And then, walking close to each other in the dimness, they told each other how they saw it in imagination, and what its wonders would be to them, and which they would see first, and how they would remember it all their lives afterwards, and have things to talk of and think of. Very few people would see it as they would, but they did not know that. It was not a gigantic enterprise to them, a great scheme fought for and struggled over for the divers reasons poor humanity makes for itself; that it would either make or lose money was not a side of the question that reached them. They only dwelt on the beauty and wonder of it, which made it seem like an enchanted thing.
“I keep thinking of the white palaces, and that it is like a fairy story,” Meg said, “and that it will melt away like those cities travellers sometimes see in the desert. And I wish it wouldn’t. But it will have been real for a while, and everybody will remember it. I am so glad it is beautiful—and white. I amsoglad it is white, Robin!”
“And I keep thinking,” said Robin, “of all the people who have made the things to go in it, and how they have worked and invented. There have been some people, perhaps, who have worked months and months making one single thing—just as we have worked to go to see it. And perhaps, at first they were afraid they couldn’t do it, and they set their minds to it as we did, and tried and tried, and then did it at last. I like to think of those men and women, Meg, because, when the City has melted away, the things won’t melt. They will last after the people. And we arepeopletoo. I’m a man, and you are a woman, you know, though we are only twelve, and it gives me a strong feeling to think of those others.”
“It makes you think that perhaps men and womencando anything if they set their minds to it,” said Meg, quite solemnly. “Oh, I do like that!”
“I like it better than anything else in the world,” said Rob. “Stop a minute, Meg. Come here in the shade.”
He said the last words quickly, and pulled her to the roadside, where a big tree grew which threw a deep shadow. He stood listening.
“It’s wheels!” he whispered. “There is a buggy coming. We mustn’t let any one see us.”
It was a buggy, they could tell that by the lightness of the wheels, and it was coming rapidly. They could hear voices—men’s voices—and they drew back and stood very close to each other.
“Do you think they have found out, and sent some one after us?” whispered Meg, breathlessly.
“No,” answered Robin, though his heart beat like a triphammer. “No, no, no.”
The wheels drew nearer, and they heard one of the men speaking.
“Chicago by sunrise,” he was saying, “and what I don’t see of it won’t be worth seeing.”
The next minute the fast-trotting horse spun swiftly down the road, and carried the voices out of hearing. Meg and Robin drew twin sighs of relief. Robin spoke first.
“It is some one who is going to the Fair,” he said.
“Perhaps we shall see him in the train,” said Meg.
“I dare say we shall,” said Robin. “It was nobody who knows us. I didn’t know his voice. Meg, let’s take hands again, and walk quickly; we might lose the train.”
They did not talk much more, but walked briskly. They had done a good day’s work before they set out, and were rather tired, but they did not lag on that account. Sometimes Meg took a turn at carrying the satchel, so that Robin might rest his arm. It was not heavy, and she was as strong for a girl as he was for a boy.
At last they reached the dépôt. There were a number of people waiting on the platform to catch the train to Chicago, and there were several vehicles outside. They passed one which was a buggy, and Meg gave Robin a nudge with her elbow.
“Perhaps that belongs to our man,” she said.
There were people enough before the office to give the ticket-agent plenty to do. Robin’s heart quickened a little as he passed by with the group of maturer people, but no one seemed to observe him particularly, and he returned to Meg with the precious bits of pasteboard held very tight in his hand.
Meg had waited alone in an unlighted corner, and when she saw him coming she came forward to meet him.
“Have you got them?” she said. “Did any one look at you or say anything?”
“Yes, I got them,” Robin answered. “And, I’ll tell you what, Meg, these people are nearly all going just where we are going, and they are so busy thinking about it, and attending to themselves, that they haven’t any time to watch any one else. That’s one good thing.”
“And the nearer we get to Chicago,” Meg said, “the more people there will be, and the more they will have to think of. And at that beautiful place, where there is so much to see, who will look at two children? I don’t believe we shall have any trouble at all.”
It really did not seem likely that they would, but it happened, by a curious coincidence, that within a very few minutes they saw somebody looking at them.
