image13"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 prohibitingemployeesfrom 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 andnaphtha"," 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."
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:
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 entranceof Agricultural hall. For once Uncle felt at home when he walked into that paradise of grass and grain.
image14"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 atsix 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 overthere, 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'vegot, 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 thegalleryto 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.
"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 at60th street gate flew by under the interesting guidance of the young man on whose card Fanny read
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.
image15"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,"andI 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 heraddress 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?"
image16"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'shed 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."
image17"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."
Inher 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.
"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 Ihave 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 bigengine I didn't say nothing for I never had any use before to learn words that suited such things, so I just saidnothing."
image18"SHE SMOOTHED BACK THE HAIR ON HIS FOREHEAD."
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."
TheColossalManufacturers' Exhibit Amazes theGreat Crowd of Visitors. The United Statesand the Foreign Nations join in Creatingthe Greatest Display in theWorld's History. Shown like aJewel 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. 1writer; quick at figures, not fond ofplay; never reads novels or smokes, or setsa 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 FINEParrot, 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 amonth, 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."
image19"THERE WAS A MEDLEY OF EXCITED VOICES."
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 theguard 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.
"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 withdrewthe tubes from his ears he said to the boy, "Wasn't that out of sight?"
image20"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 iton," 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 mistrising 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 coverevery department of human training. There was a booth of educational temperance. Here they read:
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 belowexplaining 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. Sheshowed 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.
image21"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 andblessings 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 atthat," 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 thehandand 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."