of mockery?
+Everybody getting fooled as if they were in a cheap dime show. It's too
+bad the government should be a partner to sich deceptions. And then just
+hear them fellows making fun o' the likes o' us. It's a shame. Of course
+we hev to ask questions when they use all the art in the world to make
+deceiving things and then make fun if they do such good work as to fool
+us. We don't know any more about their work than they do about our
+farm. I guess they couldn't tell a Jersey from a short-horn, nor a
+header from a clover-huller."
+
+One of the sailors was telling of the questions asked by the public.
+Some person asked him if the gulls flying around the ship were
+sea-gulls, and whether they had been brought on especially for the Fair.
+Another asked why the guns were plugged up at the end with pieces of
+wood. A marine said the plugs of wood made them air-tight, so that they
+wouldn't sink if they fell overboard. Maybe the man believed it. He
+didn't say anything.
+
+From sight-seeing at the ship they came over to the Fisheries building.
+
+The throng of visitors here at first detracted their sight from the wall
+of fish and wonders of the sea around them.
+
+"Oh," said Aunt when she looked about, "I nearly have to gasp to make
+sure I'm not at the bottom of the sea. Just look at them fish swimming
+around on both sides of you."
+
+"Well I feel sorry for these poor fish, they look so tired," said Fanny,
+"but it's very evident they can't keep lively all the time."
+
+One of the big scaly-backed tarpons in the fountain was fanning his tail
+and moving slowly through the water. On the railing at the edge of the
+pool sat a tired man with a baby hanging over his arm. If the tarpon had
+stuck his nose out of the water he could have grabbed the man by the
+coat-tail and pulled him backward. The mother was standing a few feet
+away. She turned around and saw two beady eyes shining up through the
+water.
+
+"Hold tight to that child," she said. "If you ever drop him that big
+pike would gobble him right up."
+
+"He don't eat babies," replied the husband, calmly. "Besides, it ain't a
+pike; it's a sturgeon."
+
+"Well, he looks awful mean, anyway." The husband, merely to reassure
+her, moved a few feet further along and let the baby lie over his
+shoulder and watch the little fish chase one another. The aisles were
+crowded full of people, who had found that a visit to the east end of
+the Fisheries building was almost as good as a dive to the bottom of the
+ocean.
+
+It is in this place where you may stand with coral reefs and ring-tailed
+shells on either side and watch strange fish with spikes on their backs
+open their mouths and gape until each one looks like the letter O. The
+sea turtles stand on their heads and wave yellow flippers at the
+wide-eyed crowd, and a devil crab makes all the women shiver and pull
+the children away from the glass. In one aquarium there are so many
+catfish that they make the water cloudy.
+
+In front of one of the cases there was a learned discussion. The label
+simply said "Anemone." On the rocks and shells were some things shaped
+like stars and mushrooms, except that they were moss-colored and had
+whiskers floating out in the water. "Annymone, what the dickens are
+they?" asked a man with a linen duster.
+
+"Some kind of sea-weed, I believe," said an elderly gentleman in a
+patronizing manner.
+
+"No, they ain't they're animals, broke in a third.
+
+"But, sir, they are stuck fast there and can't move," said the elderly
+gentleman.
+
+"I know that but they reach out with those whiskers and grab stuff and
+feed themselves that way."
+
+"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of anything feedin' itself
+with its whiskers."
+
+One of the young women looked at the sheepshead aquarium and murmured:
+"What long bills they have." Her escort smiled in a knowing way and
+said: "That is not a bill; that is a proboscis, I believe. I wish I had
+a hook and line."
+
+A Columbian guard said he was tired of hearing the same old jokes, for
+nearly every young man who came in with a girl said: "When I come back
+here I'll bring a hook and line."
+
+They finished the day here, and wearied with the noise and tumult of the
+streets were glad to find rest in their rooms when evening came.
+
+[Illustration: "NEXT TIME I'LL BRING A HOOK AND LINE."]
+
+The sweetness of this rural family was nowhere better to be seen than
+when they were resting at home in the evening after the fatiguing
+experiences of the day.
+
+"Grandpa," said Fanny, when they were comfortably at rest, "I can't help
+but get angry at the women as I walk about, for I do see them do so much
+foolishness. Why, to-day I saw one crazy for souvenirs, and I believe
+she thought everything was a souvenir. I saw her pick up a nail and put
+it into her handbag, and when she came up to the Pennsylvania coal
+monument in the Mining building, she commenced putting pieces of the
+coal in her pocket. Then one of the working men played really a mean
+joke on her. He came up with a lump as big as a water bucket. Then he
+asked her if she wouldn't like to have that to remember the Fair by. And
+what do you think, she just said she thought he was very kind, but she
+didn't believe she could take it, for it was so big. But she would like
+awfully to have it. I saw the man shut one eye and say to the other man
+that the woman was crazy, because it was just the same kind of coal that
+she put into the stove every day at home."
+
+"Now the only thing I've got to grumble about," said Uncle, "is what's
+models and what's facts. There is no use of scaring people to death with
+things that ain't so. Now over in the Government building I saw some hop
+plant lice that was not less than a foot long; there was a potato bug
+nine inches long, and there was a chinch bug two feet long, for I out
+with my rule and measured it. When I seen them I said, the Lord help the
+people who live where them things do, and then some city folks laughed
+at me, when at last Fanny came along and said they was models. Then we
+went into another room and there was soldiers from everywhere and army
+things that made me believe I was back again with Sherman, but there
+again they were wax, excepting the wagons and guns. I went up to one of
+the officers when I fust come in and I says, says I, "Are you regular
+army folks or Illinois militia?" and he didn't answer, and I turned to
+one of the privates and I asked why there was so many of them bunched
+together, then I seed some folks a laughing at me and I slunk away. I
+say the government is in poor business when it makes sport of its own
+defenders."
+
+[Illustration: "A souvenir for her."]
+
+"Over there in the Transportation building I seen what it said was the
+boat Columbus sailed in; but after all, Fanny said it was a model. Right
+close to it was the boat what Grace Darling rowed out into the storming
+sea and saved so many lives. I thought it was a model, but Fanny said it
+was the very boat she used. I jest thought ef that was really the boat,
+we could all be sure that Grace Darling didn't stand o' Sunday mornins
+afore the glass a paintin' and a powderin'." He was getting himself
+worked up to the belief that he was a very much abused old soldier, when
+Fanny said:
+
+"Grandpa, I have just cut a splendid piece of poetry out of the paper
+about the Fair. The man who wrote it don't live far from us, for his
+address says at the bottom, 'Mr. Matthews, from Effingham County,' and
+I'm going to keep it in my scrap-book. Let me read it to you:
+
+
+_The City of the Workers of the World_
+
+THE BUILDING OF IT
+
+  In a wilderness of wonders they are piling up the stores
+  Gathered by the hands of labor on a hundred happy shores;
+  In a palpitating plexus of white palaces they heap
+  The marvels of the earth and air--the treasures of the deep;
+  They have reached their restless fingers in the pockets of the past,
+  And robbed the sleeping miser of the wealth he had amassed--
+  To the festival of nations--to the tournament of toil,
+  They have garnered in the offerings of every sun and soil;
+  They have levied on the genius of the age, and it replies
+  Full handed, with the blessed light of heaven in its eyes;
+  In honor of old Spain they have taxed the brawn and brain
+  Of a planet, for the glory of that Master of the Main,
+  Whose fortitude is written on each flag that is unfurled
+  Above the great white city of the world.
+
+THE MEETING OF THE NATIONS
+
+  They are climbing over mountains, they are sailing over seas,
+  From the artics, from the tropics, from the dim antipodes;
+  In the steamship, in the warship, under banners loved the best,
+  They are laughing up the waters from the east and from the west:
+  From the courts of Andalusia, from the castles of the Rhone,
+  To the meeting of the brotherhood of nations they are blown;
+  From the kraals beside the Congo, from the harems of the Nile,
+  They are thronging to the occident in never-ending file;
+  From the farthest crags of Asia, from the continents of snow,
+  The long-converging rivers of mankind begin to flow;
+  In the twilight of the century, its wars forever past,
+  The nations of the universe are clasping hands at last
+  By Columbia's inland waters, where in beauty lies impearled
+  The imperial white city of the workers of the world.
+
+THE PASSING OF THE PAGEANT
+
+  When the roses of the summer burn to ashes in the sun,
+  When the feast of love is finished, and the heart is overrun;
+  When the hungry soul is sated and the tongue at last denies
+  Expression to the wonders that are wearing out the eyes,
+  Then the splendor it will wane like a dream that haunts the brain,
+  Or the swift dissolving beauty of the bow above the rain;
+  And the summer domes of pleasure that bubble up the sky
+  Will tumble into legends in the twinkling of an eye;
+  But the art of man endureth, and the heart of man will glow
+  With reanimated ardor as the ages come and go.
+  The pageants of the present are but pledges of a time
+  When strifes shall be forgotten in a cycle more sublime
+  When the fancies of the future into golden wreaths are curled
+  O'er the dim, remembered city of the workers of the world.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER VIII_
+
+LA RABIDA
+
+
+It was a warm summer day, and rolling chairs, launches and gondolas were
+in great demand. At Fanny's suggestion they decided to take an electric
+launch and go around to La Rabida, where the relics of Columbus were
+kept. She accosted one of the guards who attends to the moorings by
+asking how near the launch would take them to La Rabida.
+
+"La-Ra-La what? I don't think I know what that is," said the guide.
+
+"La Rabida is the convent--the Columbus relics are there. Columbus was
+the man who discovered America," Aunt volunteered to tell him.
+
+"Oh, yes; I have heard of Columbus, of course, but I haven't been here
+very long."
+
+"Well, the convent is over at the lake end of the Agricultural building.
+Do the launches go there?"
+
+"The Agricultural building? Let me see; that is over----"
+
+"Do you know where the colonnade is?"
+
+"No. I don't."
+
+"Ever hear of the grand basin, the gold statue, the lagoon?"
+
+"Oh, yes; this is the lagoon."
+
+"Well, how long will it be before a launch will come along?"
+
+[Illustration: "BEFORE THEM WAS THE STRANGE OLD CONVENT."]
+
+He went out to the edge of the landing and looked up the lagoon. Then he
+jerked out, "in three-quarters of a minute." He was provoked about
+something. It may have been because she wanted to know so much; it may
+have been for a latent discovery of a lack of knowledge on his part, or
+it may have been because Fanny had been laughing at something; Fanny
+laughs easily. She is just as likely to laugh where she ought to cry;
+the electric guard didn't see anything to laugh at. They sat down on a
+pile of lumber to wait the three-quarters of a minute. It was
+three-quarters, and several more. The guard said the warm weather had
+come unexpectedly. They would have the whole fifty-two launches running
+soon. But only about half the number had been necessary until now, and
+they were very busy and could not keep up the time. One came soon after
+that. As they were stepping in Fanny asked how much the round trips
+were. Some one said "25 cents in the Director General's schedule, but in
+the launches they are 50 cents." The captain, or the man who takes the
+money, heard him. He smiled, and charged them 25 cents apiece to La
+Rabida. Just afterward a man handed him $1 and said "Administration
+building--for two." The Administration building is considerably this
+side of La Rabida. The captain slipped the dollar into his pocket and
+passed on to the next. The woman said:
+
+"Did he keep the whole of it?"
+
+"Keep it? I should think he did. You don't get much back on these side
+experiences. I ought to have asked him how much it costs to go all the
+way."
+
+But the man made no reply. He was meditating. He evidently had not read
+the morning papers. They gave all the prices--admissions and extra
+convenience.
+
+It was with feelings of considerable curiosity, mingled with awe, that
+they approached La Rabida.
+
+Before them was the strange old building which they knew was the convent
+where Columbus had received such rest, comfort and inspiration in his
+great enterprise that opened the door to modern civilization.
+
+A number of tents were on the south of the house, and soldiers were to
+be seen standing about, with their heavy muskets, which mean nothing but
+that their lives are pledged to protect this collection, belonging to
+the Vatican and the descendants of Columbus. All the royal letters
+patent from the sovereigns of Spain to Columbus and many letters written
+by Columbus himself, are in the cases. His will is also there. The
+signature of Columbus is written in this way:
+
+  _S._
+  _S. A. S._
+  _X. N. Y._
+  _Xpo Ferens._
+
+At one end of this room is the collection of pictures loaned from the
+Vatican by Pope Leo. No one is allowed to go up the steps. One of the
+Columbian guards standing there said, in answer to one of Uncle's
+questions:
+
+"This is the altar. It is sacred and no one is allowed up there, because
+these pictures are very valuable and very small."
+
+The mention of the size in that connection meant that they could be
+carried off easily. But nothing could be carried off easily with those
+watchful "regulars" about. A contract was made by Spain with the United
+States before the collection left there that it should be guarded by a
+detachment of United States soldiers. That contract is fulfilled to the
+letter. No one is allowed even to touch the glasses of the case.
+
+There are some wonderful pictures on the wall of Musaico Filato, which
+belong to Pope Leo. They are wonderfully beautiful as pictures, without
+thought of the thousands of tiny mosaics used in making the pictures,
+and that each one was placed in by hand. Some of the other pictures are
+wonderful, too--wonderful in their hideousness. No two artists seem to
+have the same idea of the features of Columbus. There seemed to be but
+one thing that they agreed upon fully, and that was that Columbus wore
+his hair chopped off on his neck. There is a great likeness there.
+Ferdinand and Isabella looked painfully disturbed on being trotted out
+at this World's Fair, and just exactly as if they never could have
+agreed on allowing Columbus or any one else to discover us. Some of the
+pictures were not numbered, and some of them had two numbers. The young
+lady who sold catalogues said they would be all right after a while.
+
+"Say, can you tell me--is these 'ere things all Columbus' works--did 'e
+do 'em all?" asked Uncle.
+
+"No, it is the history of his life."
+
+"Didn't he do any of 'em?"
+
+When the young lady shook her head, Uncle walked away, disappointed. He
+knew just what it was to dig and toll down on his farm, and he could
+gauge greatness only by labor. And if Columbus did not do any of it,
+paint any of the pictures, or build the convent, he could not understand
+what had made them go to so much expense to build the old convent when a
+good picture for a few dollars would serve just as well.
+
+After going through the narrow entrance of La Rabida they found little
+dark rooms with pictures and maps and charts of Columbus and Isabel in
+many different forms. In the southwest room they found a table and doors
+and bricks and the key from the house of Columbus. In the case among the
+many sacred relics was a locket said to contain some of the dust of that
+great man. They saw the Lotto portrait which was used on the souvenir
+half dollars. There were the Indian idols which Columbus brought to
+Isabel, one of the canoes in which the Indians came out to meet him, and
+even one of the bolts to which Columbus was chained. Each one of the
+party were continually discovering the most wonderful things. Fanny
+found an autograph letter of the great Cortez and she wrote in her note
+book from the book of Waltzeemuller where he said, "Americus has
+discovered a fourth part more of the world and Europe and Asia are named
+for women this country ought to be called America or land of Americus
+because he has an acute intellect."
+
+While she was writing this an old gentleman came up to her and said,
+"Say, Miss, I want to see the remains of Columbus, I heard they are here
+with a soldier on each side of his body."
+
+Fanny pointed to the place where the locket was but he was disappointed
+and did not care to go "just to see a pinch of dust in a locket."
+
+Aunt was sitting on her camp stool in the room where the table of
+Columbus was, but to get a nearer view of something she left it for a
+moment. Just then a family of man and wife with five children came in
+and found that they were standing at the table and by the door of
+Columbus. The woman saw the chair and supposing it to be a part of the
+Columbus furniture sat down in it. Then she arose and called her
+husband. "Henry come here and set in this chair. Thank God I've set
+where Columbus set." The husband sat in it awhile and then each one of
+the children time about, while Aunt Sarah waited patiently for them to
+get through, not wanting to break the pleasure of their great
+achievement.
+
+[Illustration: "THANK GOD I'VE SET WHERE COLUMBUS SET."]
+
+Tired of further sight seeing, our family decided to leave the grounds,
+and started on their homeward journey with over two hours ahead of them.
+There was no use walking through streets when they could pass nearly
+the whole distance through buildings. This was one of the ways to
+economize on travel and time.
+
+Across the bridge from La Rabida was the great archway entrance of the
+Agricultural hall. Around the old convent with its low-browed walls ran
+a width of fresh dirt at intervals over which were stuck the ancient
+signs, "Keep off the grass," but no grass was yet visible.
+
+"That's what I don't like about this White City. So much of it is so,
+and so much of it ain't so that I never can tell what is so," said
+Uncle.
+
+In the Agricultural hall there were never ending wonders for the farmer.
+All the agricultural ingenuity of the earth was centered here.
+
+"Now, come on, father, we can see plows and lawn mowers when we get
+home."
+
+But Uncle lingered longingly over a new device for lacerating the soil
+and destroying its noxious productions. Uncle and Aunt had ceased their
+usual exclamations after the first two or three days. In the first place
+exclamations, such as the good deacon would use, were entirely
+inadequate, and in the second place the cords of utterance had become
+exhausted.
+
+"Well, ef they haint gone and got some dog fennel here. I wonder where
+the cuckle-burrs are, and the tick-seed, and the jimson weeds and the
+puff-balls. It's a mean discrimination to bring one of the nuisances
+without bringing them all."
+
+They went through and out over the bridge of the south canal, on past
+the bandstand to the Administration building.
+
+"What inspiring music," said Fanny. "It is hard to tell whether our eyes
+or our ears can bring us the most joy. Surely I can live to be a better
+woman now every day of my life."
+
+As they entered the Administration building they saw a man in the center
+of the court looking up through the building at the great dome which
+seemed to pierce the sky. He leaned farther and farther back until he
+fell backwards and lay there on his back still gazing intently upward. A
+number of people rushed up to him horror stricken, as if he had just
+fallen from the top of the dome and they expected to see him a crushed
+mass. As they began to close up around him he yelled out: "O you get
+away you fool people, you don't know what a fine view I'm a getting of
+the top."
+
+[Illustration: "HIS HALF-DOLLAR ENTRANCE FEE GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO SEE
+THE DOME FROM THE MOST ADVANTAGEOUS POSITION."]
+
+But one of the Columbian guards seemed to think that was not the legal
+way to view the dizzy heights of the building and forthwith jerked him
+to his feet and ushered him to the outside. The last seen of the man he
+was muttering, "Them fool builders put them picters clear up at the top
+and then the fool guards wont let a fellow enjoy them."
+
+He evidently believed he had been treated outrageously in a free country
+by an autocratic guard, and that his fifty cents entrance fee entitled
+him to view any object in any position of vantage.
+
+They went on into the Mines building where the sparkling ores of a
+thousand mines were in piles and pyramids or wrought into colonnades,
+facades and burnished domes. There were dazzling diamonds and beautiful
+opals, emeralds and gems from all parts of the earth; Michigan's copper
+globe, North Carolina's pavilion of mica designs, Montana's famous Rehan
+statue of solid silver resting on a plinth of gold, Arizona's old
+Spanish arastra and New Mexico's mining cabin.
+
+From a northwest doorway they passed on out of this world of
+subterranean wonders across the street into the Transportation building.
+
+"I don't believe these things are used anywhere," said Johnny. "They're
+like the four-legged woman--just made for show. Father, you can't expect
+me to ride in no common farm wagon after bringin' me to see this."
+
+"These cars do represent awful improvement in three generations," said
+Uncle. "Now, it is supposed that when I was a boy I rode in that 'Flyer'
+there, or on the one they call 'Rocket;' but I didn't, 'cause I never
+seed a train till I was past twenty. Fanny would be supposed to ride up
+there in that gay three-story palace on wheels, and Johnny will get to
+ride a hundred and fifty miles an hour on that 'lectric railroad; but a
+common cattle car is fast enough for me. I don't know what the world's a
+comin' to when people rides a hundred and fifty miles an hour and choose
+to sleep fourteen stories high."
+
+They had wandered around the locomotive section, and on their way
+curiously viewed the famous "John Bull," the oldest locomotive in
+America. Near by some workingmen throwing a pile of dirt into a cart,
+caught Uncle's eye.
+
+"Well, look at them fellers. Ef my farm hands was to work that way I'd
+not get enough corn to feed my Jerseys a month."
+
+[Illustration: "A FIGHT, A FIGHT!"]
+
+He was quite disgusted with their slow and listless movements. They
+returned down another aisle and came out in front of the magnificent
+doorway of the building. They were just behind two elegantly dressed
+ladies, who were looking up at the decorations.
+
+"Well, upon me wohd, do obswerve that dohway. How intwesting. I am
+shuah it seems to me to be pewfectly supub. It is so lovie, so sreet."
+
+"O Grandpa," said Johnny, "do tell me what language they are talking."
+
+"I don't know, Johnny; ask Fanny."
+
+John's attention was here caught by the loud arguments of some
+gondoliers at the landing near by, and he ran down to see the fight he
+was sanguine enough to believe was about to take place.
+
+They made noise enough to be sure but perhaps this was their way of
+attracting attention. There were at least a dozen excited foreigners
+gesticulating over some exciting topic. Evidently some foreigner had
+been riding and he thought the fare was too high. Noise and genteel
+swearing were the chief argument.
+
+  They swore in German, French and Russian;
+  In Greek, Italian, Spanish, Prussian;
+  In Turkish, Swedish, Japanese--
+  You never heard such oaths as these.
+  They scolded, railed and imprecated,
+  Abased, defied and execrated;
+  With malediction, ban and curse
+  They simply went from bad to worse;
+  Carramba! O, bismillah! Sacre!