The train was not due for ten minutes, and there were a few people who, being too restless to sit in the waiting-rooms, walked up and down on the platform. Most of these were men, and there were two men who walked farther than the others did, and so neared the place where Robin and Meg stood in the shadow. One was a young man, and seemed to be listening to instructions his companion, who was older, was giving him, in a rapid, abrupt sort of voice. This companion, who might have been his employer, was a man of middle age. He was robust of figure and had a clean-cut face, with a certain effect of strong good looks. It was, perhaps, rather a hard face, but it was a face one would look at more than once; and he too, oddly enough, had a square jaw and straight black brows. But it was his voice which first attracted Robin and Meg as he neared them, talking.
“It’s the man in the buggy,” whispered Robin. “Don’t you know his voice again?” and they watched him with deep interest.
He passed them once, without seeming to see them at all. He was explaining something to his companion. The second time he drew near he chanced to look up, and his eye fell on them. It did not rest on them more than a second, and he went on speaking. The next time he neared their part of the platform he turned his glance towards them, as they stood close together. It was as if involuntarily he glanced to see if they were still where they had been before.
“A pair of children,” they heard him say, as if the fleeting impression of their presence arrested his train of thought for a second. “Look as if no one was with them.”
He merely made the comment in passing, and returned to his subject the next second; but Meg and Robin heard him, and drew farther back into the shadow.
But it was not necessary to stand there much longer. They heard a familiar sound in the distance, the shrill cry of the incoming train—the beloved giant who was to carry them to fairyland; the people began to flock out of the waiting-rooms with packages and valises and umbrellas in hand; the porters suddenly became alert, and hurried about attending to their duties; the delightful roar drew nearer and louder, and began to shake the earth; it grew louder still, a bell began to make a cheerful tolling, people were rushing to and fro; Meg and Robin rushed with them, and the train was panting in the dépôt.
It was even more thrilling than the children had thought it would be. They had travelled so very little, and did not know exactly where to go. It might not be the right train even. They did not know how long it would wait. It might rush away again before they could get on. People seemed in such a hurry and so excited. As they hurried along they found themselves being pushed and jostled, before the steps of one of the cars a conductor stood, whom people kept showing tickets to. There were several persons round him when Robin and Meg reached the place where he stood. People kept asking him things, and sometimes he passed them on, and sometimes let them go into his car.
“IS THIS THE TRAIN TO CHICAGO?” SAID ROBIN.“IS THIS THE TRAIN TO CHICAGO?” SAID ROBIN.
“IS THIS THE TRAIN TO CHICAGO?” SAID ROBIN.
“Is this the train to Chicago?” said Robin, breathlessly.
But he was so much less than the other people, and the man was so busy, he did not hear him.
Robin tried to get nearer.
“Is this the Chicago train, sir?” he said, a little louder.
He had had to press by a man whom he had been too excited to see, and the man looked down, and spoke to him.
“Chicago train?” he said, in a voice which was abrupt, without being ill-natured. “Yes, you’re all right. Got your sleeping tickets?”
Robin looked up at him quickly. He knew the voice, and was vaguely glad to hear it. He and Meg had never been in a sleeping-car in their lives, and he did not quite understand. He held out his tickets.
“We are going to sleep on the train,” he said; “but we have nothing but these.”
“Next car but two, then,” he said; “and you’d better hurry.”
And when both voices thanked him at once, and the two caught each other’s hands and ran towards their car, he looked after them and laughed.
“I’m blessed if they’re not by themselves,” he said, watching them as they scrambled up the steps. “And they’re going to the Fair, I’ll bet a dollar.That’s Young America, and no mistake!”
The car was quite crowded. There were more people than themselves who were going to the Fair and were obliged to economize. When the children entered, and looked about them in the dim light, they thought at first that all the seats were full. People seemed to be huddled up asleep or sitting up awake in all of them. Everybody had been trying to get to sleep, at least, and the twins found themselves making their whispers even lower than before.
“I think there is a seat empty just behind that very fat lady,” Meg whispered.
It was at the end of the car, and they went to it, and found she was right. They took possession of it quietly, putting their satchel under the seat.
“It seems so still,” said Meg, “I feel as if I was in somebody’s bedroom. The sound of the wheels makes it seem all the quieter. It’s as if we were shut in by the noise.”
“We mustn’t talk,” said Robin, “or we shall waken the people. Can you go to sleep, Meg?”
“I can if I can stop thinking,” she answered, with a joyful sigh. “I’m very tired; but the wheels keep saying, over and over again, ‘We’re going—we’re going—we’re going.’ It’s just as if they were talking. Don’t you hear them?”
“Yes, I do. Do they say that to you, too? But we mustn’t listen,” Robin whispered back. “If we do we shall not go to sleep, and then we shall be too tired to walk about. Let’s put our heads down, and shut our eyes, Meg.”
“Well, let’s,” said Meg.
She curled herself up on the seat, and put her head into the corner.
“If you lean against me, Rob,” she said, “it will be softer. We can take turns.”
They changed position a little two or three times, but they were worn out with the day’s work, and their walk, and the excitement, and the motion of the train seemed like a sort of rocking which lulled them. Gradually their muscles relaxed and they settled down, though, after they had done so, Meg spoke once, drowsily.
“Rob,” she said, “did you see that was our man?”
“Yes,” answered Rob, very sleepily indeed, “and he looked as if he knew us.”
* * * * * * * *
If they had been less young, or if they had been less tired, they might have found themselves awake a good many times during the night. But they were such children, and, now that the great step was taken, were so happy, that the soft, deep sleepiness of youth descended upon and overpowered them. Once or twice during the night they stirred, wakened for a dreamy, blissful moment by some sound of a door shutting, or a conductor passing through. But they were only conscious of a delicious sense of strangeness, of the stillness of the car full of sleepers, of the half-realized delight of feeling themselves carried along through the unknown country, and of the rattle of the wheels, which never ceased saying rhythmically, “We’re going—we’re going—we’re going!”
Ah! what a night of dreams and new, vague sensations, to be remembered always! Ah! that heavenly sense of joy to come, and adventure, and young hopefulness and imagining! Were there many others carried towards the City Beautiful that night who bore with them the same rapture of longing and belief; who saw with such innocent clearness only the fair and splendid thought which had created it, and were so innocently blind to any shadow of sordidness or mere worldly interest touching its white walls? And after the passing of this wonderful night, what a wakening in the morning, at the first rosiness of dawn, when all the other occupants of the car were still asleep, or restlessly trying to be at ease!
It was as if they both wakened at almost the same moment. The first shaft of early sunlight streaming in the window touched Meg’s eyelids, and she slowly opened them. Then something joyous and exultant rushed in upon her heart, and she sat upright. And Robin sat up too, and they looked at each other.
“It’s the Day, Meg!” said Robin. “It’s the Day!” Meg caught her breath.
“And nothing has stopped us,” she said. “And we are getting nearer and nearer. Rob, let us look out of the window.”
For a while they looked out, pressed close together, and full of such ecstasy of delight in the strangeness of everything that at first they did not exchange even their whispers.
It is rather a good thing to see—rather well worth while even for a man or woman—the day waking, and waking the world, as one is borne swiftly through the morning light, and one looks out of a car window. What it was to these two children only those who remember the children who were themselves long ago can realize at all. The country went hurrying past them, making curious sudden revelations and giving half-hints in its haste; prairie and field, farmhouse and wood and village all wore a strange, exciting, vanishing aspect.
“It seems,” Meg said, “as if it was all going somewhere—in a great hurry—as if it couldn’t wait to let us see it.”
“But we are the ones that are going,” said Rob. “Listen to the wheels—and we shall soon be there.”
After a while the people who were asleep began to stir and stretch themselves. Some of them looked cross, and some looked tired. The very fat lady in the seat before them had a coal smut on her nose.
“Robin,” said Meg, after looking at her seriously a moment, “let’s get our towel out of the bag and wet it and wash our faces.”
They had taken the liberty of borrowing a towel from Aunt Matilda. It was Meg who had thought of it, and it had, indeed, been an inspiration. Robin wetted two corners of it, and they made a rigorous if limited toilet. At least they had no smuts on their noses, and after a little touching up with the mutual comb and brush, they looked none the worse for wear. Their plain and substantial garments were not of the order which has any special charm to lose.
“And it’s not our clothes that are going to the Fair,” said Meg, “it’sus!”
And by the time they were in good order, the farms and villages they were flying past had grown nearer together. The platforms at the dépôts were full of people who wore a less provincial look; the houses grew larger and so did the towns; they found themselves flashing past advertisements of all sorts of things, and especially of things connected with the Fair.
“You know how we used to play ‘hunt the thimble,’” said Robin, “and how, when any one came near the place where it was hidden, we said, ‘Warm—warmer—warmer still—hot!’ It’s like that now. We have been getting warmer and warmer every minute, and now we are getting——”
“We shall be in in a minute,” said a big man at the end of the car, and he stood up and began to take down his things.