+  (And ones than which these aren't a marker.)
+  The very air with curses quivered
+  As each his favorite oath delivered;
+  A moment's pause for breath, and then
+  Each buckled up and cursed again.
+
+But the storm ceased as quickly as it had begun and in a minute they
+were all as complacent and jolly as children.
+
+Fanny read aloud to her grandfather the words over the archway:
+
+"There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a
+fertile soil, busy workshops, and easy conveyance for men and goods from
+place to place."
+
+"Grandpa, Bacon wrote that and he lived in the time of Shakespeare, when
+Elizabeth was Queen of England."
+
+"Yes, yes, child, it's a great prophesy of our greatness. I thought
+before I came here that the soil done about all of it and what little
+was not done by the soil was done by the workshop but I see that there
+is just as much necessity and greatness outside of these things."
+
+"Grandpa, let me read what is on the right side of the doorway: "Of all
+inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those
+inventions which abridge distance have done most for civilization." That
+was Macaulay, the great essayist and historian of England. I wish I had
+known he said that, for last month we debated in our literary society
+the question: "Resolved. That bullets have done more for the spread of
+civilization than books.""
+
+It is rather an amusing thing to note how the exposition affects
+different people. Some of the visitors are of a type which nothing
+moves. They have lived all their lives in the pursuit of a placid
+routine of simple duties, and, while they have come to the fair from a
+sense of duty and fully intend to see all that may be seen, still they
+are prone to retire on occasion to some quiet corner where they can rest
+unobserved, and then their talk invariably drops into some simple,
+natural channel that is in accord with the tenor of their dally lives.
+Of course this is tinctured more or less with the unaccustomed sights
+and sounds about them, but not greatly so; for the most part they simply
+ignore their surroundings.
+
+In strong contrast are the ones who have obviously got themselves up
+expressly for the fair regardless of expense; their clothes are new, and
+are chiefly noticeable for the quality which Stevenson refers to as "a
+kind of mercantile brilliancy." They are nearly as much occupied in
+allowing others the inestimable pleasure of gazing at them as they are
+in improving their own minds. They are visitors, pure and simple, and
+they are characterized by such an air of newness that even the flies
+avoid them for fear of sticking to the varnish.
+
+There is the girl with the notebook, a schoolmarm presumably, though
+heaven only knows, she may be a lecturer. She usually numbers glasses
+and a dark velvet bag among her accoutrements.
+
+She is possessed of all of the catalogues and guide books sold on the
+grounds, and in the bag is a further supply of heavier literature for
+the improvement of her idle moments. It would puzzle anybody to find out
+when these idle moments occur, for when visible she is engaged in a
+frantic rush from place to place, pausing only for a moment to ask a
+question or jot down an impression, sometimes doing both at once without
+even looking at the dispenser of information.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+She must have a miscellaneous mind, this girl, for anything seems to go
+with her from pig iron to poetry. One of her stopped for an instant in
+the Electricity building to inquire the name of a queer, compact,
+powerful looking machine. The impression which she received from the
+laconic attendant in charge went into her notebook in this form:
+
+     Multiple intensifier is round and black; looks powerful; attendant
+     says 360 horse power. Mem., look up multiple intensifiers in
+     Century dictionary on return, and find how they are applied to
+     horses.
+
+The machine in question was a dynamo, but perhaps she will never know.
+
+In the Japanese section of the Manufactures building two dear little old
+women sat down to rest their tired feet in the midst of a bewildering
+display of pottery, whose brilliant tints contrasted strongly with the
+rusty crape and bombazine in which they were dressed.
+
+"I don't see," said one of them, "the use of sending missionaries to
+Japan. I suppose they do worship all them things, but, even if they do,
+I think that if they had as much pretty china to home as they've got
+here, I'd be inclined to worship it myself. I just don't see how they
+can help doing it. Do you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said the other. "It seems almost what you could expect. I
+don't believe they are so very bad after all. I can't believe that
+anyone who could make such lovely things could be a very wicked heathen.
+I should think the Japanese would almost feel like sending missionaries
+over here."
+
+But Fanny was of a different type, she realized the sublime display of
+mind and she grew months in the excellence of womanhood every hour of
+her enthronement in the soul of this great panorama of intellect and
+labor. Aunt was silently seeing everything like the great dream that it
+was but Uncle was storing his mind with facts whereby he could confound
+his neighbors.
+
+"It really seems strange to me," said Fanny, "to see how some of these
+people take the Fair for a circus. If the band played all the time they
+would never get a chance to look inside the buildings. The moment they
+get within earshot of the tuba horns they anchor themselves to benches
+or camp-stools and watch the leader swish the air with his baton. After
+the music stops they will begin hunting for more excitement, and may
+finally wander in among the pictures and admire some battle scene
+covering a whole wall. To-day I saw a young man and his girl standing
+before that wonderful statuary from the Trocadero palace looking the
+goddess in the eye while both were eating peanuts. They are after
+nothing but a good time, as at a country fair. I believe it is all
+because they don't understand what they are looking at. Grandpa, I can
+finish my education now and know how to bless you for your goodness to
+me. I am just beginning to see what a great privilege it is to live."
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER IX_
+
+THE PLAISANCE PROPHECY
+
+
+Fanny had made the acquaintance of one of the ladies in charge of the
+educational exhibit of one of the states, and who occupied rooms on the
+grounds. This lady made arrangements for Fanny to remain over night with
+her and view a sunrise on the lake and over the "White City." It was to
+be an experience well in keeping with her emotional nature.
+
+The morning came, and the two placed themselves where they could see
+through the columns of the peristyle across the lake in the direction of
+the sun. They were sitting on their camp stools on the bridge east of
+the statue in the basin with their cloaks drawn tightly around them,
+waiting in awe as they saw the suffusions of color spread upward into
+the grey sky.
+
+Suddenly there is a flash of fire far out on the lake. The last pink
+curtain of mist rolled slowly away light and fleecy as cotton wool, and
+the sun, behind this lazy apparel of his rising, spreads a crimson glow
+over the sky and lake. Miles it comes across the rippling waves,
+stealing through each arch and pillared opening of the peristyle,
+creeping over the motionless waters of the basin and bringing brightness
+everywhere.
+
+Slowly the great ball of fire rises higher. Now it flashes upon the
+statue of liberty, now on Diana, aiming her arrow down into the laughing
+waters. Under its rays the winged angels on the spires of the palace of
+mechanic arts seem to start into life, as if they had but paused for an
+instant in their flight toward the land of dawning.
+
+Now the statues of the seasons, flanking the four corners of the
+Agricultural building, greet the day. Columbus, his face ever toward the
+west, rides onward with the sun in his triumphal car. He looks down on
+the work wrought out to his glory and honor, but his journey is westward
+still, out of the sunlight into the gloom. Against the dark western sky
+hangs the majestic dome of the Administration building, now a blaze of
+ivory and gold.
+
+The sun lifts slowly out of the water. Its rays shine white and clear.
+The tired guards lean wearily over the parapets of the canals, throwing
+bread to hungry swans. Flocks of seabirds sweep up and down the canals
+like the first flurries of autumn snow. The water fowl greet the day
+with joyous clamor, adding a quaint, rural touch, almost startling in
+this city of silent palaces. They splash about the wooded island,
+screaming lustily when boys come in skiffs to steal their eggs. Swallows
+and frowsy little sparrows flit from their nests, built in the very
+hands of the golden goddess of Liberty.
+
+From the roofs of every building there is a sudden flash of color. A
+thousand flags float in the morning breeze. Ten thousand workmen hurry
+through the sunny park.
+
+The mystical city of dreamland is again the workshop of the world.
+
+Three hours later our family were together in the art gallery glancing
+at the famous paintings and statues which the nations had given to show
+what subtle art can achieve on canvas and stone.
+
+Aunt said she always knew those French people were the most shocking
+people in the world. How different their section of paintings from those
+of the United States. Fanny had no time for any thought outside of the
+overwhelming beauty of all she saw. She had begun to paint a little and
+to do some molding, and she knew how to appreciate the marvelous skill
+before her. She saw very few people who saw anything in them but a
+show. Uncle was positively disgusted, and went through only as if it was
+his duty to see everything. But among the statuary he found some things
+of more interest.
+
+"Why, Grandpa, how solemn you look. Now, I can't feel solemn at this
+piece of statuary. Let's see what is its name. Here it is--'The Struggle
+for Bread.' That makes it more interesting. The people are starving and
+the factories can give work only to a few. Every day they throw out
+tickets from the windows, and whoever brings a ticket to the office
+window is employed. Look at that strong young man. He has secured one
+and the old man is pleading for it, and the woman with her little child
+has been knocked down in the struggle of the people for the ticket."
+
+"Yes, yes, child, you can appreciate only the romance and sentiment of
+it. You have never struggled in despair for bread, and may God keep you!
+but Sarah and me have seen many sad, weary days of struggles to live."
+
+Johnny had little care for the sentiment or the romance. He was much
+amused, but it was a dull place for him. At last a thought struck him.
+He struggled with it several minutes in a very deep study before he
+ventured to reveal his perplexity. At last it became too great to be
+borne longer.
+
+"Say, Grandpa, I kin see why the sculpture can't sculpture clothes on
+their folks; but I don't see why the painters can't paint their folks up
+some more decent."
+
+That same thing puzzled Uncle, and he could not answer. He thought a
+great deal, but he only muttered something about pictures not fit to be
+stuck on his horse-lot gate posts.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock when Fanny and Aunt found Uncle and Johnny
+sitting disconsolately on the steps of the south entrance awaiting their
+appearance.
+
+John was patriotic and he wanted to see the liberty bell over in the
+Pennsylvania building. A great crowd was gathering as they came up and
+Johnny found out that the interest came from the fact that the Duke of
+Varagua, the representative of Spain at the Fair and the descended of
+Columbus, was visiting the bell. It was a sight to awaken memory for the
+representative of the fifteenth century discovery to be paying respects
+to the representative of nineteenth century liberty.
+
+[Illustration: "NOT FIT TO STICK ON OUR HORSE-LOT GATE POST."]
+
+City folks were not there alone. Many country people were enjoying the
+pulses of freedom, liberty and patriotism. An honest looking plow boy
+standing near Fanny asked his father what he thought of the "Dook," a
+real live "Dook."
+
+"I think the dook ort to be proud of hevin' been kin to Columbus, but
+I'll be blamed ef I don't think Columbus would be proud too, if he wuz
+yer, and could tech hands 'ith his forty-eleventh grandson. It takes a
+purty good man to stand all the honors levished 'pon him that the dook's
+a-gittin' 'ithout his head a-bein' turned, an' I jes' say good fur the
+dook."
+
+"It's all right to hev smart kin folks afore you, but it takes lots o'
+hustlin' in these days an' lots o' hard work in order to stand fust; an
+I vote the dook is a fine represen'tive o' his Columbus grandfather. Now
+lets git closer to the old lib'ty bell."
+
+As the rural philosopher looked upon the bell hanging there in the
+Pennsylvania State building he said, unconscious of the crowd around
+him:
+
+"When thet bell kep' a ringin' out lib'ty, the folks thet wuz they
+didn't know thet in a little mor'n a hundred years the hull world would
+be a bowin' to thet bell; an' they never hed no idee it would be carried
+away out yere in a place called Chicago, covered over 'ith flowers an'
+gyarded by perlice to keep folks from a techin' it, a fearin' harm might
+cume to it--an' it a standin' as a symbol o' great faith an' courage.
+I'm powerful glad I kin stand yere to-day with my fam'ly and look at
+thet bell. I jes' wisht they'd let it ring onct."
+
+But there were others too ignorant or stupid to be patriotic before such
+a scene.
+
+John became indignant, almost to the fighting point, at the amazing
+stupidity of some of the remarks concerning the bell. To him it was more
+than an emblem, it was a hero.
+
+He heard comments which are past belief. Of course, there are patriots
+who approach with reverence and understanding and who are only
+restrained by the police from chipping off pieces of the bell, but many
+enter and gaze and depart in bland ignorance.
+
+"By jinks! but that's an old feller," exclaimed one inspired ignoramus.
+"Wonder where it came from." Another, a stout, prosperous,
+business-looking party, observed that it was cracked. "Reckon that was
+done bringing it here," he said. "The railroads are fearful careless
+about handling freight."
+
+Still another intelligent communicator, and it seemed as if nothing
+short of positive inspiration could justify his views, spoke of the bell
+slightingly as a poor exhibit, and wondered what the Pittsburg foundries
+meant by sending such stuff to an international exhibition.
+
+It was now noon lunch time, and our happy family went over to a table in
+one of the cafes. At one o'clock Uncle and Aunt were to occupy rolling
+chairs in spending the afternoon sight-seeing around Midway Plaisance.
+They had heard a great deal about the sights there, and concluded it
+best to see the outside first and prepare a campaign of sight-seeing
+based on information received from the chair pushers.
+
+Across the table from them sat a man eating his meal in a fatigued sort
+of way that caught their attention.
+
+"Good evening, Colonel," said a gentleman, coming up to him. The colonel
+was not himself, that was plain. His eyes looked dreamy, and he had the
+appearance of a man who was under the influence of some strong and very
+pleasurable excitement. When the friend saluted him he did not reply
+with marked courtesy. He did not even look at him. He continued to gaze
+unmeaningly at his plate, and to murmur "Irene-te-raddle, fol de-rol.
+I'll niver go there anny more."
+
+"What's the matter with you?" asked the gentleman, testily.
+
+"Well, sir, it do beat the dickens," said the colonel, irreverently,
+"I've lived a long toime an' seen manny a queer soight in circuses an'
+dime musooms an' hanky-panky shows, but niver till to-day--oh! Naha-a,
+it's a bright eyes an'--a bonny locks--" here the colonel began to thrum
+the table.
+
+The friend came over impatiently and shook his fist under the colonel's
+nose.
+
+"You weak-minded old gazabo, is it to hear ye singin' topical songs thot
+Oi came down from Archery road? What ails ye?"
+
+The colonel remarked easily: "Don't git gay, George; don't git gay.
+Because Oi chuse to sing a little is no reason why ye should take
+liberties." Then he went on, half-musing: "Oi don't give annything for
+the Fair itsilf. O'Connor tuk me in there first, but what do Oi ca-are
+for show cases full uv dhried prunes, ould r-rocks an' silk
+handkerchers? I was f'r goin' over to see Buffalo Willie shootin' Injuns
+an' rescuin' Annie Oakley frum the red divvels, but O'Connor sez: 'No,'
+he sez, 'come on an' see the Midway,' he sez. 'So over we goes to the
+Midway, an', George, Oi haven't been well since. There'll be a trolley
+in me hed to me dhyin' dhay, there will, there will. We had no more than
+got in the strate when a nigger in a mother Hubbard comes up an' sez:
+'Little mon.'
+
+"'Yis,' sez I, 'an' dom ye little mon till ye do go home an' put on
+ye're pants, ye bould thing.'
+
+"'Hugh-h!' sez O'Connor; 'that's a Turk.'
+
+"'Thin there's a pair of us,' I sez; 'let's go.'
+
+"'Well,' he sez, 'come into the Turkish village.'
+
+"'An' see more niggers? I'll not,' I sez.
+
+"'Will you go to the Irish village, thin?'
+
+"'No,' I sez, 'aint I seen you?'
+
+"'Well, where will you go?'
+
+"'If you know a place where they keep beer,' I sez, 'I'm convenient.'
+
+[Illustration: "Dom ye, little mon," says I, "Till ye do go home an' put
+on yer pants."]
+
+"He shoots me into a hole in the ground. George, ye should a seen it! At
+one table sat a lot of black fellows with red towels around their heads
+an' knives stickin' out of their yellow cloaks. At another table was
+half-a-dozen gurrls with earrings as big as barrelhoops in their ears.
+
+"'Come on back,' sez O'Connor.
+
+"'No,' I sez, 'this is good enough for a poor man,' an' we sat down at
+the next table to th' gurrls. Well, sir, from that time my mind's a
+blank. I was like the feller in the story-books. I knew no more. I dunno
+what happened at all, at all, with dancin' gurrls an' snake cha-armers
+an' Boolgarian club swingers an' foreign men goin' around with their
+legs in mattesses. All I know is this, that I was carried to a ca-ar in
+a seedin' chair by two men with room enough in the seat of their pants
+to dhrive a street sweeper. Did y'r never ride in a seedin' chair,
+George? Then, faith, ye're not in my class. Fol-der-rol, de-rol de
+raddle, fol----"
+
+"An' what did ye do with O'Connor?"
+
+"How do I know? The last time I remimber him he was askin' a girl in the
+Turkish theayter whether she liked vanilla or rawsburry in her soda
+wather, the droolin jackanapes. Ah, na-ha, the girls of Limerick
+city----." The colonel resumed his thrumming.
+
+"And is that all you see of the fair."
+
+"Yis," said the colonel, "an' faith! if you had me hed you'd think it
+was enough. An', George, to be in earnest wid ye, that I've known since
+you was a little dirty boy, go to the fair, ride around in the boats,
+luk at the canned tomatties an' the table-clothes, ride in the electric
+cars, but beware of that Midway. It'll no do for young men at all, at
+all. You'd lose your head. You would, you would. Oh, fol-de-rol, de
+raddle rol."
+
+After this amusing experience just related before them, Uncle thought it
+very advisable to give Johnny "a good talkin' to about doin' nothin'
+wrong in that heathen exhibition of furriners."
+
+But Johnny could afford to finish that Saturday walking demurely around
+with the rest, for the next Monday morning Louis, the train-boy, was to
+be guard and guide through the mysteries of Midway Plaisance.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER X_
+
+PLAISANCE SOCIETY
+
+
+When Monday morning came the family were promptly at the 60th street
+gate at nine o'clock. Johnny espied Louis with his eye over a knot hole
+that seemed designed by providence to let the hungry outsiders have a
+morsel of the Midway Plaisance scenery. Inside of the grounds Johnny
+determinedly led the way at once to the great Ferris go-round. They
+stood before it measuring their chances of living through such a
+revolution. It did not take much to persuade Fanny to accompany the
+venturesome boys; Uncle positively refused to discuss such a piece of
+folly, but Aunt decided at last that if Fanny went she must go also.
+
+Like a forbidden specter the skeleton of the Ferris Wheel stands out
+gaunt and fleshless. All around is full of light and gayety.
+
+A devout Moslem may be pardoned if, as he passes, he touches his
+forehead with three fingers of his right hand and murmurs: "Allah il
+Allah!" Some such exorcism seems to be needed to ward off the evil
+spirits that one would think must cluster around the ponderous
+structure, perching, perhaps, like the broomstick riders of Salem, on
+its spare metal ribs.
+
+They entered the car of the great wheel, and when the signal to start
+was given they found that another old lady with her dudish son were to
+be their companions in the aerial flight.
+
+The earth was dropping away. Higher and higher they went. Johnny was
+holding with a death-like grip on to the car. Fanny's whole life was
+passing before her like a procession of spectres. In a few minutes they
+had gone more than one hundred and fifty feet, and the sky seemed to be
+falling upon them.
+
+"Stop her!" shouted the dude, accompanying his words with a frantic
+waving of his hands. Higher yet they ascended and his face assumed the
+look depicted in the features of Dante's characters when about to enter
+the infernal regions.
+
+[Illustration: "HIS PLANS IN LIFE WERE INTERFERED WITH."]
+
+"Now, if the good Lord ever permits me to get back to the earth safely,"
+said the old woman, "I promise never to leave it again till I am called
+to die."
+
+They had reached the top and passed the crisis of going up. Now they
+began to fall. The sky was leaving them, and the earth was coming after
+them. They had no time to think. The coming down was worse than the
+going up. When they stepped out on the earth at the bottom of their
+descent it was with a sensation of thankfulness never experienced
+before.
+
+The wheel is 275 feet high, and requires over 500 horse power to turn
+it. The axle is the largest piece of steel ever forged, and it was a
+great triumph of engineering skill to put it in place 150 feet from the
+ground.
+
+Hagenbeck's animal show was naturally the next attraction. Some distance
+ahead of them there was quite a commotion. Johnny and his companion
+were, as usual, ahead. In another minute Johnny came running back to
+Fanny and caught her by the hand. Without a word he started forward with
+her at a rapid pace. Quite a crowd was following some strange object,
+and Johnny hurried Fanny around to the front, where she saw Mr.
+Hagenbeck coming leisurely toward them with a lion walking by his side.
+This was the object which was attracting such a large crowd of people,
+and it indeed took some courage to stand there as he came by. So
+completely did they all acknowledge the superiority of the animal that
+there was no jostling about him. The Columbian guards did not have to
+form a line--in fact, even they gave way to the distinguished walker who
+held his head high in the air and enjoyed the bright sunshine without
+deigning to look at the crowd of different races around him. He was a
+native of India, and was born to be a king, but his plans in life were
+interfered with, and the forest in which he was to have ruled was
+invaded and he was captured. For some time he had not been feeling well,
+and the proprietor determined to let the captive see the sunshine. So
+they started out together, the lion walking along as quietly as a
+spaniel. When the six lions in the cage saw their comrade out for a
+stroll they gave a chorus of roars which made the windows rattle. It was
+answered from the roadway, and six guards who stood by thought
+discretion the better part of valor, and started on a run for the
+viaduct. Mr. Hagenbeck called them back and told them it was all right,
+but they still kept a safe distance. The lion seemed to enjoy the
+outing, yet when his trainer started to come back the monarch of the
+jungle followed him.
+
+The crowd parted as the pair came toward it with more haste than grace,
+and the lion licked his companion's hand and went back to his cage. Mr.
+Hagenbeck explained that the lion is one of the largest in the world,
+and is not yet full grown. It is perfectly gentle, and at his home in
+Hamburg it is not kept in a cage, but plays in the yard with his
+children like a cat.
+
+In front of Hagenbeck's building there were assembled a motley crowd of
+people gazing into a small room over the entrance way. There were a
+number of lions jumping about at the crack of the master's whip and
+giving the people a sample show of what could be seen inside. It caught
+the crowd, for there was a rush to the ticket office when the keeper
+disappeared from among the lions.
+
+In the center of the building was a circular cage that looked like an
+old fashioned wire rat trap greatly enlarged. Into this cage the animals
+were introduced to go through with their performance.
+
+"Well for that bear to walk on that globe and roll it along beats
+anything I ever seed," said Uncle. "He's got more agility in him than I
+ever had even at my best. Johnny, you couldn't walk a log across the
+creek as well as that bear walks that pole, and just look at him walking
+backwards. If you will notice, Johnny, you will see that the trainer
+gives all that acts bad a lump of sugar and the ones that act good don't
+get nothing. That's the way of lots of things, but if you will notice
+it the good ones will live the longest."
+
+Aunt admired the dogs very much and observed that they didn't have to be
+told what to do as the others did and they were more willing and more
+grateful for attention. It was really pathetic and comical to see how
+they seemed to appreciate applause.
+
+The dwarf elephant, thirty-five inches high, was brought into the arena
+in an ordinary trunk. It complacently ate some sugar and returned to its
+quarters.
+
+When the show was over they walked up the street toward the Turkish
+village. Here a number of people were gathering around a Turkish fakir
+who was at the side of the street loudly proclaiming the merits of his
+wares and shouting out some tirade that his employer had taught him as a
+means of attracting a crowd. Johnny had seen the fellow before and he
+drew his friends up close to him so they could hear his peculiar
+harangue.
+
+"By the beard of the prophet, my heart swells to spill the souls of
+those christian dogs. I am the mighty man of the desert and they shall
+repent or die."
+
+"He, he, he," yelled Louis, "that's the feller what the kids told me
+yanked the mummy of Rameses from the holy temple and knocks out all the
+Chinamen and Arabs along the Plaisance. Look at him howl."
+
+"Oh, Jeremiah, let's get away quick. I'm 'fraid he's dangerous," said
+Aunt Sarah.
+
+"No he ain't," said Louis. "Jest watch me," and he walked up and tossed
+a copper at the orator's head and Abdul, the mighty man of the desert,
+caught it with a grin and in broken English said "tank ye."
+
+"Disturb me not, O reckless heathens," and he flipped a pebble with his
+fingers at a passing German who had just come out of the mediaeval
+castle with a tray of beer mugs on his head. The stone struck him on
+the ear. He set his tray down on a table and came over to the warlike
+Arab.
+
+"Wot ver you trow dot stein."
+
+"Move on I contend only with the strong and mighty."
+
+"Wot ver you trow dot stein," and the little waiter edged up close.
+
+[Illustration: "IT STRUCK HIM ON THE EAR."]
+
+"O mamma, I know the poor waiter will be killed, let's run away quick,"
+said Fanny.
+
+"O yer don't know nothin'," said Johnny, disgusted. "The Dutchman kin
+lick him in a minnit."
+
+[Illustration: "She sketched their heads----"]
+
+"Wut ver you trow dot stein. You tink I am a house side.
+Donnervetter! I gif you some brains alretty;" and before Abdul, son of
+Cairo, could think, the little German tripped him to the ground, and as
+he fell caught him by the hair and dragged him into the boundary lines
+of the Turkish village, slammed him on the ground, and in a few minutes
+was back among the beer tables of the castle with his tray, calling
+"peer, peer, shents! ah trei peer, two cigar, kevarter tollar!"
+
+The day had been a very fatiguing one, and Uncle and Aunt decided to
+spend the next day quietly at home in the hotel. Johnny and Louis had
+stayed manfully by the old folks all day, and their promised adventures
+had not yet occurred. The next day they were to be the guardians of
+Fanny, and they were quite proud of the duty.
+
+Fanny's note book and sketch book were now pretty well filled. Midway
+Plaisance heads and feet offered the most tempting work for her pencil.
+It is tempting enough for anyone to ask: "Where did you get that hat?"
+or "Where did you hit that shoe?" Evidently not in Chicago. Nothing of
+their kind ever graced a western city in such versatile varieties until
+the bands began to play and the world's cake-walk moved down the
+Plaisance.
+
+In former years, when they had band concerts and Sunday school picnics
+at Jackson Park the visitor saw about four kinds of masculine headwear.
+One was the gray helmet of the park policeman resting under the tree.
+Another was the tall and shining silk hat of the elderly parent. In
+addition to these were some straw hats with rims not so wide as those of
+1893, and derbys which were a trifle higher in the crown than the new
+ones. In the general description at the park the old styles of headwear
+have been crowded to the background by foreign novelties. The dicer, the
+fez, the turban, the hood, the helmet and the sun-shade are becoming
+very common. Only the stranger who comes into the gates is startled by
+the sight of a gaunt black man wrapped in a sheet and wearing coiled
+around his head enough clothing to make a good wash. But of all the
+incomprehensible varieties of headwear about the grounds from foreign
+lands, it remained for our own American Indian to outdo them all. When
+the great No Neck, of the Sioux nation, walks through the grounds with
+his war bonnet of eagle feathers trailing on the ground, the East
+Indians concede their defeat. No Neck's bonnet is worth about $400.
+
+The footwear is worse in variety, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps,
+after all, it is a matter of education rather than appearance or
+convenience. The most elaborate is the high-topped boots of the German
+cavalryman, and the least the Dahomey Amazon, who sometimes has a red
+string tied around her great toe. They come from a torrid country, and
+have been freezing nearly every day, but scorn the apparel of the weak
+white man. The Amazons refuse to wear shoes. When it is too chilly for
+them to gallop around inside the bark fence they crawl into their tents,
+roll themselves up in the black blankets and criticise the policy of the
+Exposition.
+
+On a moist day, when a Chinaman walks down the Plaisance he leaves a
+trail of oval-shaped tracks. It would take a keen judge of human nature
+to decide by looking at the tracks whether he has left home or was going
+back.
+
+[Illustration: "----And then their feet."]
+
+The Soudanese slipper is the most shiftless thing that a man ever put on
+his foot. It is simply a leather sole and toe. These represent the
+triumph of laziness. The Soudan citizen simply walks into his slipper in
+the morning and then in the evening he backs out. Every time he takes a
+step he lifts his heel away from the sole and it seems morally certain
+that he will lose the slipper, but in some way he manages to hold it. It
+is said this trick is accomplished by elevating the big toe at each
+step, thus preventing any slip. Any uncultured American who started for
+a promenade, wearing such things, would be in his stocking feet
+before he proceeded ten steps, but the men in the Cairo street tramp
+around all day and apparently do not realize that they are running any
+risk.
+
+That evening at home Fanny gave a review of her note book, wherein she
+had recorded her observations on the politeness of the different nations
+as she had witnessed them. She thought the Javanese were the politest
+people of all. They always lay their hands upon their hearts and say, "I
+am honored," when spoken to. When they failed in their ability to answer
+a question, they just smile to show their good will. The Fort Rupert
+Indians politely tell their visitor to go when they have told what is
+asked for. There is of course more kinds of etiquette in the Plaisance
+than in any other spot of its size on earth. If the visitor desired to
+be just right it would require an etiquette reference book in at least
+sixteen languages.
+
+Among the Turks there are strange habits. In greeting a stranger they
+bow very low and remain perfectly silent until spoken to. They will then
+shake hands in a genuine English fashion. One Turk calling on another
+will never sit down until the host arrives, even if he has to wait an
+hour. When the host comes in the two sit down after having exchanged
+greetings and not another word is spoken until coffee is served. The
+Syrians, on the other hand, will not turn their faces to a host before
+being spoken to. It is the proper thing when visiting one of them to
+take a seat with the back to the door and wait until the host enters and
+make no move until spoken to, when the visitor is expected to rise and
+bow.
+
+To fully understand all an Egyptian says and does is a harder task than
+deciphering the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. The language of the
+Egyptian gentleman is the most fulsome possible. If he should be in need
+of a little temporary loan he will pound the man (whom he hopes to
+confidence successfully) on the back until he can hardly breathe.
+Experts in Egyptian etiquette can tell by the pounding process what is
+coming, and when the ceremony reaches the piledriver degree it is the
+proper thing to say: "What can I do for you?"
+
+On hearing this the Egyptian will talk something like this: "Do for me?
+Why, my dear and most honored sir, your humble dog of a servant would
+not presume to ask a favor of one so great as you. I thought of calling
+on you yesterday, but it rained, and I feared that you would not be in a
+good humor and might refuse me, but then I want nothing. Who am I that a
+humble follower of Mohammed should dare to ask of you, my great lord and
+master, the very slightest favor? And yet if it had not rained yesterday
+I should have been fully inclined to ask you for temporary aid, but
+to-day I would not think of causing your highness any trouble. Why
+should I, who am so lowly, ask one for $5 for a few days. It would be an
+insult to you; one you could never forget. What, you insist on it? I am
+to take this, am I? Now really, as I was saying that one so low--but if
+you positively insist, if you are sure you will be deeply and terribly
+insulted if I do not take it--but your dog of a servant----"
+
+That settles it. Having obtained the money he marches out without a
+thank you or goodbye.
+
+The Dahomey people are the strangest of all. The first greeting of one
+amazon to the other is to slap her face. The visitor always slaps the
+hostess first, and if the visit is welcome the visitor gets a cuff on
+each cheek, and if it is not convenient to receive the visitor no slap
+is given in return.
+
+But the palm is left to the American for a whole-souled disregard of the
+feelings of others. The show was brought here for the special benefit of
+the visitor; he has paid his money, and he has the right to do as he
+pleases.
+
+If the sedan chair bearers happen to pass with some fat man for a
+passenger, the whole street is in an uproar of English comment meant to
+be humorous. Then the ordinary American visitor seems to think it his
+prerogative to point at the foreign contingent and say things aloud
+about them that would secure physical retaliation if the object of the
+remark were a citizen of the United States instead of a guest of the
+nation.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XI_
+
+A STARTLING MYSTERY
+
+
+The next day was what the boys called African day; that is, they
+intended to see all that was to be seen from Dahomey to Nubia and
+Soudan. Fanny was to spend the morning in the panoramas of the Burnese
+Alps and the volcano Kilaueau. At noon she would meet them at one of the
+inns.
+
+The boys wandered about for some time in search of adventure. Over in
+the street of Cairo there were two peculiar structures that looked like
+inverted soup-bowls. There was a three cornered aperture In the front of
+each where men and women could be seen crawling in and out. Over one of
+these doors was a placard on which was painted, "See the 18 months old
+Soudanese baby dance. The only dance of the kind on earth." Over the
+door of the other one was a placard on which was printed "Only 25c to
+see the great Nubian terpsichorean evolutions." Two or three men would
+come up, stand awhile and listen at the curious sounds from within,
+resembling very much the noise made by a pack of curs after a rabbit
+they did not hope to catch; or, perhaps, more like a plantation jamboree
+when all the strings of the banjo were broken but one and it had been
+mended twice.
+
+The people came to see the sights, and here was a mysterious something
+they might regret a lifetime in the missing. Our two boys required no
+mental balancing of any nice points of propriety. It was there to see,
+and they had the money to see it with. What more was wanting? Nothing
+but to exchange the fee for the yellow ticket and present it to the
+saffron-hued keeper of the door. The little half space alloted to
+visitors inside was crowded, but the two boys were soon at the front.
+This was the Nubian's place. There were two men, two women and two
+little girls. All had what seemed very much like bed-sheets wrapped
+closely around them. The older girl, according to Johnny's estimate, was
+six inches through and about five feet tall. One of the men had a belt
+made of goat hoofs. He danced around awhile and then held out his hat
+for voluntary contributions. A number of nickels and dimes went in, and
+then a vigorous dancing commenced. The dance consisted in all jumping
+straight up and down as stiff-legged and as high as possible. The hat
+went round again, and the pennies and nickels came in by handfuls. This
+made them wild in their desire to give value received, and they jumped
+higher and higher, faster and faster. Sometimes they forgot that they
+were in Chicago and neglected to attend to the sheet with dexterity. But
+when people are in Nubia they are supposed to do as the Nubians do and
+not regard these little negligences. Some of the women went out, but
+Johnny and Louis stayed in; and they kept staying like a small boy at a
+free phonograph. They were studying Nubians.
+
+After being satiated with knowledge, they remembered that there was a
+Soudanese baby dance, the only one of its kind on earth. They might be
+missing something. Then they wanted out.
+
+In the next place they saw the same kind of people and the same dance.
+True, there was a baby eating some candy in the back of the hut, but its
+jaws did all the dancing for it. This was a swindle which the boys would
+not further encourage by their presence, and they withdrew.
+
+From this they went over to the Dahomey village. Like all Gaul, Dahomey
+is divided into three parts, whereof Monsieur and his staff inhabit one,
+his warriors a second, and his amazons a third. The amazons are twenty
+in number and for the most part are occupied in the pursuit of keeping
+their pickaninnies from making mud pies with the drinking water. They
+live in a row of long, low huts thatched with palm leaves.
+
+[Illustration: "THE TINT OF A NEWLY BLACKED PAIR OF OXFORDS."]
+
+A rail runs in front of the huts and a board sidewalk, on which the
+amazons squat to perform their toilets, mainly consisting of the
+application of greasy combs to the half inch of wool accorded them by
+their Creator to serve the purpose of hair.
+
+Day and night they oil themselves. Other times they oil one another.
+Their shining bodies reflect the glory of the noonday sun. Their
+complexions when their toilets are fully complete approach patent
+leather. Other times they stop short at the tint of a newly blacked pair
+of Oxfords.
+
+Inside the huts the amazons betake themselves to arts of peace. A tall
+woman, clad in a striped loin cloth, was rubbing corn between two big
+stones in a firm faith that eventually it would become meal. The miller
+is the curiosity of the realm, for she only has two husbands, both of
+whom, however, she saw fit to leave behind her in Africa to mind the
+babies. In Dahomey the hand that rocks the cradle does not bother about
+ruling the world. Woman has her rights with a vengeance among those
+people and man has fully recognized her fighting qualities.
+
+[Illustration: "HE GAVE A YELL THAT COULD BE HEARD TO THE BEAUTY SHOW."]
+
+They found the village tightly enclosed in a high board fence. Then
+began a vigorous search for knot-holes. But every opening they found had
+the walls of a hut before it. At last they were partially rewarded by
+discovering a fault in one of the boards where they could see past one
+of the huts into the enclosure. Half a dozen of the backs of men and
+women could be seen about ten steps from the fence. The people would
+bend over out of sight and then back again. All kinds of conjectures
+came to the boys. Louis suggested that they were "shootin' craps."
+Johnny thought they were doing some kind of a religious ceremony. The
+pressure of curiosity became too great to be endured. They went around
+the corner and discovered that there was not a single guard in sight.
+Johnny was standing the expenses, and Louis was generous enough to
+propose that some means be secured to elevate Johnny to the top of the
+fence. No more intense brain work was expended on the Ferris wheel than
+these two boys gave to the proposed elevation. It took mechanical skill
+of the highest order, for the management had provided for these
+emergencies, and there was nothing in sight to help them. But necessity
+kindly became again the mother of invention. There was a small tool
+chest a short distance down the back fence waiting for the wagon to take
+it away. It evidently contained no tools, for it was quite light, and
+the boys soon had it set on end against the fence. Louis got on top of
+this and was able by tip-toeing to get an occasional glimpse over. But
+not long enough to reach any conclusions as to the mysterious ceremonies
+transpiring within. Louis caught hold of the top of the fence firmly and
+told Johnny to climb up over his back. The natives were too intent at
+their work to see him, and he got astride of the fence without any
+difficulty, but in such a position that he could not see what was going
+on. The eaves of the conical shaped hut were almost in reach. He moved
+back a little and put his hand on the roof to steady himself. But, alas,
+the roof was dried palm leaves, and instead of supporting him his hand
+plunged through and before he could recover himself he fell crashing
+over against the house, held there for a moment as in despair and then
+with an armful of the hut held tight to his breast he fell headlong to
+the ground. The excited natives in all styles of dress, from the
+voluptuous mother hubbard, much abbreviated above and below to the heavy
+slouch hat and military overcoat, all crowded around him in the belief
+that somehow he was intending to destroy their domestic happiness.
+Johnny did not know in what form the attack was coming and as he could
+not turn over to get up without touching one of the natives he concluded
+it wisest to lie still on his back with the portion of the hut which he
+had brought down with him, remaining over him for protection. Louis gave
+a mighty jump upward and got his elbows over the top of the fence. He
+drew himself up enough to see Johnny lying on his back so still and the
+natives gathered around him gesticulating wildly and talking in a very
+excited manner. The sight was enough. Certainly, his friend was dead. He
+gave a yell that could be heard to the beauty show, and jumped down to
+the ground, calling for the police at the top of his voice. The natives
+hearing the noise, supposed there was a plot to murder them all, and one
+got a long-handled rake some workman had left and began to pull the
+grass off of the prostrate Johnny. Meantime, the frantic explanations of
+Louis that the Dahomeys were murdering his friend brought a greater and
+greater crowd to the corner of the enclosure. A number of guards came
+up, but they had no key and no authority to break into the village. Some
+policemen came up, but they were either powerless or could not
+comprehend. No one had seen the accident, and Louis was fast becoming
+incoherent in his oft repeated explanations. Meanwhile the crowd grew
+larger and larger, till hundreds were gathered together. All the
+Plaisance was coming to see what extraordinary affair was taking place.
+
+When all the debris was pulled off of Johnny he concluded to get up. He
+tried to make them understand that he wanted out, but they could not get
+his meaning, for he was so bewildered that he was pointing in another
+direction from the gate. At last one seemed to comprehend, and he ran as
+fast as he could go to one of the huts toward which Johnny seemed to
+point, and returned leading one of the damsels of the place who, from
+gorgeousness of native modesty, seemed to be the belle of the village.
+The native evidently thought that Johnny was in love with the girl, and
+that he had taken this unceremonious method as the last desperate chance
+of his life to obtain her. The native was presenting her to him with all
+his natural suaveness, and was apparently offering him the freedom of
+the town, when the gate opened and two officers rushed in. One of them
+took Johnny by the ear and led him outside. People were packed about the
+place in enormous masses, and every available fence or elevation was
+utilized by the crowd struggling to see. A dozen or more policemen were
+outside endeavoring to handle the mass of people. It took half an hour
+for them to make a way to get John to the outside. When they saw Johnny,
+a great shout was set up, but it only added to the fright that already
+possessed Johnny's whole mind.
+
+All sorts of stories were afloat among the people. Some said the
+Dahomeys had captured a boy the night before and were just on the eve of
+sacrificing him to their idols when a policeman got track of what was
+going on. As some policemen passed this part of the crowd they were
+cheered, cheer on cheer, for their keenness and bravery in rescuing an
+American from such a fate. Others, who claimed to know, said it was
+worse even than that, for one of the policemen had confided to him that
+the Dahomey people were about to practice canabalism and had secured
+the boy in order to eat him. A number were sure that this would cause
+our government to have these people sent back to Dahomey and as they
+were under the French government and were brought here by French people
+it would probably lead to an open rupture between the two republics and
+perhaps involve all Europe in a struggle for national existence.
+
+The reporters ran the rumors down to the very last prophecy and sent
+post-haste their scoops to their respective papers and a wave of
+indignation swept the entire country that canabalism came so near being
+enacted in the very midst of the greatest enterprise of modern
+civilization.
+
+The name of the boy could not be learned, nor anybody found who knew
+anything about him, but there were thousands of people who were
+witnesses of the rescue and bore testimony of how near our nation came
+of being disgraced forever. The policemen knew nothing about it. All
+they could say was that they found the boy surrounded by the natives,
+and they since remembered that he seemed too terrified to speak, and the
+natives were greatly excited at the presence of the officers. They had
+taken the boy to the outside of the crowd and let him go. The natives
+themselves could give only a confused account of how they had heard a
+noise and had seen the boy lying near one of the huts on his back and
+covered with material torn from the roof of one of the huts. Their story
+was evidently absurd. Meantime the delivery wagon had taken the tool
+chest away and thus destroyed the only evidence that might have cleared
+up the case. The fence was too high for the boy to climb over, and the
+Columbian guards detailed to that section swore they always kept the
+whole village in view, and it was impossible for the boy to have got
+over the fence without being seen by them. Like the great wave of the
+sea that breaks into a million pieces as it strikes the shore, so this
+great question resolved itself into a thousand theories, and at last
+lived in the memory of the people only as the great mystery of Midway
+Plaisance.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XII_
+
+BEAUTY SHOW
+
+
+Fanny was at the inn when noon came but the boys were nowhere to be
+seen. She saw great crowds of people massed a little way up the street
+but crowds were a common sight. She heard broken narrations of some
+exciting event that had transpired but there was nothing to cause her to
+think that her brother might be the central figure of all the
+excitement. Johnny rarely missed his appointments with her and she felt
+that something unusual had occurred or he would have met her at the
+designated place.