“Hot,” said Robin, with an excited little laugh. “Meg, we’re not going—going—going any more. Look out of the window.”
“We are steaming into the big dépôt,” cried Meg. “How big it is! What crowds of people! Robin, we are there!”
Robin bent down to pick up their satchel; the people all rose in their seats and began to move in a mass down the aisle toward the door. Everybody seemed suddenly to become eager and in a hurry, as if they thought the train would begin to move again and carry them away. Some were expecting friends to meet them, some were anxious about finding accommodations. Those who knew each other talked, asked questions over people’s shoulders, and there was a general anxiety about valises, parcels, and umbrellas. Robin and Meg were pressed back into their section by the crowd, against which they were too young to make headway.
“We shall have to wait until the grown-up people have passed by,” Rob said.
But the crowd in the aisle soon lost its compactness, and they were able to get out. The porter, who stood on the platform near the steps, looked at them curiously, and glanced behind them to see who was with them, but he said nothing.
It seemed to the two as if all the world must have poured itself into the big dépôt or be passing through it. People were rushing about; friends were searching for one another, pushing their way through the surging crowd; some were greeting each other with exclamations and hand-shaking, and stopping up the way; there was a Babel of voices, a clamor of shouts within the covered place, and from outside came a roar of sound rising from the city.
For a few moments Robin and Meg were overwhelmed. They did not quite know what to do; everybody pushed past and jostled them. No one was ill-natured, but no one had time to be polite. They were so young and so strange to all such worlds of excitement and rush, involuntarily they clutched each other’s hands after their time-honored fashion, when they were near each other and overpowered. The human vortex caught them up and carried them along, not knowing where they were going.
“We seem so little!” gasped Meg. “There—there are so many people! Rob, Rob, where are we going?”
Robin had lost his breath too. Suddenly the world seemed so huge—so huge! Just for a moment he felt himself turn pale, and he looked at Meg and saw that she was pale too.
“Everybody is going out of the dépôt,” he said.
“Hold on to me tight, Meg. It will be all right. We shall get out.”
And so they did. The crowd surged and swayed and struggled, and before long they saw that it was surging towards the entrance gate, and it took them with it. Just as they thrust through they found themselves pushed against a man, who good-naturedly drew a little back to save Meg from striking against his valise, which was a very substantial one. She looked up to thank him, and gave a little start. It was the man she had called “our man” the night before, when she spoke of him to Robin. And he gave them a sharp but friendly nod.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “it’s you two again. Youaregoing to the Fair!”
Robin looked up at his shrewd face with a civil little grin.
“Yes, sir; we are,” he answered.
“Hope you’ll enjoy it,” said the man. “Big thing.” And he was pushed past them and soon lost in the crowd.
The crowd in the dépôt surged into the streets, and melted into and became an addition to the world of people there. The pavements were moving masses of human beings, the centres of the streets were pandemoniums of wagons and vans, street cars, hotel omnibuses, and carriages. The brilliant morning sunlight dazzled the children’s eyes; the roar of wheels and the clamor of car bells, of clattering horses’ feet, of cries and shouts and passing voices, mingled in a volume of sound that deafened them. The great tidal wave of human life and work and pleasure almost took them off their feet.
They knew too little of cities to have had beforehand any idea of what the overwhelming rush and roar would be, and what slight straws they would feel themselves upon the current. If they had been quite ordinary children, they might well have been frightened. But they were not ordinary children, little as they were aware of that important factor in their young lives. They were awed for this first moment, but, somehow, they were fascinated as much as they were awed, while they stood for a brief breathing-space looking on. They did not know—no child of their ages can possibly know such things of him or herself—that Nature had made them of the metal out of which she moulds strong things and great ones. As they had not comprehended the restless sense of wrong and misery the careless, unlearning, and ungrowing life in Aunt Matilda’s world filled them with, so they did not understand that, because they had been born creatures who belong to the great moving, working, venturing world, they were not afraid of it, and felt their first young face-to-face encounter with it a thing which thrilled them with an exultant emotion they could not have explained.
“This is not Aunt Matilda’s world,” said Rob. “It—I believe it is ours, Meg. Don’t you?”
Meg was staring with entranced eyes at the passing multitude.
“‘More pilgrims are come to town,’” she said, quoting the “Pilgrim’s Progress” with a far-off look in her intense little black-browed face. “You remember what it said, Rob, ‘Here also all the noise of them that walked in the streets was, More pilgrims are come to town.’ Oh, isn’t it like it!”