+
+She decided to spend the afternoon at the Libby Glass Works and at the
+Beauty show. Once in the works, where glass is wrought into the most
+curious and costly designs, a few hours seems only too short for a good
+appreciation of the work done. The art, as illustrated there, is as
+fascinating as a romance. Three hundred people are employed there daily
+in showing what can be done with glass. Entrance is to be had to the
+blowing-room, in the center of which is the huge cruciform. In this
+there are placed the crucibles, as the working-holes are called. The
+heat in the furnace is 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+The batch from which glass is made is composed of sand, lead, saltpetre,
+potash and soda. It has to be cooked in the terrible heat for
+twenty-four hours before it is fit for use. In front of the working
+holes are the workmen. A long steel tube is thrust into the batch and a
+quantity of the mixture accumulated on the end. From the moment it is
+taken out of the crucible until the form is completed the operator
+never allows the hot glass to be still for a moment. It is always
+moving.
+
+The second floor of the building is a lively place. It is here that the
+cutting is done. The process is most interesting and shows the highest
+skill of the glass-worker's art.
+
+Opposite the cutting department is the glass spinning and weaving
+department. The spinning of glass into fine threads is done by means of
+a wheel nine feet in diameter which revolves twenty times a minute. A
+glass rod is exposed at one end to a blowpipe flame. When the glass is
+melted it is attached to the periphery of the wheel and the operator
+sits with watch in front of him. Every minute the position of the
+melting glass is shifted until the broad wheel is filled, when it is
+stopped and the glass is cut and taken off, made into the desired
+lengths and taken to the loom. The weaving is done by girls on hand
+looms. Two hundred threads of glass are woven alternately with one
+thread of silk. The thread is made up into napkins, neckties, lamp
+shades, bonnets and hats.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE THOUGHT VERY DIFFERENTLY OF HIM NOW."]
+
+Fanny sat down on a bench to rest for a while when, chancing to glance
+to the far side of the exhibit she saw Mr. Warner, whom she had formerly
+known as Mr. Moses, intently watching the work in the looms. She thought
+very differently of him now. Louis had hotly defended him against
+everything the confidence man had said, and, of course, she now saw that
+the man who had spoken against Mr. Warner was of the most abandoned type
+of men. Somehow she felt that she owed him some palliation for the
+rudeness she had exercised. It would, perhaps, not be altogether
+according to the rules of etiquette; but if the opportunity offered she
+intended to say something in explanation. As he came on around her way
+she felt her pulses beat faster and her face flushing under some strange
+excitement. As he approached to where she sat, he saw her and stopped
+for a moment. When he came by she looked, up and he bowed and was about
+to pass on, but she arose from her seat and he stopped. He held in his
+hand some samples of woven goods, and he remarked that he was making a
+study of these fabrics to see if they were worth handling by his firm.
+The conversation led on so easily and naturally that she forgot that she
+had something she wanted to say in extenuation of past rudeness. She
+could not help observing how totally different was this man's bearing
+and conversation from the evil-minded man who had presumed upon her
+acquaintance before. There were no questions asked; no lead in
+conversation that caused her to speak in any way whatever of herself or
+her people. In a few minutes he had passed on, and she felt from
+instinct and reason that this man was a gentleman.
+
+[Illustration: "THE LADIES WANTED TO SEE HER DRESS."]
+
+From this place she went over to the international dress exhibit, more
+commonly known as the "Beauty Show." Here were fifty young ladies chosen
+from as many different nationalities in order to exhibit the fashions of
+the world in the highest art of dress. At the front was Fatima, the
+queen of beauty. Her booth represented a room in the Sultan's harem. On
+either side, reclining on an ottoman, were her waiting maids, and at her
+feet her special servant. All the magnificence of oriental splendor
+surrounded her. A group of at least a hundred people were continually
+crowding the railing in front. They plied her with questions, and the
+ladies were much offended because she would not walk around so they
+could get a better view of her dress.
+
+She could answer questions in nearly any language but Turkish, and she
+finally admitted to some French gentlemen who were quizzing her that she
+came from Austria, her foot servant from the south of France, and her
+waiting maids from Paris.
+
+That international beauty show is a wonderful and fearful affair. The
+beautiful representative of Ireland is dressed in green, and wears
+glasses.
+
+"Arrah," said an Irishman to the proprietor, "raley now, is it in grane
+all the Oirish girruls do be drissed? By the bones av St. Patrig, 'tis
+the first toime Oi iver saw wan in glasses."
+
+"The fact of the matter is that our Irish young lady is ill, and we have
+engaged this young lady to fill her place," said the proprietor, and he
+moved away only to hear the following conversation with the typical
+Greek lady from the Ionian isles:
+
+"Do you speak English?" from a visitor. The lady shook her head.
+
+"Do you speak French?" This In French by the same. Another shake of the
+classic head.
+
+"Do you speak Greek?" This actually in Greek, but it only brought
+another shake.
+
+"Sprechen sie Deitsch?" cried the visitor, with some impatience.
+
+"Oh, ja! ja!" exclaimed the Greek young lady, eagerly, and a general
+laugh went around the little group which had listened to the
+conversation.
+
+"Say, Bess," said a young fellow, nudging his girl and pointing to the
+Queen of Beauty, "ain't she a corker?"
+
+"Naw," replied Bess. "I don't see anything pretty about her. She's all
+drug store. Anybody can see that."
+
+"How d'ye like that, Mariar?" remarked an old Hoosier, stroking his
+yellow whiskers and squinting at his better half, a hawk-faced woman of
+determined countenance. "I tell yer what. Mariar, with all your good
+qualities yer never could hold a candle to that 'ere girl, could yer,
+now? Honest?"
+
+"Benjamin! Come right along out o' here. Yer head's bein' turned by
+these brazen-faced females. Why, yer'll be cavorting around here like a
+young colt in a minnit or two. The idee o' comparin' me with that
+painted young woman--me, your loving wife--come along now," and Benjamin
+went.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WAS A PERT YOUNG MISS WALKING THE FLOOR."]
+
+At the United States booth there was a pert Miss walking the floor,
+monarch of all she surveyed, a typical Uncle Sam's daughter. It was a
+sorry mistake when a dude presumed too much on her patience or a smart
+young man made too free with his remarks. She was always ready for
+them, to the delight of the patriotic young Americans about.
+
+Here Fanny found five young girls studying the United States beauty with
+more than ordinary interest. Each of the girls wore a badge, on which
+was printed C. C. of C. C., and just above these letters were five more,
+M. K. S. L. N. A note book containing a pencil was attached by a neat
+little chain with the badge. There was scarcely a minute that one or the
+other of them was not writing something in her book.
+
+Dressed exactly alike and being so intent on their work, they were
+evidently not ordinary sight-seers. Finally some remark was made between
+Fanny and one of the girls and Fanny showed her own note and sketch book
+and asked how they were keeping theirs. It soon appeared that these five
+girls were in a contest of more than ordinary interest. An enterprising
+newspaper of a Southern Illinois town had sent these five girls to see
+the Fair. They were to be supplied with all needful money, to be
+independent of all escorts, to take notes and write up their adventures
+and their version of the scenes of the great exposition entirely unknown
+to one another, and the paper would publish their reports on their
+return. Competent judges were to decide on the merits of their work and
+a handsome reward would be given to the successful writer. In an
+adjoining town another editor had sent out five boys on the same errand.
+The writers must all be between twelve and fifteen. The one out of the
+ten who did the best work was to receive a splendid souvenir medal. They
+were given ten days of sight-seeing and their whole souls were in the
+work.
+
+"But what can be the meaning of these letters C. C. of C. C."
+
+"At home they say these letters mean Crazy Cranks of Cumberland County
+but the fact is they have a meaning which is a secret that shall die
+with us. We are sworn with each other never to reveal it and to prove
+that girls can keep secrets. Of course the letters form our club name,
+and it has the word Columbian in it, but that is all we are ever to
+tell. We have a constitution and by-laws and regular meetings for mutual
+protection and advice in our trials and troubles." This was all quite
+interesting as a proof of what the girls in the latter part of the 19th
+century could do. Fanny and these girls at once became fast friends, for
+she found that they did not live a score of miles from her home, and
+that there were a number of people and home places that they all knew.
+
+"But what can these letters "M. K. S. L. N." here at the top of the
+badge mean?"
+
+"Oh, that is no secret. They are the initials of our names--Mary, Kate,
+Stella, Leila and Nannie."
+
+They said they were not the only ones on a like errand, for they had met
+a little girl all the way from Boston, and only fourteen years old, who
+had been sent on the same errand by her class in the high school, and
+they had heard of girls from the south and west who were coming for the
+same purpose.
+
+"We can't lecture," said Mary, "but we are going to help the Women's
+Congress prove that girls have just as much brains and courage as boys."
+
+It was now nearly six o'clock, and Fanny was so interested in the five
+girls that she persuaded them to go home with her to enjoy the evening
+together. It promised a pleasant diversion, for the five girls had been
+hard at work several days and had not met a single acquaintance or
+congenial friend.
+
+When Fanny arrived at her hotel that evening with the five girls, it was
+to discover Uncle and Aunt in consternation over an extraordinary story
+told by Johnny, who had arrived home an hour or two before. According to
+his story, he and Louis had tried to see into the Dahomey village. He
+did not know that it was wrong. He missed his balance and fell over the
+fence. He was scared and stunned by his fall. After a while he heard
+Louis yelling as if in great pain. Then two policemen came in and
+protected Johnny till he got safely away. When they reached the outside
+of the crowd which was all the time yelling at them, the policeman told
+him to git if he didn't want to get mobbed. He ran as hard as he could
+run in order to escape. Then he remembered Louis was caught, for he had
+heard him calling for help. Johnny came back around the buildings, but,
+alas! the bloodthirsty mob had done its work and Louis was no more.
+Johnny, now safely at home, lay moaning on his bed and would not be
+comforted. Fanny remembered having seen the great crowd over by the
+Dahomey village, but she had not dreamed of such a terrible scene taking
+place. Altogether it seemed incredible.
+
+"Extry papurs, all about de cannibal feast!"
+
+A thought suddenly struck Fanny that if there had been such a horrible
+tragedy as Johnny had told of, the papers would tell all about it. She
+ran down to the street and came back with a copy. She looked rapidly
+over the paper, but she saw nothing about a lynching at the Fair
+grounds. Then the front page leader, with its half a column of
+head-lines caught her eye:
+
+ "_EXTRA, SEVEN O'CLOCK_"
+
+  "_The Mystery of the Dahomey Village deepens as
+  the Investigation Progresses"_
+
+  _"The French proprietor avers that there was no
+  attempt at Cannibalism, but he cannot
+  make a coherent statement
+  of the case"_
+
+  _"The supposedly bloodthirsty Dahomey men and
+  amazons, said to be the most peaceful and mild
+  in Africa. The natives contradict themselves and
+  tell a dozen different stories. The Exposition
+  management greatly alarmed, and the investigation
+  being pushed with vigor. Horrifying disclosures
+  supposed soon to be reached"_
+
+She read it over, then she read it aloud to sorrowing Uncle Jeremiah and
+Aunt Sarah. The truth of the great unintended hoax and misunderstanding
+began to dawn upon them. Then she explained the situation, and Johnny
+was brought out to hear it fully discussed. It was now clear to all of
+them, but what should they do was the next question. They could not
+think of the newspaper notoriety that the avowal of the truth would give
+them. Anyway, it had gone too far for them to interfere. Surely it was
+wisest and best for them to say nothing. It was so decided. As ludicrous
+as it was, it had become too grave a matter for amusement.
+
+"Of course you will help us keep this secret, you girls?"
+
+Not a word was returned but Mary picked up her chair and sat down in
+front of the four girls.
+
+"The noble and progressive association, C. C. of C. C. will now come to
+order."
+
+Instantly each girl sat prim and upright in her seat.
+
+"Is there any question before this deliberative body of girls?"
+
+Nannie arose and said, "Madam President, I believe it is proposed that
+we add another secret to our list."
+
+Leila had her note book out and was taking down the minutes of the
+meeting.
+
+"Believing that this should be done," Nannie continued, "I move that
+what we have heard and now know concerning this newspaper sensation we
+forever keep secret."
+
+Stella seconded the motion.
+
+Here Kate got the floor and said she did not think it advisable to add
+another secret to their list for she now had so many that it was making
+her life a burden in trying to remember them every time she had occasion
+to open her mouth. Besides the case would certainly be a scoop for them
+against the boys and would make them famous and cause the "Weekly
+Express" to be circulated all over the globe if it published the first
+true version of the case.
+
+[Illustration: "THE NOBLE AND PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION, C. C. OF C. C."]
+
+There was a sharp discussion for a few minutes, in which parliamentary
+usage was dethroned and confusion seemed to rule but they were young
+women and therefore had not lost a word.
+
+The vote was taken and there was but one voice in the negative. There
+was a motion to make it unanimous and it was unanimous. Thus the wish of
+their hostess prevailed and another great secret was forever closed In
+their hearts from the common herds of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XIII_
+
+SUNDAY AND CONSCIENCE
+
+
+Johnny could scarcely wait for nine o'clock of the next morning to come
+around. He wanted to see if his friend Louis was really alive and if he
+would be at 60th street gate.
+
+Louis was there dancing about in a fever of anxiety. At John's
+appearance the two boys went off to talk about their mishaps. They had
+achieved more adventure than they had bargained for.
+
+"Have you seen the papers?" said Louis.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you told anybody yet?"
+
+"No, and my folks thinks it's best never to say anything about it."
+
+"Then we never will."
+
+"Say, Louis," said John confidently, "there was five of the alfiredest
+best looking girls around at our house last night you ever saw. Fanny
+found them at the Beauty show a looking at the sights. They live in a
+town not very far from our farm and they are coming over to visit Fanny
+before they have to go into school. You have to come down and visit me
+while they are there or I will have to live in the barn."
+
+The agreement was closed and the boys passed through the gates in quest
+of new adventures, as if nothing unusual had ever occurred to them.
+
+However, they instinctively avoided Midway Plaisance, and decided to see
+what was on Wooded Island. They ranged through the hunter's camp,
+through the Japanese Hooden, and all over the island in the vain attempt
+to find something equal to their educated fancies of fun. Somehow Louis
+learned that there was to be a religious dance in the Quackahl cabin.
+Nothing else could have a place in the boys' minds until they had
+tickets for the show.
+
+Inside the hut was a strange sight. Wanug had arranged four of his
+warriors on the east side of the hut, and these formed a quartet that
+produced the music for the fearful dance to follow. In the center of the
+hut a log fire burned briskly. The warriors had their faces smeared with
+Indian ink, and some of the beauty spots looked like demi-semiquavers on
+a sheet of music. The squaws, and even the papooses, were painted for
+the occasion, and everyone of the Quackahls were dressed in blue robes,
+ornamented with striking pearl buttons.
+
+At a signal Hammasoloe suddenly sprang on the boards and began the
+mythical movement known as the cannibal dance. It was symbolic of a
+curious legend current among the Indians of Vancouver island, of a
+strange spirit that dwells among the mountains and spends most of his
+time eating the fat members of the Quackahl tribe. Hammasoloe took the
+part of the spirit and crouched down as if ready to spring on his prey.
+The sticks beat hard on the plank, and the music for the dance began.
+
+A squaw pounded on a square box, which represented the Quackahl drum.
+Two warriors were deputed to watch Hammasoloe while he circled around
+the fire, for the usual ending to the dance is startlingly realistic.
+Usually the dancer becomes so excited that he bites the arms of those
+present in imitation of the actions of the great spirit on the
+mountains. Whenever his eyes glared and his looks became ferocious the
+warriors grasped his arms and quieted him. He disappeared behind a white
+curtain, and a few minutes afterward out sprang another warrior wearing
+a huge mask, representing a raven's head. The raven is a slave of the
+spirit and is supposed to be represented by one man.
+
+But Awalaskaius played the part of the raven. His body proved as supple
+as a professional contortionist. He twisted his legs and whirled his
+head around and snapped his jaws in a remarkable manner. Cries that made
+the ears ring accompanied the dance.
+
+When Awalaskaius had finished, Hammasoloe sprang out from behind the
+white curtain wearing a blue gown on which the figure of the Quackahl
+sun was worked. The rays of the sun were blazing red, and the man in the
+orb was depicted winking in a gracious manner.
+
+Louder grew the noise, and the quartet taunted the spirit so much that
+he again disappeared. Then came forth Awalaskaius with a duck's head
+mask, which is the sign of the great spirit. Again he went through his
+curious contortions and scared some of the ladies, as he snapped his
+beak dangerously near them.
+
+When the dance was done and the boys were once more outside they were
+quite satisfied with sight-seeing among savages and were quite contented
+to spend the remaining days of the week among the more prosaic and
+poetical scenes of the great Fair.
+
+Uncle and Aunt had about walked themselves down in their sight-seeing,
+and were now enjoying the comforts of the rolling chairs and listening
+to the voluble information which the chair pushers thought it their duty
+to impart.
+
+Fanny was walking near them in a never ceasing enjoyment of people and
+scenery. As they passed the Woman's building a large number of women
+were seen coming out together. On going over the viaduct two well
+dressed men from the Emerald Isle could be heard in critical
+conversation.
+
+One of them said:
+
+"Look, Pat! It's women again! Do ye mind that now. Look at um coom out
+ov that new building. It's the Fair that's bein' run by thim faymales.
+Soon they'll want to run the wurrld, and they'll be votin'. The divil
+will be to pay in a man's home. They should be taught their places at
+once. If my wife should git that strong minded sure I'd be packin' her
+off. Dacent homes are bein' ruined, Pat, and soon there'll be no homes.
+They meet in clubs to worship the rich, and who will do our mending and
+cook our meals? It's all wrong, all wrong. The women must be taught
+their places."
+
+[Illustration: "VOLUBLE AND PERHAPS VALUABLE INFORMATION."]
+
+And the poor man looked worried. He is probably teaching Bridget her
+place today.
+
+Aunt was looking wistfully over toward Wooded Island as if it reminded
+her of home.
+
+"I tell ye, I haven't saw anything as nice as them flowers. They tell ye
+of the country, and its quiet over here. Ye get too much of a good
+thing sometimes out among the white buildings. It's sort o' dreamlike
+over here, ye know."
+
+She was right, it is dreamlike and it is restful. Din and noise are far
+away and nothing breaks the stillness but the faint music as it floats
+down from the plaza. The azalias are in full bloom, and orchids and
+pansies and nearly every other blossom meet you at every turn.
+
+They stopped at a place where a number of people were looking up at the
+roof of the Liberal Arts building. Countless small black specks could be
+seen moving along the roof. Then it was perceived that those specks were
+really men and women. It is only by such a comparison that they could
+realize the vastness of these buildings.
+
+"What a jumble of bigness all this is!" Aunt exclaimed, "them people
+look just like flies on the ceiling or swallows on the peak of our new
+barn."
+
+The chair pushers took them slowly through Wooded Island.
+
+"What was that, Fanny, that you used to tell me about Alladin and his
+wonderful lamp?" said Uncle. "I keep a thinking' of that story every
+time I try to picture all these things at once. Here is fifteen acres of
+fairy land just like in the fairy books I used to buy for Mary."
+
+They then went on with the crowd past the Government building and the
+Liberal Arts hall to the basin. On the viaduct, over behind the Statue
+of the Republic, they stopped to look over that never-fading picture
+there presented to view. Over the peristyle were written some of the
+sayings of great men. Fanny read one that heightened the scene into a
+thrill of thankfulness and patriotism: "We here highly resolve that
+government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not
+perish from the earth."
+
+"Now," said Aunt. "I believe I know the meaning of this vast
+expenditure of money and energy. It is not only to show us and others
+that we have not all the brains; that we are not doing all that is done,
+but to teach us mutual gratitude for the great privileges of our
+republic, and fix firm the resolve in the breast of every man that our
+government of freedom and conscience shall live forever."
+
+They went on out to the pier and dismissed their chairs for seats in the
+cool lake breeze, where they could see the people coming off of the
+steamers and approaching them down the long pier on the moving sidewalk.
+
+Wearied with the constant commotion in which they had never been before,
+it was decided to return home and to spend the remainder of the week in
+rest and recuperation for another struggle with the world of culture in
+Jackson Park.
+
+When Sunday came. Uncle was told that the Fair would be opened for
+visitors. He had been so busy sight-seeing that he had not read the
+papers or he would have known better. He did not know just what to do on
+that day, whether to go to church, or the parks, or the Fair, but he was
+anxious to see what the Fair looked like with most of the people
+promenading the streets all in their Sunday best. He came to Chicago to
+see the sights and seeing sights never appeared to him to be wrong.
+Every Sunday it was his custom to go out into the pasture and look at
+his jerseys, congratulate himself on how fast his herd was increasing,
+and contemplate the prospects for the future. Grass grew, the birds
+sang, the cattle bellowed, and nature was as bright on Sunday as any
+other day. Besides he had some neighbors who believed that Saturday was
+the holy Sabbath and he had never been able to disprove their arguments.
+He believed on general principles that the Fair should be closed on
+Sundays and that the grass ought not to grow, but since the grass did
+grow, he would profit by the increase and if the Fair was opened on
+Sundays, he would not miss its magnificent object lessons.
+
+"Ah, Jeremiah," said Aunt, "every one of them big buildings comes over
+my spirit like a prayer and when I go inside I see the answer and the
+benevolence of God. To shut people out is like padlocking the orchards
+on Sunday, and stopping the machinery that makes the apples grow. Six
+days are the rich men's days and God made the Sabbath for the poor.
+Because our neighbor raises hogs and eats pork it is none of our
+business because we raise Jerseys and drink milk. The Good Book says:
+"Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of
+any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.""
+
+They concluded to go back home and then stroll out, and in their walk to
+go into the first church they found.
+
+They did so, and came into a great church just in time to hear the
+minister read the text: "And God said unto Jonah, Doest thou well to be
+angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto
+death. Then said the Lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which
+thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night
+and perished in a night; and should I not spare Nineveh?"
+
+Uncle Jeremiah listened for the story of Jonah and the gourd to be
+applied in some way for a lesson to the hearers, but only once, when the
+minister told what he had seen in Palestine, did he become intelligible
+to Uncle. It was all so transcendently ethical. Uncle got a remote idea
+that Chicago was to be likened to Nineveh, and the gourd to the World's
+Fair, but when the sermon was done, and all said, he felt that he would
+have enjoyed the hour so much better in some of the quiet shades of one
+of the parks, where he would have heard so reverently the still small
+voice of nature's teachings.
+
+After noon they went to Lincoln Park, and as they stood before
+Lincoln's statue, Aunt said: "This is greater than any sermon I ever
+heard." They read the words and sat on the bench encircling the statue,
+while Fanny read the sayings of Lincoln chiseled on the stone. Then they
+visited Grant's monument. They sat down on the stone steps and looked at
+the noble figure. Uncle was carried away with a religious patriotism
+that held all the emotions of divine presence.
+
+[Illustration: "THIS IS GREATER THAN ANY SERMON I EVER HEARD."]
+
+"There," said Aunt, "we are listening to another sermon that can not be
+surpassed by the tongues of men. A whole life of great deeds for our
+country is here speaking to us. No man can be a bad man if he were to
+come every Sunday and give his emotions up to the lessons of the lives
+of Grant and Lincoln. Divine emotion is not aroused alone by words from
+the pulpit or the silent walls of a house. Seeing is as great a means
+of God as hearing, but seeing receives its sermons from the infallible;
+hearing listens to that which may come only from the brain."
+
+[Illustration: "THE POLICEMAN CAME OUT OF THE BOX AND WALKED RAPIDLY
+DOWN THE STREET."]
+
+It was late in the afternoon when the four of them got off the cable car
+at Monroe and Dearborn streets and walked leisurely toward their hotel.
+At one of the street corners they saw a policeman come out of the patrol
+box and walk rapidly down thestreet. In a moment more he was joined by
+three other policemen from another street. Uncle turned to watch them,
+when suddenly they began to run, then faster, almost as in a race.
+
+"Sure they're going to arrest somebody," said John, and he started
+after them at break-neck speed with visions of a murder probably being
+done just around the corner. Uncle became excited also and started after
+them followed by Aunt and Fanny, not knowing what else to do. Uncle and
+John reached the corner breathless and looked each way to see where the
+robbery or murder was being done, but what was their disgust to see the
+three policemen climbing into a cable car and calmly taking a seat. It
+was an outrageous sell on all of them, but it could not be helped, and
+there was no law by which they could sue the policemen for a false
+alarm. They had the right to run to catch a car if they wanted to. The
+family went on more deliberately now for they had no breath to spare and
+there was but little to be said. Uncle felt that Chicago was very much
+of a mockery anyhow. But he had seen enough to make him desire to see
+more.
+
+The tremendous puffing and blowing of a tug was heard somewhere in the
+river and they concluded to go over to the bridge and see what it was.
+There was a mystery anyway about how those big boats got past the
+bridges.
+
+Uncle and Aunt walked on over the bridge but John and Fanny stopped to
+hear the music made by a cornet band of girls on one of the excursion
+steamers. The tall masts of a lumber boat could be seen coming rapidly
+toward them in tow with an insignificant little steamer. There was a
+jing-aling two or three times of a bell hid somewhere in the framework
+of the bridge, teamsters and people were hurrying across, and all at
+once the bridge began to move. Johnny saw some people remaining on the
+bridge and catching Fanny by the hand he cried, "Here let's take a ride"
+and in a moment they were swayed past the street and out over the
+stream. Over at the other end they saw Uncle and Aunt holding
+desperately on to the railing. They had not been able to get over when
+the bridge moved away. Presently the boats were past and the bridge
+rapidly swung into place. Down the street half a block Johnny saw some
+steam issuing from the middle of the street. Instantly the idea of a
+volcanic eruption in the middle of Chicago possessed his mind. He called
+Fanny's attention to it and their curiosity was greatly excited. They
+had heard that Chicago was a very wicked place and their preacher had
+once remarked that he would not be surprised at any time to hear of an
+upheaval by the Lord sending the city over into the lake. In
+considerable dread lest the overthrow was about to take place, they
+walked towards the place along the sidewalk, as the famous Harry walked
+up to the guidepost at the country crossroads on that cloudy night so
+long ago. But they were greatly reassured when they found the people
+about them were so indifferent and they were chagrined to learn that
+they were again deceived. It was no volcano, there would be no terrible
+cataclysm, it was only an inoffensive man-hole to the sewers, into which
+the waste steam of one of the factories near by was escaping.
+
+Meanwhile, Uncle and Aunt had stepped off of the bridge and were
+intensely bewildered all at once to find that the excursion steamer and
+the houses next to it had all apparently jumped across the river to
+their side.
+
+"Did we come acrost that bridge?" Uncle asked.
+
+"I know we never."
+
+"How did we git acrost without coming acrost?"
+
+"I can't see how anybody could come across without comin' across, and I
+know we never," said Aunt.
+
+"Well, ef we hain't acrost, then the houses are acrost, and it is more
+natural fer us ter be crazy than for the houses to get acrost."
+
+"Ask the policeman."
+
+Uncle went up to the policeman and said: "Say, Mister, we want to know
+if you will be so kind as to tell us ef we are acrost or not acrost."
+
+"Do you mean on the north side or the south side?"
+
+"No; I mean on this side or the other side."
+
+"Well, which side did you come from?"
+
+"I thought I came from the other side," said Uncle, "but it seems now as
+if I came from this side and didn't go over to the other side at all."
+
+"Where have you been?" asked the policeman, making a mighty effort to
+untangle himself.
+
+Uncle was becoming impatient.
+
+"I tell you I've been acrost that river 'cause I walked acrost, and then
+I never walked acrost again, and here I am not acrost, and I want to
+know how I got back acrost again."
+
+"Say, old lady!" said the policeman, "ain't he crazy?"
+
+"This is the first time I really ever thought so. We've been seeing too
+much, and I guess we're both crazy."
+
+"In that case," replied the officer, "I am compelled to take charge of
+you."
+
+"O Grandma!" cried Fanny, just then running up, "ain't this great.
+Johnny and I have been nearly half an hour trying to figure out how we
+got across the river, and I found out first. You see the bridge just
+went straight half around, and so when we got on this end here it
+carried us around to the other side and carried you back around to this
+side."
+
+"Bless the Lord!" said Uncle, fervently; "Sarah and me ain't crazy yet,
+and the policeman needn't worry himself." But the policeman was gone.
+
+"You see, Fanny, we couldn't make it out, and Sarah and me and the
+policeman all agreed that we was stark gone daft."
+
+Uncle and Aunt now had enough for one day, and they heartily wished they
+were back on the farm. But they swallowed their discomfiture: and,
+after a good night's test at home, determined to visit the Board of
+Trade, where Bob Simmons had lost the fortune his father left him.
+
+[Illustration: "IS THEM THE FELLERS THAT THE FARMERS IS AFRAID OF?"]
+
+Uncle and family did not get around to the Board of Trade till nearly
+eleven o'clock the next morning. There was a wide entrance with a
+stairway on either side. Uncle saw the people in front of him, and he
+was accustomed to pass right in among the congregation and take his seat
+in the amen corner. He did not notice that the others had stopped at the
+door, but he plunged right ahead. The door-keeper evidently had his
+attention engaged at something else, for he let Uncle walk on in. Some
+one at the door spoke to the ladies and told them to take the left
+stairway to the gallery. They reached there just in time to see Uncle in
+a difficulty below. A young man had him by the arm and was pointing very
+vigorously toward the door.
+
+"Who do you want to see, sir?"
+
+"I want to see the Board of Trade. Where is it?"
+
+"Go outside and up the stairs into the galleries and you can see it all
+you want to, but not here."
+
+Uncle did as he was bid, but found that he was quite widely separated
+from his family, because he had been sent up the opposite stairway from
+them.
+
+"I came up to see the Board of Trade," he said, confidently, to a
+well-dressed stranger next to him.
+
+"Well, there it is in all its glory," said the stranger.
+
+"Oh, I see! The board is that table where them fellers is a tickin' them
+machines. You see I thought they would be a setting and a trading across
+a long, wide board like they used to do at the country stores for
+counters. But them fellers down there acts like a lot of lunatics. I
+don't see how they can ever come to a bargain, yelling and spewing
+around that way. And then I don't see the bulls and bears that change
+the market."
+
+The stranger thought it a useless job to try to enlighten him.
+
+When Uncle and his family came down, he went up to the doorkeeper and
+asked, "Say, do you belong here?" The keeper nodded. "Did you know Bill
+Simmons what lost five thousand dollars here last year?" The door keeper
+shook his head. "Well, say, I just want to ask one more question. Are
+them people down there the bulls and bears themselves, and are they the
+Board of Trade and are they the people that the farmers are so afraid
+of?" The keeper nodded.
+
+"Well," continued Uncle, "I've got this to say; any set of farmers as is
+fools enough to be afraid of them yelling idiots, aint got no backbone
+at all."
+
+Chicago was unsettling many of Uncle's ideas, and he began to decide
+that the only real, bonafide thing he could swear by was his own farm,
+and that the great outside world was only a great circus of art and
+extravagant genius.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XIV_
+
+SIGHT-SEEING GALORE
+
+
+Under promises of gorgeous sights and full protection, Fanny had
+concluded to visit the chief Midway Plaisance theaters with Johnny and
+Louis as escorts. The "Midway," as it is familiarly called, is
+undoubtedly the most unique and interesting pleasure-walk in the world.
+It is a thoroughfare of ever-shifting scenes and ever-recurring
+incidents. Fanny was not sure she ought to go, and Johnny could not
+comprehend why she did not go with him as readily wherever he proposed
+as she did on the wild free life of the big Jersey farm. But this was to
+her a supremely different existence, and she tried hard to recall all
+she had seen and heard and read of etiquette and the proprieties. Uncle
+and Aunt were not the only ones who were bewildered at every step by the
+amazing mixture of reality and art, of fact and fancy, of nature and
+imitation. They felt as if their souls were living apart, and that they
+were mere automatons in a panoramic world.
+
+Johnny had seen the Soudanese and Nubian play actors just before his
+disastrous attempt to be informed concerning the Dahomey village. But
+some scoffers from the South had spoiled part of the novelty of it by
+alleging that the men of northern Africa were really natives of
+Mississippi or Louisiana, and were dancing only plantation hoe-downs in
+slow time and increased perpendicular action.
+
+But without question the high histrionic art of the Chinese, Javanese,
+Turkish and Algerian actors ought to be seen. Maybe it was strangeness
+rather than excellence and novelty rather than entertainment that drew
+the people but strangeness and novelty are the greater excellence when
+people come to see wonders.
+
+The Chinese theater is by far the most pretentious. It was pretty well
+advertised to the world at the advent of the actors in Vancouver and
+their encounter with the custom officers. They came to Chicago several
+hundred strong and are housed in the big blue-and-gilt structure with
+trim pagodas near the Cottage Grove end of the Midway. Entrance to the
+theater is through a big tea house, where decent-looking Chinamen who do
+not look like rats and whose fluent English proclaims their long sojourn
+in "Flisco," serve the cheering cup at from 10 to 60 cents, according to
+the pliability of the victim. They are doing a business worthy of a
+better cause. The tea house is but the ante-chamber to a joss house
+overhead, mendaciously advertised to be "the biggest outside of China,"
+and to the theater proper. The latter is not so big as the Chinese
+theaters in San Francisco, but it smells sweeter, being over ground and
+not surrounded with the cooking-rooms and opium bunks of the actors.
+This is a concession to occidental taste which all but oriental
+enthusiasts will appreciate. Nor are visitors allowed, as in San
+Francisco, to inspect the green-room or sit on the stage.
+
+[Illustration: "She visited the play and sincerely regretted it."]
+
+In other respects the theater is pure San Francisco Chinese. There is
+the orchestra, led by the man with the yard-wide cymbals, playing the
+leading part. There is the property man, always in evidence, who places
+a chair and says "This is a horse," or turns the chair around and calls
+it a mountain. And there is the female impersonator with deeply roughed
+cheeks, who is the pride and flower of histrionic art. Women are not
+allowed to walk the boards of the Chinese theater, but the male actor
+who best can mimic woman's tones and mincing airs is the Henry Irving.
+There is a whole chorus of these men-women in the Jackson Park
+theater--an all-star combination. As for the piece itself, they first
+play a little curtain-raiser of about two-months' duration and then the
+real play occupies the rest of the year. It will be all one to the
+American visitors, however, who enjoy the novelty, so that they are
+allowed to quit when they like. And there is no objection to that from
+the polite Chinamen in charge of the Jackson Park theater.
+
+The Turkish theater is across the way and farther east than the Chinese.
+It is back from the beaten path and you might miss it--if you were deaf.
+Having ears to hear you will be apprised of its whereabouts at forty
+rods distance by the orchestra, which sits on the front steps and
+discourses horrors on a sort of flageolet and a bass drum. The orchestra
+plays only one tune and it plays that hard. When a respectable house has
+been gathered by these out-of-door allurements the curtain rises on a
+Turkish play. It is a sweet pastoral of a youth who is lovesick and
+cannot be cured by the doctor, by the soothsayer--by any one except his
+love, who comes in time, and there is a wedding.
+
+When this play was ended, Fanny decided that she had seen enough of
+foreign theaters and declined to go further.
+
+A Boston girl in spectacles sat near her through the Turkish play. She
+told Fanny that she and her mother had been venturesome enough to visit
+the other plays, and they sincerely regretted it. She found a mongrel
+horde of Turks, Arabs, Europeans, blacks, Greeks--everything applauding
+an interminable song, whose filthy motif it needs no knowledge of Arabic
+to discover. The singer was an Algerian woman, good enough looking,
+after the pasty style of oriental beauties, young, agile and mistress of
+the curious, droning guttural melody which constitutes oriental music.
+She plays her part with complete abandon, probably because she knows no
+better, and her audience applauds her wildly for the same reasons. The
+Boston girl said she had seen these same girls, or their professional
+sisters, in the Algerian theater. But their performance had been
+modified to suit the western taste. They sing and dance, but their songs
+and dances are nothing more dangerous than a languorous drone. But there
+are also some funny parts, according to the Algerian idea. They are
+played by a jet black Somauli woman who joins in the dance and a jet
+black Somauli boy in the orchestra who has a face of India rubber and a
+gift for "facial contortion" that would make the fortune of an American
+minstrel.
+
+[Illustration: "FACIAL CONTORTION THAT WOULD MAKE THE FORTUNE OF AN
+AMERICAN MINSTREL."]
+
+A look at the outside of the Soudanese theater is enough for the
+ordinary curiosity-seeker. It is a little round hut of bark in a dark
+corner of the Egyptian enclosure. Mahomet Ali sits at the receipt of
+custom exchanging pleasantries with dusky flower girls whose home is by
+the orange market beyond the Kase el Nil, who know more French than
+English, and more deviltry than either; who sing "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay,"
+and know how to solicit backsheesh to perfection. The theatricals here
+are simplicity brought to perfection. It is said their language consists
+of only a hundred words. If you were to paint your face black, look
+wild-eyed, stiffen your hair in many strands, array yourself in a cotton
+garment that revealed more than it concealed, and then were to jump
+straight up and down to the music of a dolorous chant you would not be
+far astray. Add to this a whining and interminable appeal for backsheesh
+and you might be very near the mark indeed. But there is one Soudanese
+performance you could scarcely hope to equal, unless you were to learn
+some sort of devil's chant, gird your loins with a loose belt of shells
+and by rapid contortions of your body make these primitive cymbals
+accompany your chant. This is the star of the troupe.
+
+Romantic people, who like to think of dancing as the poetry of motion,
+can get a liberal education in muscular poesy by making the rounds of
+the Midway Plaisance. They may see sonnets in double-shuffle metre,
+doggerels in hop-skip iambics, and ordinary newspaper "ponies" with the
+rhythm of the St. Vitus dance. Slices of pandemonium will be thrown in
+by the orchestras for the one price of admission, and if the visitor
+objects to taking his pandemonium on the installment plan, he may get it
+in job lots down at the Dahomeyan village.
+
+In their "dance," as it is termed, they take a step forward with the
+right foot, and drag the left after it. This is repeated until they stub
+their toes on the orchestra, when they swarm back and go through the
+difficult feat of advancing by a series of hops on one foot. All of this
+is to the discordant pounding of drums and scrap-iron, where tune could
+not be discovered with a search warrant.
+
+That evening Fanny visited the C. C. of C. C. and arranged for a family
+picnic at Washington Park the next day. She was to be hostess, and they
+were to have an outing with her in the city's artificial fields and
+forests that would recall the merry life of the country, and yet they
+would be surrounded by all the artistic embellishments that money and
+genius could secure.
+
+Johnny went post haste for Louis, and the two boys were made bearers of
+the lunches, guides of the expedition, the vanguard of the march and the
+responsible protection of the company. They were eight merry young folks
+who took possession of the grip-car on the Cottage Grove Avenue cable
+line that morning. They stopped at the park hot-house and spent two
+delightful hours in the wilderness of flowers and of palm forests. On
+the outside were rustic seats about a pond where, in waters made tepid
+by steam heat through iron pipes, all kinds of tropical plants
+flourished in a profusion perhaps not excelled anywhere on the equator
+or along the banks of the Amazon. The great flower clock and the immense
+flower globe showing the geography of the earth, the old English castle
+gate and the carpeted lawns showed them the skill of the gardener's art.
+A quiet nook was found near the water's edge of one of the ponds. With a
+newspaper for a table-spread they enjoyed a lunch where hunger was a
+sauce better than Worcestershire, and the sod a better resting place
+than a throne.
+
+After their lunch and a good rest they returned to the business part of
+the city and spent the remainder of the day in the Mystic Maze, the
+Labyrinth and the Panoptican. These were places where electricity and
+mirrors were arranged with the object of reversing every conception the
+eye had ever given to the mind. In one place the visitors entered a
+triangular room in one corner of which there was a large vase of
+flowers. The walls were solid mirrors and the six girls found themselves
+as if in a host of people and a wilderness of flowers. From this they
+passed on into a room which the attendant said was forty feet square and
+contained thirty-eight mirrors six feet by eight set at different angles
+between posts evenly distributed about the room. As they stepped forward
+they found themselves among countless hordes of people, again they were
+alone, all at once they found themselves in a line of girls that
+stretched on either side apparently for miles. One time they would be
+brushing around among people about two feet high and two feet thick;
+again they would be surrounded by thousands of girls eight or ten feet
+high and correspondingly thin. It was exasperating to say the least.
+When they became weary of this novelty they looked about them for the
+attendant but he had mysteriously disappeared. Leila said she knew the
+way out and she started with all the confidence that a usually level
+headed girl can have, but alas! she nearly broke her head by running
+into one of the big mirrors. Nannie happened to look in a certain
+direction when she saw the door and the curtains about it as plainly as
+she ever saw anything in her life.
+
+"There I see the door," she cried, "come this way," and she started with
+her hands out before her like some one feeling his way in the dark,
+though it was as bright about them as the electric lights could make it.
+All at once the door she had in view disappeared like magic and she
+stood before herself in a mirror ducking her head backwards and forwards
+like two young chickens with their beaks just touching in the
+preliminaries of a fight. The situation was becoming too serious to be
+amusing any longer.
+
+"What shall we do?" said Fanny, who had read of death in the mysterious
+labyrinths in ancient times. The roof was low, and even if the sky had
+been their roof they had no wings, like Daedalus, whereby they might
+escape.
+
+The girls began to get nervous, and several million of them seemed to
+huddle together as they discussed the situation.
+
+"I say, let's yell!" said Mary.
+
+"But what is the use to yell," one said, "if they have determined that
+we are to die here?"
+
+[Illustration: "THEY HELD TO ONE ANOTHER, AS IF FOR LIFE OR DEATH."]
+
+Now they were becoming really frightened. The picture of their lingering
+death in that frightful crowd of specters was most horrifying. Their
+voices were becoming tremulous and hollow, and the terra-cotta figures
+of wild Bedouins that sat in a niche of the far wall and was multiplied
+a thousand times, seemed to grin at them maliciously, as if in
+anticipation of seeing their agonizing struggles against death by
+hunger. The suspense was becoming something terrible.
+
+"I say somebody must yell."
+
+"Let Kate yell, she's got a strong voice that might reach the street."
+
+Kate tried to do her duty, and she said, "Oh, Say!" in a voice that
+would not have wakened a rabbit from its slumber.
+
+She tried again, "Oh, say, we want to get out!" in a voice so hollow
+that none of the girls recognized it as hers.
+
+"Is ze ladies seen eet all they want?" said the polite attendant, as he
+seemed to come before them at one step.
+
+"Where were you?" they all cried.
+
+"Why, I vas by ze glass about tree feet away."
+
+"And you were listening to all we said?"
+
+"Oh, I do not leesen. Eet ese my beesness to go out weeth you ven you
+ask eet."
+
+And then they followed him out.
+
+"What a horrid place that was and we thought at first it was so nice,"
+said one.
+
+"In all our lives we can never have a dream half so frightful as that
+was," said a third.
+
+"One thing sure," said Mary, "this terrible experience has bound us
+forever and forever together; and because of our common experience in
+this awful adventure we must initiate Fanny into the mysteries of the
+noble order of progressive girls, C. C. of C. C."
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XV_
+
+A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE
+
+
+Foreign theaters, mazes, labyrinths, panopticons, spectatoriums and
+their ilk had no more charms for the girls, but with Uncle and Aunt they
+spent the next day in the museums, casinos and panoramas of the city.
+But wax figures and brain-muddling deceptions were still the value they
+received for their money.
+
+"I will be contented," said Aunt, "never to leave the farm again. I can
+be happy there the rest of my born days in knowing that when I look at a
+cow it is not a stuffed cow, that the calf by her side can move; that
+the man on the barn floor with his pitchfork in the hay can really lift
+it over into the manger for the cattle. This mornin' I see a lady
+standin' on one of the stairs tryin' to tie her shoes. She was having a
+time of it, I knew, so I says, says I, 'leddy, let me help you.' She
+didn't say nothing, so I jest stooped down to help her. I pulled the
+tongue of the shoe up and tapped the sides together over it, when a
+perfect chill came over me, for I pressed the lady's ankle, and it felt
+just like sawdust. Poor woman! I thought some terrible accident had cut
+off her leg and she had a false one. I looked up into her face, and she
+looked so pale like and deathly that I was awful scared, then I looked
+more and more and I see she was dead, died maybe of heart disease while
+she was a stooping over. O what a shock! I can not get over it to my
+dying day. I nearly screamed but I knew I must not, so I just called to
+the feller sitting at the table writing visiting cards to come there
+quick; but he just set there stock still and never moved. I didn't want
+to attract attention from the folks around so I just picked up a nail a
+lying there and hit him square on the cheek but he never flinched. I
+spoke then to the woman leaning over the railing laughing at the little
+girl down below but she never changed her smile at all. I couldn't tell
+what to make of it when a feller came up to me an' says, 'Do you want
+anything, old lady?' I stared at him and says 'Hist, sir, don't you see
+this poor woman is dead. Died a stooping over too sudden.'"
+
+[Illustration: "SO I SAYS, SAYS I, 'LEDDY, LET ME HELP YOU.'"]
+
+"Then he just laughed at me a little, and pulled her dress to one side
+and showed me that she was only a wax head and a stuffed body. That
+made me mad, for it is a sin and a shame for to deceive people that way,
+and defraud 'em of their hard earned money. I told him to show me the
+way out, and I would report how he was defrauding the public to the
+humane society or somebody. He just laughed at me again and invited me
+to take a chair in the office if I wanted to wait for my folks. I went
+in there and an awful nice woman talked to me and explained things till
+I wasn't so mad as I was; but I still think it is a shame that a
+Christian city should allow such awful frauds on peoples' eyes and
+nerves. Anyhow, when I get home I want to go around and touch everything
+and make sure that there is no more foolin', so I can live in peace and
+facts."
+
+Aunt was very indignant. She could stand the deceptions that Uncle had
+been so opposed to at the Fair, but when she was deceived in her acts of
+kindness, it was carrying things entirely too far.
+
+The places of interest, as the guide books said, had now all been
+visited, and they were walking down the street fully satisfied that they
+had seen all the sights of the city from the skyscrapers to the organ
+grinders. The police courts and the stock yards were not considered as
+places of interest by them.
+
+John and Fanny were in the lead, with the five girls just behind them,
+and Uncle and Aunt bringing up the rear. As they reached the corner
+there was a clamor and a scattering of people crossing the street, and a
+rumbling that jarred the earth as two great fire engines dashed by
+rolling smoke upward and clanging a bell in a way that was frightful.
+
+"Fire, fire!" shouted Johnny.
+
+"Oh that's what we want to see, a fire, a big fire," echoed the girls.
+
+In a moment they were all running pell mell after the engines, jostling
+against the people and exciting the merriment and wonder of every body.
+The engines were running in the direction of their hotel and very likely
+it was on fire and they would lose all their clothing.
+
+"Come on girls," shouted John as he led the way like a foxhound. "Come
+on, I know it's only just around the corner. I see the smoke rolling up
+from the house."
+
+The engines had turned another corner and Johnny felt a great pride in
+being the guide and encyclopedia of ready information for six girls. Out
+of breath they reached the corner where they supposed they would see a
+terrible fire with people jumping out of the windows twelve or fourteen
+stories high, perhaps safely into blankets, possibly to their death. Or,
+brave firemen scaling ladders and bearing lovely girls out of the
+horrible flames. But they discovered that the smoke they had seen was
+coming out of a tall chimney, and that far down the street almost a mile
+away they could get glimpses of the fire engines still forging straight
+ahead. But they were not to be daunted thus. There must be a great fire
+somewhere down there that it would take many hours for the engines to
+get under control. On and on they ran, out of breath, to be sure, but
+determined to see the great Chicago fire that required two such great
+engines to bring under control. They had run several blocks, when they
+became so tired they could only walk. Another block or two was
+traversed, when they met the engines coming leisurely back. It was a
+bitter deception, there was no fire. They turned back; and, when they
+met Uncle and Aunt, also entirely out of breath with the chase, Aunt
+declared that this was only another case of Chicago's base deceptions.
+It could joke with dead people and jest with fires and make a playhouse
+exhibition costing many millions of dollars, and fool old people and the
+young alike and with equal conscience.
+
+Uncle observed that it proved to him that Barnum was right when he said
+that a fool was born every minute, and that the Americans were a people
+who delighted in being deceived.
+
+The girls decided to remain that night with Fanny, and to visit the Fair
+together the next day. A pleasant evening was spent, but the subject of
+fire and fire escapes were the chief topic of conversation. Each of the
+windows of their room had a fire-escape fastened to the facing, and the
+instructions printed underneath were carefully studied and mastered by
+all before retiring.
+
+The next morning they were gathered in the main room awaiting the time
+for breakfast. Johnny raised a window to get a look outside, when the
+well known clang! clang! clang! of the Chicago fire engine was heard.
+Instantly all was excitement. Clang! clang! clang! and another came by.
+Then there were two or three more, and they seemed to stop right under
+the window. People across the street, even up to the top stories, were
+complacently sitting in the windows and looking into the street as if
+such a thing as great flames lapping upward and smothering them to
+death, were unknown. Johnny, who was looking out of the window, yelled:
+"O Lord! it's our house on fire, and we are five stories high!"
+
+The streets began to fill with people. Uncle, panic-stricken, looked out
+and saw the engines puffing below. The cool audacity of the people at
+the windows across the street was appalling. They did not care for
+death. All at once Uncle recovered himself and yelled: "Everybody to the
+life preservers! Git into the fire escapes and save yourselves!"
+
+But the room was empty. "Oh Lord," Uncle groaned, "they have gone insane
+and run down into the flames below."
+
+Wringing his hands he ran to the door and cried, "Oh Sarah, Sarah, come
+back and let us die together." But neither Sarah nor the rest were
+anywhere to be seen. He was alone.
+
+Remembering the instructions regarding the fire escape, he ran to the
+window, fastened the straps about his waist and climbed out of the
+window. He pulled the string that was to unreel the rope and let him
+down. Down, down, he went expecting every moment to feel the fierce heat
+about him. He seemed to be half way down when the reel ceased to work
+and he hung there suspended in mid air awaiting an awful death. He gave
+a despairing jerk when down he went within three feet of the pavement
+with a sudden stop that took his breath away. A crowd of people began to
+gather about him.
+
+[Illustration: "HE HUNG SUSPENDED IN MID AIR, AWAITING AN AWFUL DEATH."]
+
+"What's the matter old man," said a man who had seen all the
+performance.
+
+"Where's the fire," said Uncle wildly.
+
+"It is two blocks further up," he answered.
+
+"And ain't my folks all burnt up?" he said pathetically.
+
+The answer was at once before him for he had let himself down directly
+over the entrance of the hotel and his family just then arriving at the
+bottom of the stairway came out to him. There never was a more happy
+meeting for Uncle than that one. His ridiculous adventure was not clear
+to him till he had time to study it over. But there really was a fire
+further on and they were not to lose such a sight.
+
+[Illustration: "THE FIRE WAS TWO BLOCKS AWAY."]
+
+A large dry goods house was on fire, and eighteen or twenty monster
+engines were puffing and roaring, each one like a threshing machine on
+Uncle's wheat field. They pressed themselves forward to the very front
+of the spectators, and so close that the heat of the flames could be
+distinctly felt. A heavy wind was blowing, and all the force of the
+fire department was out to stop the flames. It was truly the grandest
+and most fearful spectacle the family had ever seen. There came a puff
+of wind toward them and the flames came down, almost scorching their
+clothing. Then the policemen commenced to drive the crowd back.
+
+[Illustration: "SOMETHING HAPPENED."]
+
+There was almost a panic, and the girls nearly had their lives crushed
+out of them. It was an adventure they cared never to repeat. Johnny did
+not fare so badly, for he was more intent on the workings of the
+engines. He was free from mishaps till he chanced to take a position
+over the great hose-pipe through which the water was sent with such
+tremendous force on its mission. Something happened. He is not able to
+relate just how it was. But the hose burst directly under him, and he
+was tossed over into the streaming gutter with a precision he can
+forgive but never forget. After this happened it was time to go home to
+be more agreeably clothed. Johnny was a sadder though a wiser boy.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XVI_
+
+TO BUY A DOG
+
+
+Jackson Park was a paradise of peace and rest compared with the nerve
+destroying difficulties of sight-seeing in the city. Uncle had
+experienced all the adventures he wanted, and his great desire now was
+to escape all further mishaps until he could get back safe among his
+Jerseys on the farm.
+
+Tired from much walking among the scenes of the Exhibition, the family
+sat down upon one of the rustic seats in Wooded Island. It was a most
+picturesque place, a most inspiring spot from which to contemplate the
+great sweep of history that had culminated on those grounds.
+
+"The longer I stay about this Fair," said Uncle, "and the more I see,
+the more I wish I knew. I can see folks discussing things with such
+great delight when I can't understand anything but the ifs and ands and
+buts. I heard a man say to-day that Columbus never discovered America,
+that he was a pirate. He said that all these doings should have been for
+a Viking or some such name. I knew it wasn't so, for so many people
+couldn't be fooled. How may that all be, Fanny?"
+
+"There are a great many theories and stories set afloat about the
+discovery of America by people who desire more to show off their ability
+to construct plausible heresies against accepted things than to give
+real historic truth. But there is much that at least seems to be
+evidence of the Norsemen having been in America 500 years before
+Columbus touched the outlying islands of the West Indies. The Sagas of
+Leif the Lucky and Eric the Red told some marvelous stories of
+discoveries to the southwest of Iceland. Some of these stories seem to
+be verified in many ways, by digging up the logs of the Norse huts, by
+the written characters on Dighton rock, by the old tower at Newport, by
+the Benheim map of 1492, and a number of other important things.
+
+"Then there has been found what seems to be beyond doubt a figure of
+Buddha in Yucatan, and also a Buddhist monument in Central America.
+Therefore a number of people have been trying to prove that Hwul Shan of
+China, discovered America ages ago. There are likewise well established
+the claims of the Phenicians and Greeks and even the Welsh and the
+Irish. But all of these were fruitless till Columbus in his high
+aspirations to become a great prince over unknown countries and to
+spread the Christian religion of his day, opened the way for the course
+of Western empire."
+
+"But Fanny," said Uncle. "I heard the man say that Columbus didn't know
+anything and had no chance to learn."
+
+"Yes, Father, this glorious year has taught to the students all over
+this country the beginning history of our great republic even as this
+Fair is teaching the progress of the world. Though Columbus was the
+greatest man of his age, yet we know only that he was the son of a wool
+comber and that he attended the school at Pavia, where he showed a
+marvellous aptitude for astronomy and cosmography. He became a sailor on
+the Mediterranean, some say a pirate, but the ships of one nation then
+preyed on the ships of another and considered it legitimate because
+there was then no International law. He married the daughter of an
+Italian named Palestrello, who had been a celebrated Portuguese sailor.
+With her he received many valuable charts, journals and memoranda. He
+soon moved to Lisbon, which was then the center of everything
+speculative and adventurous in geographical discovery. Columbus made a
+living here by making maps. Here he studied out his theory that he could
+reach Asia by going west, and he made several voyages to the Azores and
+Canary islands, which were then the limit of sea navigation. Then began
+his travels for help to carry out his wonderful plans. He took with him
+his motherless boy, Diego. From place to place he went with a heroism of
+patience never surpassed. The story of the rebuffs and privations
+through which he passed will be the wonder and praise of men forever.
+Weary and footsore and hungry, he stopped one day before the Franciscan
+Convent La Rabida, in Andalusia, to beg some bread and water for his
+child. Then came the mysterious turning of the scales in the forces of
+human greatness. The Superior of the convent happened to pass by, and,
+struck by the appearance of the poor traveler, began to talk to him. The
+Superior at once saw that no ordinary man was before him. Grander views
+were never presented and greater plans of conquest were never known.
+Christianity was to invade Asia on its eastern shores and meet the
+irresistible forces from the West. Columbus believed himself divinely
+inspired for this and therefore demanded that he be made high-admiral,
+governor-general and viceroy over all the land he reached and that for
+his revenue there should be given one-tenth of the entire produce of the
+countries. Such a far reaching demand as this could not have been
+acceded to only by a doubting sovereign, and he would probably have been
+beheaded with his puny crew of one hundred and twenty men if he had
+reached Asia and attempted to carry out such a wholesale scheme of
+subjugation.
+
+"The months of this voyage were scarcely less full of treason, burdens,
+and peril than the years that had been given to make the voyage
+possible. A pension was promised to the man who first sighted land but
+Columbus saw a light rising and falling on the evening of Oct. 11, and
+on that account claimed and received the pension. It is said that the
+sailor who really saw land first foreswore his country and fled to
+Africa because of having lost the pension and the honor of being the
+first to see land. This is told by the enemies of Columbus to prove a
+sordid and avaricious nature. It is also told that he took such
+exasperating and outrageous measures to uphold his visionary schemes of
+conquest and government as high-admiral, governor-general and viceroy,
+that it became more than his home government could endure.
+
+"His last voyage was disastrous, but whether from his own desire for
+gold hunting, or because from the demands of his crew, it can not be
+told. A man was sent to supersede him and chains were placed upon the
+man who had worn the robe of royalty. His last years before the public
+were even more bitter than his first. Until his death he seemed to spend
+all his time in trying to recover from the king his lost prestige,
+titles and possessions, but they never came. He besought Ferdinand
+pitifully to bestow them as a perpetual heritage upon his son, even if
+not to him. In a letter to his sovereigns, he said: 'Such is my fate
+that twenty years of service, through which I passed with so much toil
+and danger, have profited me nothing; and at this day I do not possess a
+roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to eat or sleep, I have
+no where to go but to the inn or the tavern, and I seldom have wherewith
+to pay the bill. I have not a hair upon my head that is not grey; my
+body is infirm, and all that was left me, as well as to my brothers, has
+been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great
+dishonor. I implore your highness to forgive my complaints. I am indeed
+in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept for
+others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for
+me!'
+
+"He died in bitterest poverty at Valladolid at about the age of seventy
+years. He was buried at Valladolid for a short while to satisfy the
+Franciscans, and then removed to Seville by request of his relatives. It
+was said that Columbus wished to be buried in San Domingo, and Charles
+V. gave authority for this to be done to the grandson of Columbus, and
+the family of Colon was to occupy the chapel of the cathedral. But there
+is no record whatever of the events of his burial at San Domingo. This
+is accounted for only on the theory that Drake, the English pirate,
+destroyed them when he sacked San Domingo.
+
+"In 1795 Spain ceded San Domingo to France and it seemed to the Spanish
+people to be a national disgrace for the bones of Columbus to remain on
+foreign soil. There were no explicit directions as to the exact spot
+where his bones were and it was not known then that five of the family
+were buried together there. What was supposed to be his ashes were taken
+to Havana but in 1877 while making some repairs in the vaults another
+tomb was discovered in which was a strip of lead from a box which proved
+that the place contained the ashes of the grandson of Columbus. Then a
+further search was made; only a few inches from the vault first opened
+another vault was found and in it a lead box containing pieces of bone
+and human dust and on the lid was written
+
+  _"D. de la A. per Ate"_
+
+which is supposed to mean "Discoverer of America, First Admiral." A
+silver plate inside had inscribed on it the names and titles of
+Columbus. This much decomposed leaden case was placed, with its
+contents, in another case of satin wood and glass, and all deposited in
+a vault so that the contents could be seen through the glass. Spain
+could not think of giving up the honor of having the bones of Columbus
+on her own soil, and the Royal Academy of Madrid made an exhaustive
+study of the subject and at last published a book in which they closed
+the argument with the following words: "The remains of Christoval Colon
+are in the cathedral of Habana, in the shadow of the glorious banner of
+Castile. It is most fit that over his sepulchre waves the same flag that
+sailed with him from Palos in the Santa Maria.""
+
+After reviewing this history, which her interest in the great Fair, and
+the great events it commemorated, had caused her to learn, and after
+consulting her note book to be sure of her correctness, there was a
+general discussion among them, which showed that sight-seeing was not
+all they were doing at the Fair.
+
+[Illustration: "Some bodies for the heads and feet."]
+
+It was now past noon. Aunt decided to go home; Fanny would walk up and
+down the "Plaisance," and with her sketch book see what she could do
+toward putting bodies between some of those heads and feet she had
+drawn. Uncle and Johnny decided to go up to the business portion of the
+city to spend the rest of the day. It was a pleasant afternoon, and when
+they reached the viaduct from the train a great mass of people were
+passing and repassing. The great Auditorium building loomed up before
+them, with the Art Gallery on their right and the Columbus statue on
+their left. Under them trains were gliding by like long serpents, and
+out in the lake fleet steamers and sail-boats loaded with people were
+moving about like white spots on the blue waters. Uncle and Johnny
+passed along the sidewalk in front of the hotel when something at the
+corner caught their attention, and they came up for a moment to look at
+it. Two or three men also turned, stopping by him when he stopped. Then
+a few more came up, and a ring of men began to form. Uncle and Johnny
+now noticed that they were surrounded by people, and they attempted to
+move out, but in vain. In a short time the crowd had become so large
+that the sidewalk was blocked, and none except those who were close to
+the center knew what the original attraction was. The people coming over
+the viaduct and from far down the street noticed the crowd too, and bent
+their steps also in its direction. Some, fearful that they would miss
+something, began to run. The contagion for speed spread, and soon the
+whole mass were speeding up the boulevard with open mouths and
+wide-staring eyes. Each was asking the other as he ran, "What is it?"
+
+As they came in contact with the central surging crowd where each man
+and woman was trying to see over the heads of those in front, despite
+the fact that the object, whatever it was, was on the ground, the
+question was repeated. But no one seemed to know what had happened.
+People in the center of the crush began to demand room and air. In vain
+they struggled to get out. The people still coming over the viaduct
+would start into a run as soon as they were on the street, and thus
+continually adding pressure on the outside made the positions of those
+inside almost unbearable. The crowd was now a pushing, clamoring one,
+extending some distance up and down the sidewalk and out into the
+street. The apparently insolvable mystery as to the nature of the
+accident or cause of the excitement only made the crowd more persistent
+and harder to manage. There were some who shouted, "give the poor fellow
+more air." "It's a shame to crowd around him like that." Then they would
+push harder than ever to see what it was.
+
+Two men pushing each other got into an altercation. One struck the
+other, almost knocking him down. The crowd quickly took hold of the
+injured man and shoved him out into the "outer darkness," as if he had
+been a criminal, while the other was let alone. Some shouted for a
+doctor, others for the patrol and ambulance and the police. At last two
+officers came. After ringing up the patrol they forced their way through
+the crowd, which quickly fell in behind them and pressed on again with
+the renewed hope of seeing something. The presence of the officers only
+added to the general excitement, and people who had been laggards or had
+left in disgust came back at a double quick.
+
+When the police got to the wall of the building they found a man who
+had two Newfoundland pups tied to a string. The patrol wagon was sent
+back empty, and the crowd, which had been sold instead of the pups,
+dispersed.
+
+When Uncle got out he took his bandana out of his hat and mopped his
+forehead, as if he had just finished tossing up a load of hay to Johnny
+on a hot day in the hayfield.
+
+[Illustration: "ONLY A COUPLE OF NEWFOUNDLAND PUPPIES."]
+
+"Consarn them critters!" he said, "I was thinkin' of buyin' one of them
+Newfoundland purps for Fanny, but the crowd was so anxious to see the
+trade that I've got entirely out o' the notion. I never see such
+curiosity people in all my life. The other day I stopped at a winder,
+and before I got half through seeing there were about fifteen people
+standin' around and lookin' over my shoulder. I guess I can't see
+anything any more without tollin' so many folks on that I'm liable to
+get crushed. If country folks was half as curious 'bout things as these
+city folks, they might be laffed at with some sense."
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XVII_
+
+CAIRO STREET
+
+
+"And so you call this the Anthropological building?" said Uncle. "What
+kind of things has it got inside to have such a name?"
+
+"Well, Grandpa, if you desire to be enlightened scientifically, I may
+say that it is a subject beginning with Adam and including the whole
+human race. It is divided into five parts: zoological anthropology,
+showing the differences and similarities between men and brutes;
+descriptive anthropology, showing the differences and similarities
+between the races; general anthropology, which is the descriptive
+biology of the human race; theological anthropology, which concerns the
+divine origin and the destiny of man; and ethical anthropology, which
+discusses the duties of man to the world and his creator."
+
+"Do tell! it's a pretty big subject, and no wonder it has a house to
+itself."
+
+Inside they found skulls, skeletons, bones, savage relics consisting of
+dress, utensils, ornaments and weapons with amulets, charms, idols and
+everything pertaining to early religions the world over.
+
+On the eastern border of south pond was to be found the outdoor
+ethnographical exhibit. Indian groups, Indian schools and everything
+illustrating their primitive life and material progress.
+
+There were objects, shell heaps, village sites, burial places, mounds,
+cliff houses and the ruins of Mexico, Central and South America. To see
+the same thing, and to only very little better advantage, would require
+thousands of dollars and years of perilous travel.
+
+"The more I go through these places," said Uncle "the more I feel
+ashamed that I did not do my share in bringing of relics. Now I could
+have brought the old nightcap that sister Susan's dead husband's
+grandfather brought over from England; and I have a gridiron that my
+great aunt gave me to remember her by. And there's the snuffers and the
+old wood-yard rake that my grandfather made himself way back in New
+England, and the dress in which my aunt Harriet was married, and the
+horseshoe from the foot of the horse that killed cousin John's boy Tom,
+and sister Hanner's gold fillin' of her tooth, which was the first gold
+fillin' in our parts, and it came out just afore she died, and I don't
+know how much more. Ain't they anthropological, ethnographic biology or
+something like that?"
+
+"I think, Grandpa, they would have been more useful in some kind of a
+cabinet in the old settler's cabin, but we needn't to fret about it
+any."
+
+From here they went over to the Midway Plaisance. The "Street in Cairo"
+was to be opened with a great parade of some kind and they wanted to see
+it. The natives call it _Mars-al-Kabia_. In fact the Street in Cairo was
+all the curiosities of Egyptian Cairo's streets crowded into one Chicago
+Cairo Street. It was a splendid sight with its gardens and squares, its
+temples, its towers and minaret made in the most Arabesque architecture
+and ornamented with the most fantastic draperies. The inhabitants had
+been directly transported from old Cairo across the sea to Midway
+Plaisance. There were the importunate street venders, the donkey boys
+begging and pulling at the clothing of the visitors, the pompous drivers
+of camels beseeching the visitors to try their "ship of the desert;"
+tom-tom pounders, reed blowers, fakirs, child acrobat beggars,
+Mohammedans, Copts, Jews, Franks, Greeks, Armenians, Nubians, Soudanese,
+Arabs, Turks, and men and women from all over the Levant, all in the
+gorgeous apparel of the East, filling the booths or strolling about the
+street. They were the happiest lot of Orientals that ever got so far
+away from home. Drums were beating, camel drivers singing merry songs,
+and a curious medley of voices which the earth beneath them never heard
+before. At eleven o'clock somebody blew a strange kind of horn, which
+made the small boy almost kill himself in his frenzy to get near to see
+what it meant.
+
+Musicians mounted the camels and began grinding out music that was
+enough to frighten even a North American Indian to death. At the first
+glimpse of the camels a team of steady old horses, that probably were
+never frightened before, ran away with the gravel wagon which they had
+been patiently dragging along. Little Arabs and Soudanese ran ahead of
+the procession turning somersets and clapping their hands in hilarious
+glee. There were warriors hopping about and clashing shields and swords
+together in mimic battle. In front of Hagenbeck's show the lions were
+aroused from their slumber in the den above the entrance, and they stood
+before the bars and roared at the procession. Then the dancing girls
+came skipping along, followed by a bride and her maids, for at last it
+was seen to be a bridal procession that was celebrating the opening of
+"Cairo street" in Chicago.
+
+Here is the circus of the "Plaisance," where the visitors are the actors
+and the clowns. Every hour can be seen a bevy of pretty girls escorted
+by a brother or some dapper young man. The camel drivers hail them. What
+a chance for a lark! "Let's have a ride on the back of the queer
+creature," says one maiden. "Oh! you wouldn't dare," replies brother.
+"Wouldn't I, though? Just watch me," is the modern maiden's response.
+She approaches the dromedary, which opens one eye by way of recognition.
+
+
+[Illustration: "Hurrah! It humps in front, jumps behind, and paces in
+the middle."]
+
+She passes silver to the hand of the dark-skinned menial. The other
+girls giggle. A great crowd gathers round to see the fun which
+experience has taught is coming. Now the bold young woman is in the
+saddle, and holding tightly, as advised, to the strap which hangs near
+by. The dromedary opens the other eye, shuffles his rear and longest
+legs in the dust with a sound that resembles the hum of an approaching
+cyclone, gathers himself for an effort, and suddenly presents to the
+gaze of all beholders a rear elevation notable for its suddeness and its
+altitude, if not for its architectural beauty. Though catapulted about
+ten feet higher than she had had any idea of going, the American young
+woman does not scream. That would be unbecoming woman in this woman's
+era. She merely presses her lips tighter together, lets her smile fade
+away at the corners of her pretty mouth and grasps the strap as if her
+life depended upon it. The crowd, of course, laughs.
+
+By this time the dromedary has shuffled himself some more along the
+brick pavement and opened the ugliest mouth ever seen this side the
+Nile. Now he shows his front elevation, and the smile which had returned
+to the lips of his fair rider fades again as the other end of the
+animated catapult is put into operation. But only for a moment. The
+bystanders have only begun their second laugh when the American young
+woman is seen to be herself again. She is out for a good time, and she
+is having it. The dromedary winks three times and puts a sinuous,
+swaying sort of motion into his body. His fat feet and angular legs
+begin to describe semi-circles. The saddle and its rider twist and
+gyrate and revolve and stop short, only to start quickly off again in
+some other direction, and the triumphant journey through the "Street in
+Cairo" has begun.
+
+It is a very narrow thoroughfare, this oriental street, and it has no
+sidewalks. The crowd falls to either side. As the courier of the desert
+humps through the lane made open for him, his rider is seen smiling and
+happy. She knows she has a pretty foot, and that it is neatly clad in
+red shoes with tapering points and the most becoming of hosiery. She
+knows her figure is trim, and that her cheeks are bright and her eyes
+flashing. Applause follows her from the mosque to the temple of Luxor,
+and rolls back again as her beast turns for the homeward march.
+
+She has had a ride on a real dromedary, caused palpitations in a hundred
+masculine hearts, and made 500 of her sex envy her the possession of
+such feet, figure and nerve. But these are not her sweetest triumphs.
+The consciousness to her most grateful and satisfying is that the
+courage and the independence of the modern young woman of America have
+been exemplified and vindicated.
+
+They must get their fortunes told. There were no gypsies in this Cairo
+such as camp along the country roads or in the edges of the villages and
+tell sighing swains about their loves. Here was a seer imported direct
+from the banks of the Nile.
+
+His father studied the stars and read lives from the palms of men's
+hands. His grandfather did the same. He came from a race of wise men.
+The first seers of his family sat in the shade of the early sphinxes and
+told Egyptian maidens to beware of young men who came up from the Red
+sea with false promises.
+
+But his fortune-telling was of the same kind as one finds everywhere. A
+young man paid the price and held out his hand. The wise man took hold
+of the fingers, bent them back from the hand and pushed the cuff half
+way back to the elbow. He traced the course of the veins, ran his
+coal-black finger along each wrinkle of the palm, and all the time
+muttered to himself. Sometimes he nodded his head and gurgled
+approvingly. Again he hesitated and groaned feebly, as if the signs were
+sad. The young man had a scared look in his eyes. Then the interpreter
+began to tell what the aged seer had to say:
+
+"He says that you had sickness. It was not long ago. You were afraid.
+But it's all right. You won't be sick any more. Have health, good
+health. Feel good all time. Don't be afraid."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said the young man.
+
+"Before you worked where you do now you had another kind of work. You
+did something else. You will change. Not the same kind of work next
+time. No, no. You will have good time. A man will give you work. It is
+different from what you do now. He is short, fat, very rich man. Go with
+him. You will do well, make money--lots of money. Fat man will make you
+have better clothes."
+
+"Well, what's the matter with these I've----," began the young man, but
+the interpreter hushed him.
+
+"He says you must stay in Chicago, good place. If you travel you will
+not have as much money as you will have when you get with the fat man.
+You must stay here if you want to be rich and have good clothes. Aha!
+this is very good. Put your head near. He says you are very
+warm-hearted, like all of the women. Yes, yes, that's it, you love one
+in particular, your wife or some one. He wants to know who it is you
+love."
+
+"I am not married," said the young man.
+
+"He says," resumed the interpreter, "that it's all right."
+
+"All right, eh?"
+
+"Yes, you will marry her, but not this year."
+
+"How long do you think you will live?"
+
+"Give it up."
+
+"You will live to be 87. He says so."
+
+That was all, and the puzzled young man arose to go away.
+
+"How was it? How was it?" asked all the women who had been looking on
+and marveling.
+
+"I'll tell you," said the young man. "The past and present are both a
+little cloudy, but the future is all that any one could ask."
+
+Then he started away, keeping a sharp lookout for a fat man who seemed
+to be rich.
+
+At the end of the street is the Temple of Luxor, where the curious pass
+under the deity-covered portal, and gaze upon the reproduced wonders of
+ancient Egypt. They bend over withered mummies of kings dead 5,000 years
+ago, and listen to music that has not been played for ages.
+
+Near here is the passage way outside, and, as Fanny came out with her
+ears ringing with the strange jargon that everywhere met her, she was at
+once relaxed from the tension of sights and sounds she had just been in
+by seeing two country people rush together just before her. One said:
+
+"Well, what in the world are you doin' here?"
+
+"I swan, is that you? What are you doin' here?"
+
+"Oh-h-h, we had to see the Fair, couldn't miss it, you know, not if it
+took a leg."
+
+"That's right, that's right. Bring your folks?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they're around here somewhere. Mother's about fagged. Says
+she'd rather cook for harvest hands than walk all day. Going to stay
+long?"
+
+"Calculate on being here all next week if body and soul stick together.
+'Spose you'll be here sometime."
+
+"Can't tell yet. Just about give up seeing it all. Half the time don't
+know whether I'm on my head or my heels. Blamedest place I ever struck."
+
+"That's right, that's right."
+
+It was enough to cause her to smile at their homely enthusiasm, and the
+striking contrast of language. It was a relief to hear intelligible
+language once more, and in the rural dialect so familiar to her ears.
+
+The soft, balmy days of June were now in their glory, and Uncle and Aunt
+sometimes spent nearly the whole day sitting around on Wooded Island
+imagining they could hear their cattle lowing in the pasture across the
+creek, and dreaming their lives over again from their early happy days.
+It was so peaceful there. Then they loved to go over by the lake and
+look upon it as a painted ocean, as calm and quiet as a pond of Raphael.
+It was something to see the stretch of blue go on till it touched the
+low-hung clouds at the edge of the world. Beyond the mists and the smoke
+of the white steamers were dimly outlined streaks of yellow and light,
+which turned the whole heavens into a softened sky of good promise. In
+the foreground of the vista the giant figures of victory, with charging
+horses and chariot, and all the Apollos and Neptunes, stood out like
+silhouettes. There was no noise save the ripple of the water down the
+cascade at Columbia's feet. Gentle winds lapped the waves along the
+beach, the furious breakers of other days were toned into a delicate
+murmur, which sounded very like some sweet symphony or the hymn of a
+winged choir. Waves which had for weeks been tangled masses of white
+caps and had thrashed with frantic anger the bases of the towering
+pillars dropped to the dainty ripples of a summer breeze. There was no
+crash, no roar, no splashing spray, driven on by a gale that snorted and
+snapped. So delicately and silently did the waters kiss the shore that
+sparrows and wrens and a flock of wandering doves walked to the very
+edge and filled their crops with the pure white sand. Then this, the
+best great work of any race of any age, comes over the spirits of
+worshipful men like heavenly benedictions of good-will and peace.
+
+Sometimes as they sat in some quiet place alone saying nothing but
+thinking joy, the music of holy melodies came floating across the
+waters of the basin and re-echoed from the heaving lake to the
+Administration dome. They were sitting at the feet of that human genius
+which God had hallowed for the sake of those who revere His holy name.
+
+They were everywhere thrilled with the supremely gifted achievements of
+their fellow men, inspired by the living canvass from every clime, and
+amazed to know that the lumps of Parian stone could be made to speak the
+heroism of the world.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XVIII_
+
+UNCLE IN THE LOCK-UP
+
+
+Our family felt that they could remain in the grounds forever and never
+be done seeing; but the time was drawing near when they must return
+home. Uncle decided that this Saturday must be their last day at the
+Fair. Surely they had seen enough, even if there was so much more not
+yet seen. They had seen notable people all the way from the Infanta of
+Spain to Faraway Moses, of Egypt. But they were all the same to Uncle.
+He had heard all kinds of music, from the Spanish band to the Samoan
+tom-tom. "Some of the music," he said, "was so peaceful like, but the
+rest was not half so nice as the growin' pigs rubbin' against splinters
+in the sty back of the barnyard." He had surely been all over, and there
+was nothing more of a startling nature to see. He had watched them check
+babies at the children's building as if they were poodles or handbags,
+and he had been over to the Irish village and seen the people kissing
+the "Blarney Stone." On a card tacked near by he read:
+
+  This is the stone that whoever kisses
+  He never misses to
+  Grow eloquent.
+  A clever spouter
+  He'll turn out an orator
+  In Parliament.
+
+Uncle had no ambition that way, and so he let the rest do all the
+kissing.
+
+He had completed his sight-seeing in the city by taking a Turkish bath,
+and he considered himself now ready to "pull up stakes" and return to
+the farm.
+
+"I've made hay in July, and punched it back into the loft," said Uncle;
+"I've harvested in August, and drunk out of the branch; I've cut
+hoop-poles in the swamp, and done lots of other hot things, but fer real
+sultuy weather nothing is ekal to the Turkey bath. Some feller told me
+it was the healthiest bath a feller could take when there was no creek
+around. You see, I looked at the Chicago river and decided it wasn't
+altogether a proper place fer a swim; then I went over to the lake whar
+they were a paddling around, but somehow the water didn't warm up even a
+little bit in the afternoons, and then I thought I might just as well
+pay a dollar and take a Turkey bath.
+
+"Well, it do beat anything in the wash line I ever see. I went into the
+barber shop where the sign was and paid a woman a dollar, and she took
+my silver ticker and chain and all my spare change, and my pocket book,
+and put 'em all into a box and locked it and then fastened the key
+around my wrist. Well, I wondered if I was a going down there whar they
+had to protect me that way from getting robbed.
+
+"I went down stairs where I stopped to see a feller a doing some thing
+to a feller's feet. I seed he was a cutting the nails, and then I
+thought how awful lazy these city people do get, that they can't even
+cut their own toe nails.
+
+"A feller came up and put me in a little room and told me to strip off
+and foller him. Well, sir, that feller he just stuck me into a room that
+was hot enough to fry eggs and bake Johnny cakes. I dassent breathe hard
+for fear of burning my nose off. He set me into a lean back chair and
+decently covered me over with a sheet. I've biled sap, an' I've rolled
+logs; I've scraped hogs over the kettle and made soap, but this beat
+anything I ever see fer hot weather. If I hadn't seen other respectable
+folks goin' in there I'd a knowed I was a gittin' basted for my sins in
+the bad world. I couldn't set there, so I tried to walk around, but I
+seen my feet was liable to get roasted, and the air was hotter at the
+top, so I set down again.
+
+"Well, sir, I sot there till I got hotter'n biled corn, and then I
+hollered worse nor the Johnnies at Kenesaw mountain.
+
+"Then a feller stuck his head in at the door and told me to come out
+there, and when I did a colored feller shoved me on to a bench and began
+to slap the daylights out o' me with both hands, and then another feller
+he turned the hose on me, and then I cut loose.
+
+"Well, sir, you ought to a seed me. I'm gittin' old, but 'nough is
+'nough, and I kin be painters an' wild cats when I want to. I was in a
+pecooliar place without a stitch on me, but I jest run the slapper into
+the bake oven, and I made the buggy washer jump into the fish pond or
+swimmin' hole what they aimed to chuck me into next; and then a feller
+came out and took me into another room, where he rubbed me down kind a
+horse like, and I got my clothes on and went up to the woman and got my
+things give back; and I told her I was awful glad to see daylight again.
+She laffed, an' I didn't say no more, but I done lots of thinkin'."
+
+They were sitting on a rustic bench, just across the southwest bridge on
+Wooded Island, when Uncle's talking was brought to a stop by a great
+noise in the direction of the "Plaisance." Just then two Turks came
+trotting by with a sedan chair in which was seated a nervous-looking
+woman who seemed anxious to reach the place from which the medley of
+noises seem to be issuing. She nervously grasped the sides of the chair
+and looked at the bent form of the toiling Ottoman in front. Over the
+bridge they went, the carriers executing a double shuffle diagonally
+down the steep descent. The passenger opened her mouth and gave a
+scream that made the Turk in front stumble as he bent his head to see
+what was wrong. Then she screamed harder, frightening a flock of
+sea-gulls off the island and bringing a Columbian guard on a run from
+the north entrance of the Horticultural building to see what was the
+matter. Then she insisted on getting out, and she was so glad, that she
+gave the Turk a dollar, and left before he could give her any change.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE GAVE A SCREAM THAT SCARED SOME GULLS OFF OF THE
+ISLAND."]
+
+The noise over towards the "Plaisance" continued, and Johnny cried out,
+"The parade, the Midway Plaisance parade! Come on, the whole earth is
+parading!"
+
+The front of the procession just then appeared in view, and the family
+went to the top of the bridge where they could review the strangest
+procession that ever walked on the western world. Processions may come,
+and processions may go, but there never was one like that which was then
+winding through the broad streets of Jackson Park.
+
+The column was over a mile long, and made up of men and women afoot;
+camels, gaily decked horsemen, wild Bedouins from Arabia's desert's;
+carriages, rolling chairs, reindeer and dog sledges. From the fur
+garments of the Laplanders leading the column, to the sea-grass,
+thoroughly ventilated costumes of the Samoans, was presented a contrast
+that marked the display all along the line. It seemed as if there had
+been a revival of the Babel scene from the Pentateuch. It seemed that
+the confusion of tongues had just come to pass and people had not yet
+become accustomed to talk anything but Sanscrit or Chinese.
+
+There was a gathering of assorted freaks not surpassed since Noah came
+out of the ark, and an assortment of people never seen before. When Mr.
+Moody preaches to the Midway Plaisance, surely the scripture will be
+fulfilled as to preaching the gospel to all the nations of the earth.
+
+Then the bedlam of strange cries were heard again. These peculiar sounds
+came from the Dahomey warriors and amazons, black as night and stupid as
+pigs. In thin cloth and hair garments that concealed just a little of
+their bodies, the blacks romped as they sang and beat upon long
+cartridge shaped drums.
+
+The noisiest part of the parade began with the Algerian village. Drums
+resounded, clarinets screeched, castanets clattered, and the shrill
+cries of the dancing girls rose above all the tumult. The girls rode in
+rolling chairs, and while they were not busy rivaling the banshee of
+Ireland, they laughed and flirted to their hearts' content.
+
+The Chinese was the most gorgeous contingent in the column. Costumed in
+rare and brilliant silks, ablaze with gold and silver, the Chinese
+actors and actresses made a brilliant appearance. But it was the dragon
+that wriggled behind them that caught the crowd. It was 125 feet long,
+and its mouth was big enough to swallow a man without tearing his
+clothes on its fangs. When it passed the beer tunnel in the "Plaisance,"
+its glaring eyes turned toward a man whose best friends have been to
+Dwight. The man shuddered and drew a long and nervous breath.
+
+"Take me away from here, Bill," the man said to his companion. "I never
+thought I could get in this kind of a fix. I'm a quitter right now."
+
+From a distance it looked like a monster sea serpent on a spree. It was
+really a dragon, at least that's what the Chinese call it; but it was in
+fact the finest exhibit ever beheld of what a diseased imagination can
+do for a victim of strong drink. It could easily claim the prize as
+being the most terrifying object on earth.
+
+The people from the "Street of Cairo," afoot and mounted on camels and
+donkeys, headed their part of the procession with the Turkish flag, and
+swift-footed runners guarded the banner, while men in rusty, antique
+chain-armor were near to defend. A horde of fakirs and jugglers of all
+colors, from jet-black Soudanese to fair-faced Greeks, pressed close at
+their heels, stripped to the waists, with bare feet, and cutting up all
+sorts of tricks. Swordsmen, garbed in long robes, twirling naked blades
+and shields as they hopped about one another in imitation of combat;
+more donkey boys; Nubians bearing carved Egyptian images, one of which
+was of the sacred bull done in gold; bayaderes and nautch dancers, not
+very good looking, but with fine white arms and well-turned ankles and
+gorgeous in oriental robes and colors--all flocked after the fakirs.
+
+Then came the Persians, the women playing upon hurdy-gurdies and singing
+a plaintive air more suggestive of melody than any other native music
+in the line. The lion banner of the Shah was carried proudly, and this
+detachment closed with a score of Persian gladiators, naked to the
+waist. They seemed to be superbly executed pieces of bronze set in
+motion.
+
+The "Beauty Show" was in the parade. Blarney Castle had several lads and
+lasses present, led by the pipes and a jig-dancer as agile as an
+antelope and as tireless as an electric fan, for he jigged all the way
+the procession marched. Then the Samoans came along. Stalwart men are
+they, yellow-skinned and muscular, and in their airy sea-grass garments,
+knee short and chest high, they presented a splendid physical
+appearance, while the women were pleasant-faced and fairly pretty. The
+men danced a war dance while marching along, and their fierce wielding
+of their clubs had greater influence in putting back the fast
+encroaching crowds than did the oft repeated command of the Columbian
+guard to stand back.
+
+The South Sea Islanders, with nothing much more than feathers and
+grasses about their bodies and on their heads, sang a wild but tuneful
+melody as they brandished war clubs and danced about, their well-greased
+bodies gleaming in the sun. Three pretty Hula-Hula girls in the party
+sang all the time. Their dress was very fantastic; short, full skirts of
+brilliant-colored grasses fell to their bare brown knees. Flowers and
+grasses were twined in their hair. A short, tight-fitting robe of
+grasses and feathers fell over their shoulders and ended at their
+waists.
+
+The young women who illustrate all the various types of beauty to be
+seen anywhere on earth, from Hong Kong to State street, made up the
+line. They were in carriages, and attracted much attention.
+
+The odd procession traversed the Fair grounds to the east end of the
+Electricity building, and then returned to their respective shows.
+
+It was now getting late in the afternoon and Uncle said, "Now, let us be
+taking our last looks."
+
+"Papers, Mister? All about the Sunday Fair."
+
+Uncle bought a paper and read the headlines:
+
+  _"GATES REMAIN OPEN"_
+
+  _"Courts' Final Decision in Favor of Sunday Fair
+  Judges are Unanimous--Overrule Judgment
+  of United States Circuit Court"_
+
+  _"Court Room and Halls Crowded with People
+  Eager to Hear the Decision"_
+
+  _"The Chief Justice brushes away the Cobwebs of
+  sophistry and religious paternalism by which the
+  Sabbatarian sects sought to close the Gates
+  against the Millions"_
+
+"I didn't see no millions when I was here Sunday, did you, Sarah? And
+the grounds looked lots like a big grave yard, with some people sad
+like, a wandering through."
+
+The sweat began to come on Uncle's face. His big bandanna was brought
+into play. "So they've opened it. Well, I don't know, I don't know. It
+kind of worries me somehow, as if they oughtn't a done it. But I don't
+understand all the law and the gospel. I surely didn't do no wrong when
+I thought seeing the Fair on Sunday was right, if it do disturb me like,
+just now. I thought our Savior meant seeing the Fair on Sunday when he
+said 'It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day.' But when I see the
+beer tunnel full of people, and the furrin theayters a runnin', it
+didn't look lawful, and I wisht I was back to our old church a sittin'
+in the corner. Anyhow, I hope I didn't do any of it."
+
+Uncle walked on slowly in a very sad and meditative mood. Aunt looked as
+if there was something that had overthrown all her high sentiment on
+her first Sunday of seeing the entrancing visions of the great
+Exposition. There were religious realities touching her soul now, and
+she walked on rapidly with Fanny, leaving Uncle behind. Johnny was
+flipping pebbles at some ducks in the lagoon and Uncle had stopped to
+look in at one of the doors of Liberal Arts hall. While he was standing
+there two dapper young men came walking hastily by. One caught sight of
+Uncle and quickly uttered a low whistle. His companion stopped short as
+the first one said: "Der's de old duffer; let's work him."
+
+"Naw, we can't do it. He'll remember me mistake in change an' de blasted
+trainboy biz."
+
+"'I'll bet you a fiver he don't! You're trigged out altogether new, an'
+your gran'mother wouldn't know ye."
+
+"Nothin' like tryin', so here goes," and the speaker walked on a few
+steps and half concealed himself behind a column, close enough to hear
+all that was said.
+
+"Well, how do you do, Deacon Jones? I am awfully surprised. It's like
+two needles meeting in a haystack for us to meet here. Isn't it now!
+It's a long time since I saw you back in old Barnville, Sage county,
+Indiana; but I remembered you the minute I clapped my eyes on you. I
+suspect you'd like to hear from some of your old neighbors."
+
+The speaker was still holding Uncle's hand, and Uncle was looking at him
+in a bewildered manner, as if searching intensely in the picture gallery
+of memory's old time faces.
+
+"I see you can't place me, but I guess it's 'cause I was only a chunk of
+a lad, but I see you often in the 'amen corner' of the Barnville Baptist
+church. You see my father was killed in one of the battles before
+Atlanta, and mother and me, when I was a boy, didn't have much to live
+on, only our pension. So I had to work hard, and didn't git around much
+for to be seen by anybody. I was converted and joined the church just
+about the time you moved away. Then I went into Mr. Monroe's store and
+got to be chief clerk, and then when the bank was opened at Barnville I
+was made cashier, and in three or four years I was called to be cashier
+in the First National here, so you see I have been more successful than
+most of the poor boys about Barnville whose fathers never came back from
+defending their country."
+
+[Illustration: "I SEE YOU CAN'T PLACE ME."]
+
+"Ah, my boy," said Uncle, "my heart always warms up for my comrades'
+children. I believe I recollect you now. Wasn't you the boy what swum
+out into the crick at high water, when the bridge went down while
+preacher Barker's wife was crossing with her baby to bring him back from
+Bethel, and towed 'em safe to shore?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I'm the lad."
+
+"Widow Brown's son George?"
+
+"Yes, sir, George Brown, from Barnville, is what I am."
+
+"Well, well, my boy, I knowed I recollected you. My memory's bad enough,
+but I haint forgot ye and yer brave deed. Well, I'm glad your succeeding
+so well, and I hope you haint forgot your redemption before the Cross."
+
+"No, Deacon, I haven't, and I trust I am doing the Lord's will, as I
+ought, though I know sometimes I fall short. I take part more than most
+of the young people in our church, but I trust I will still be moved to
+do more and more for our holy cause."
+
+"There, there! It's proud I am to see in this great wicked city one of
+Barnville's boys so true to the teachings of our Lord and Master that he
+learnt in our old home church."
+
+Here the young man coughed lightly, as if the emotion of religious
+memories was swelling up in his throat and almost choking his utterance.
+
+"But I guess everybody has forgot me at Barnville. It's mor'n twelve
+years now."
+
+"Not at all, Deacon. Every time I go back there to the old church I hear
+somebody speak of Deacon Jones."
+
+"Do tell----!"
+
+At this moment a young man came up hurriedly and tapped "George" on the
+shoulder. "George" turned at once, and said: "How do you do, Henry?
+Henry, this is my old friend, Deacon Jones, from the home of my boyhood.
+Mr. Jones, Mr. Wilson. I am proud, Deacon, to have you meet my friend
+here, who is one of the Exposition directors and manager of one of the
+most important departments on the grounds."
+
+"I would be very glad to talk longer with you and your friend Mr. Brown,
+but I was just hunting for Johnson, the paymaster. Iv'e got to have two
+hundred dollars inside of ten minutes or there will be the biggest howl
+among employees you ever saw."
+
+"Oh, you needn't hunt any longer for Johnson, Mr. Wilson, here's my
+check for the sum and you can cash it at once at the World's Fair bank,"
+and Mr. Brown, who was none other than Arthur Blair, the confidence man
+and bogus detective, drew out a First National bank check book.
+
+"But that's exactly the trouble. It is now past banking hours, and for
+some reason Johnson has not come around."
+
+A troubled look came over Mr. Blair's face in his anxiety to help out
+his friend. Turning to Uncle he said: "Perhaps the Deacon can help my
+friend out and then cash my check here on the grounds in the morning."
+
+Uncle looked uneasy for a moment, and then said: "Of course I can
+accommodate you," and he pulled out a roll of bills and laid aside $200,
+which left him with only thirty dollars.
+
+Mr. Blair had the check made out and was just extending it to Uncle when
+Johnny came up, a curious spectator of the scene before him. A second
+glance at the gentleman talking to his grandfather and he began to jump
+up and down and whirl around yelling at the top of his voice: "Perlice!
+fire! murder! robbers! pickpockets! confidence men! thieves! thugs!
+highwaymen! bandits! outlaws! catch 'em! hang 'em! crucify 'em! here,
+here, everybody! surround 'em! close in on 'em! let no guilty man
+escape!"
+
+The two confidence men were for once too astonished to act quickly, but
+one recovered himself soon enough to make a snatch for the roll of bills
+in Uncle's hand. Two or three corners of bills were torn away, but Uncle
+held the money. In an instant a dozen men were crowding around, and
+among them two or three officers.
+
+"Catch that old thief!" yelled Blair, "he's got my money." "Catch him!"
+cried Wilson, appearing to try to get at him, "he's got our money."
+
+Uncle was standing in blank stupefaction holding the bills in his hands
+and staring at the gathering crowd.
+
+An officer caught him by the arm and said: "Old man, where did you get
+that money?"
+
+Uncle found his tongue at last, and said: "Mister, I got that from Bill
+Shaw for some of the finest Jerseys you ever seed."
+
+"Here, officer, are our cards and the charge. We'll appear in the
+morning at the station."
+
+Johnny had been overwhelmed by the crowd, but by this time he had edged
+his way in, and when he saw his grandfather in the tolls of the law he
+yelled shrill enough to startle the whole crowd.
+
+"Grandfather's done nothing, let him alone. Here's the thieving
+hypocrits." But the two young men had disappeared among the people, and
+Uncle was being taken away in such a crowd that John could get no view
+whatever of the situation, so he ran howling and sputtering round and
+round the fast increasing crowd like a child gone insane. Presently the
+uselessness of his action made him think of Mother and Fanny. At once he
+darted off to the spot where he had seen them last, and in his wildness
+to find them ran past them two or three times, till Fanny saw him and in
+amazement cried, "Johnny! John! What on earth is the matter with you,
+Johnny?"
+
+Johnny darted over to them and yelled out: "He's tuk up! The cops has
+got him! grandfather's tuck up, and he's done nothing, and them bloody
+bandits got away again. Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Johnny danced around, incapable
+of telling Fanny or his grandma anything further.
+
+But they learned enough to know that for some reason Uncle had been
+arrested and was no doubt now in the guard house. Aunt was overwhelmed
+with consternation, but Fanny ran over to a guard standing near by and
+inquired: "If anyone is arrested on the grounds where do they take
+them?"
+
+"Over there to the guard house, Miss. There they go with some old chap
+now."
+
+[Illustration: "HE'S TUCK UP, HE'S TUCK UP! THE COPS GOT HIM!"]
+
+Fanny looked and could scarcely repress a scream as she saw Uncle seated
+in the patrol wagon between two policemen. She ran back to Aunt and
+Johnny and told him to run as fast as he could to see where the wagon
+went, and they would follow in the same direction. Johnny was off like a
+shot as he saw the wagon rapidly disappearing over the way.
+
+Out of breath they were coming up to the station door when they met
+Johnny, hat off, and almost speechless with excitement.
+
+"They've took Grandpa's money and everything, and locked him up. They
+asked him if he had any friends, and he said he had no friends here but
+us. Nobody listens to me, come quick," and he started them off on a run
+for the station. Arriving there, the officers in charge told them he
+could do nothing for them unless they could find some responsible
+persons to secure his appearance for the preliminary hearing of the next
+day. They were taken around where Uncle was, and a more woe-begone
+appearing farmer never was seen.
+
+"Ah, children, this is Chicago!"
+
+"Grandpa, I'm going to find Mr. Warner. I believe he is a good man, and
+will help us, as he told you he would. Johnny and I will start at once
+to find him. I don't know what else to do."
+
+"But, child," said Aunt, "it's already five o'clock, and the people will
+all be gone home from the store."
+
+"No difference, Grandma; you stay right here, for we're going."
+
+She took the card from Uncle that Mr. Warner had given him and left the
+building with Johnny walking resolutely by her side.
+
+
+
+
+_CHAPTER XIX_
+
+THE LOST FOUND
+
+
+They took a car, and in half an hour were at the doors of the Clarendon
+Company. It was past business hours and the doors were locked. Fanny was
+greatly distressed as to what she should do; but there was no time to
+lose. Some young men were standing near eyeing her with the usual
+sensual greediness of their kind. Her mission was too urgent for her to
+notice their insinuating remarks.
+
+"Can any of you tell me where or how I may find the gentleman named on
+this card?"
+
+Her demeanor, so unaffected and true, brought all their latent manhood
+out, and each one was anxious for the honor of helping her.
+
+Some one standing in the rear made an unbecoming remark, and instantly
+the eyes of those about her turned on him so meaningly that he slunk
+away. One of them took her into a restaurant near by and made known to
+the proprietor what she wanted. He said Mr. Warner lived with the head
+of the firm, a Mr. Sterling. The street and number of the residence was
+given to a cabman, and soon they were driving rapidly away.
+
+Mr. Sterling was sitting alone in his library reading the evening
+papers, when he heard a determined ring at the door. His door was open
+into the hall, and he went himself at once to answer the call.
+
+It was growing quite dark, and he could distinguish only that there
+were two young people standing before him.
+
+"Is this where Mr. Sterling lives?" said one, in a very pleasing tone of
+voice.
+
+"It is."
+
+[Illustration: "HE HEARD A DETERMINED RING AT THE DOOR."]
+
+"We are very sorry to disturb you, but we are in some trouble, and a
+gentleman by the name of Warner told us if, for any reason, we needed
+any assistance while in the city, to call on him. We went to the store,
+but it was closed, and then we were directed to come to you in the hope
+that through you we could find Mr. Warner."
+
+John and Fanny saw a kindly appearing business man before them, and they
+spoke with the utmost confidence in his good-will.
+
+"So, so! that is good. I have heard him speak several times recently of
+a young lady he met on the train, and somewhere else once or twice
+since. Are you the young lady I have been teasing him about? Now, that
+is good. Of course you can see him. He lives with me and is up-stairs
+now. May I ask what is the nature of your trouble?"
+
+Johnny could hold his tongue no longer.
+
+"Why, sir, they've tuck Grandpa up and got him in jail 'cause I stopped
+some crooks a gettin' his money."
+
+"I don't see, my boy, just how that could be," and the gentleman seemed
+somewhat suspicious of their grandfather.
+
+"I don't, nuther," blurted Johnny.
+
+"Come in. I will send for Mr. Warner and see what he can do for you."
+
+They followed him into the room, and he motioned them to take seats.
+Then he went out and sent some one up-stairs for Mr. Warner.
+
+[Illustration: "Fanny, my little girl--my lost children!"]
+
+The room was richly furnished, but had an air of negligence about it
+that betokened the want of an interested woman's taste and care. They
+could hear voices now and then coming from some distant part of the
+house, but they sounded more like the hilarious gaiety of servants than
+of persons having such a cultured place for a home. From the tapestries
+on the walls to the piano and the great case full of books, everything
+was arranged for the convenience of the one rather than for the taste of
+the many. It was the most pleasing home, where money was lavishly spent,
+that she had ever been in, and perhaps she is not to be blamed that for
+a moment she was carried away by her surroundings, and the longing came
+over her to be so happily situated as this. Seeing a life-size painting
+of a woman placed on a high frame near a desk, she went over to look at
+it. There was something so lifelike and natural, and even familiar,
+about the picture that she still further forgot how she came to be
+there. She did not hear Mr. Sterling as he re-entered the room, but he
+came up to her, and as she stepped aside the light fell full upon her
+face almost on a level with the picture in the frame. A startled
+expression came over the face of Mr. Sterling, which deepened into an
+amazement. His face grew white, and he looked at her and then at the
+picture, and then from the picture to her.
+
+The light of some quick intuition spread over her face, and she thrust
+her hand into her cape pocket and drew out a small gold locket, which
+she opened and looked at intently, and then from the face of the man to
+the face of the woman. Mr. Sterling saw the locket.
+
+"What are you looking at, child?" he almost shrieked.
+
+"My mother and father," she said.
+
+He caught the locket out of her hand.
+
+"There, there," he cried, pointing to the painting; "there is the same
+picture, it is the picture of the only one I ever loved, the one now in
+heaven, and you are her living image. In God's name, tell me, child,
+what is your name."
+
+"My name is Fanny," she said, "Fanny Jones; sometimes they call me
+'Fanny Sterling.' Mary Sterling was my----"
+
+She never finished the sentence. With a cry of joy he caught her in his
+arms, sobbing and laughing; "My child, my child, my own little girl;
+found, found at last!"
+
+Johnny at this amazing outburst had come up as if to protect his sister,
+and as Mr. Sterling saw him he cried, "And is this your brother, the
+baby I left never to see again till now?"
+
+Mr. Sterling sat down and drew Johnny up to him. "A rough, hearty,
+honest farmer boy," he said; "I can not realize that after an endless
+search, you have been sent to me in such a strange manner."
+
+Mr. Sterling overcome with his emotion, buried his face in his hands,
+and Fanny kneeling by his side, looked wistfully at him, not knowing
+what to think or do. Mr. Warner, in answer to the call, had come to the
+door and witnessed the whole scene. He could not understand it, and his
+astonishment rendered him speechless. At last without moving from his
+place at the door, he said: "What can this mean, may I ask? It is a
+mystery to me."
+
+"My children," was all Mr. Sterling could say.
+
+Her mission there suddenly came back to Fanny. She sprang to her feet
+and cried: "Oh! Mr. Warner, my grandpa is in trouble. You told us to
+call on you if we needed assistance in anything. He is in the police
+station as a result of our acquaintance with that man on the train. I
+came for you to go with us and see what you could do to help us out."
+
+Everything was soon explained to them all; the cab that brought John and
+Fanny there was dismissed, and Mr. Sterling's carriage was soon speeding
+them all to the fastest train for the Fair grounds. At the police
+station half an hour later there was sorrow turned to joy, and a meeting
+that was too happy to be told. Uncle was released on bail to appear the
+next afternoon to answer to the charges, and there was a reunion at the
+hotel in another hour, when every past ill was forever buried in the
+pleasure of the present and the promise of the future. The next morning
+Mr. Sterling's house was made their abiding place, and Fanny became
+queen of his home.
+
+That afternoon Uncle was in the police court awaiting his accusers. The
+judge called the case, but the witnesses were not there. Their names
+were called, but no one answered. Just then two boys came rushing into
+the room.
+
+"Hold up, yer honnur," said one, "de persecution will soon arrive. I've
+been after 'em, an' I got 'em. I see 'em doin' de robbin', and' I found
+a policeman whut had sense enuf to take 'em in. See!"
+
+[Illustration: "LOUIS CAME IN DANCING WITH EXCITEMENT BEFORE THE BURLY
+POLICEMAN WITH HIS TWO WARDS."]
+
+The irrepressible Louis had hardly ceased speaking when a burly
+policeman entered with the two confidence men who had attempted so
+perseveringly to get Uncle's money. Behind them came the man they had
+just been trying to rob. Johnny and Louis had seen them talking to a
+countryman, and, divining what was intended, followed them as they
+tolled him away to a place where they could accomplish the robbery. They
+found a policeman on the way, who took in the situation and assisted the
+boys to catch the fellows in the act.
+
+Uncle's case was dismissed, and Louis succeeded in seeing the crooks
+given a chance to learn an honest trade at Joliet.
+
+Sight-seeing as a business now gave over to a new order of things. The
+change was almost beyond what a dream could be. Before the C. C. of C.
+C. returned home there was a social gathering at Fanny's new home.
+Johnny had one young friend present and Fanny had five. Mr. Warner had
+often noticed that Louis was a very reliable boy, and Mr. Sterling gave
+him a good position in his store. Uncle and Aunt could not part with
+their children, and Johnny was so thoroughly a farmer that there could
+be no thought of him doing anything else; therefore, it was decided that
+Uncle's Jerseys should be removed to Mr. Sterling's farm, half an hour's
+ride from the city, and that Johnny should have charge of them there.
+Soon after, Uncle and Aunt sold their farm and henceforth lived as they
+pleased with Johnny and the Jerseys, or with Fanny in her happy city
+home. Mr. Warner is trying to win the approval of Fanny to some of his
+plans of happy life, and John and Louis believe they are more than
+kindly remembered by two of those bright girls known as the C. C. of C.
+C.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here we may leave Uncle Jeremiah and family to the good of domestic
+contentment and to the well-earned peace of having lived life well. If
+the Exposition has awakened the sentiments of patriotism and reverence
+in the minds of all its visitors, and has broadened their views
+concerning mankind, and made more charitable their hearts toward the
+rest of the world, as it has done with this one true rural family, then
+it has been a mighty success, though millions of dollars were lost in
+its construction.
+
+This need be none the less true to all, though no two people have seen
+the same World's Columbian Exposition. In all the vast throngs that
+have walked its streets and crowded its palaces for half a year there
+can be no two individuals who have the same story to tell, or who have
+the same thought to pay out to the world from that mint of human
+intelligence.
+
+There is so much within the great "White City" that single pieces are
+lost like flowers in a landscape or like ferns on a mountain side. But
+its beauties inspire every soul; its refinements chasten every heart;
+its achievements exalt every mind, and its lessons give strength to
+every life.
+
+
+_THE END_
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+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  |  Corrections:                                                |
+  |                                                              |
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+  |  Page 179, line 4623: dispairing changed to despairing       |
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+  |  Page 191, line 4865: dispite changed to despite             |
+  |  Page 195, line 4967: closing quote added after Cairo        |
+  |  Page 200, line 5067: Egpytian changed to Egyptian           |
+  |  Page 202, line 5134: here changed to her                    |
+  |  Page 206, line 5247: though changed to thought              |
+  |  Page 206, line 5250: snop changed to shop                   |
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+  |  Page 228, line 5832: full stop added after home             |
+  |  Page 228, line 5862: full stop added after intelligence     |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and
+Family at the Great Fair, by Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE JEREMIAH ***
+
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