It was. And the exaltation and thrill of it got into their young blood and made them feel as if they walked on air, and that every passing human thing meant, somehow, life and strength to them.
Their appetites were sharpened by the morning air, and they consulted as to what their breakfast should be. They had no money to spend at restaurants, and every penny must be weighed and calculated.
“Let’s walk on,” said Meg, “until we see a bakery that looks as if it was kept by poor people. Then we can buy some bread, and eat it with our eggs somewhere.”
“All right,” said Robin.
They marched boldly on. The crowd jostled them, and there was so much noise that they could hardly hear each other speak; but ah! how the sun shone, and how the pennons fluttered and streamed on every side, and how excited and full of living the people’s faces looked! It seemed splendid, only to be alive in such a world on such a morning. The sense of the practical which had suggested that they should go to a small place led them into the side streets. They passed all the big shops without a glance, but at last Meg stooped before a small one.
“There’s a woman in there,” she said; “I just saw her for a minute. She has a nice face. She looked as if she might be good-natured. Let’s go in there, Robin. It’s quite a small place.”
They went in. It was a small place but a clean one, and the woman had a good-natured face. She was a German, and was broad and placid and comfortable. They bought some fresh rolls from her, and as she served them, and was making the change, Meg watched her anxiously. She was thinking that she did look very peaceable, indeed. So, instead of turning away from the counter, she planted herself directly before her and asked her a question.
“If you please,” she said, “we have some hard-boiled eggs to eat with our bread, and we are not going home. If we are very careful, would you mind if we ate our breakfast in here, instead of outside? We won’t let any of the crumbs or shells drop on the floor.”
“You not going home?” said the woman. “You from out town?”
“Yes,” answered Meg.
“You look like you wass goun to der Fair,” said the woman, with a good-tempered smile. “Who wass with you?”
“No one,” said Robin. “We are going alone. But we’re all right.”
“My crayshious!” said the woman. “But you wass young for that. But your ’Merican childrens is queer ones. Yes! You can sit down an’ eat your bregfast. That make no matter to me if you is careful. You can sit down.”
There were two chairs near a little table, where, perhaps, occasional customers ate buns, and they sat down to their rolls and eggs and salt, as to a feast.
“I was hungry,” said Rob, cracking his fourth egg.
“So was I!” said Meg, feeling that her fresh roll was very delicious.
It was a delightful breakfast. The German woman watched them with placid curiosity as they ate it. She had been a peasant in her own country, and had lived in a village among rosy, stout, and bucolic little Peters and Gretchens, who were not given to enterprise, and the American child was a revelation to her. And somehow, also, these two had an attraction all American children had not. They looked so well able to take care of themselves, and yet had such good manners and no air of self-importance at all. They ate their rolls and hard-boiled eggs with all the gusto of very young appetite, but they evidently meant to keep their part of the bargain, and leave her no crumbs and shells to sweep up. The truth was that they were perfectly honorable little souls, and had a sense of justice. They were in the midst of their breakfast, when they were rather startled by hearing her voice from the end of the counter where she had been standing, leaning against the wall, her arms folded.
“You like a cup coffee?” she asked.
“YOU LIKE A CUP COFFEE?” SHE ASKED.“YOU LIKE A CUP COFFEE?” SHE ASKED.
“YOU LIKE A CUP COFFEE?” SHE ASKED.
They both looked round, uncertain what to say, not knowing whether or not that she meant that she sold coffee. They exchanged rather disturbed glances, and then Robin answered.
“We can’t afford it, thank you, ma’am,” he said, “we’ve got so little money.”
“Never mind,” she astonished them by answering, “that cost me nothing. There some coffee left on the back of the stove from my man’s bregfast. I give you each a cup.” And she actually went into the little back room, and presently brought back two good cups of hot coffee.
“There, you drink that,” she said, setting them down on the little table. “If you children goun to der Fair in that crowd by yourselves, you want something in your stomachs.”
It was so good—it was so unexpected—it seemed such luck! They looked at each other with beaming eyes, and at her with quite disproportionate gratitude. It was much more than two cups of coffee to them.
“Oh, thank you,” they both exclaimed. “We’re so much obliged to you, ma’am!”
Their feast seemed to become quite a royal thing. They never had felt so splendidly fed in their lives. It seemed as if they had never tasted such coffee.
When the meal was finished, they rose refreshed enough to feel ready for anything. They went up to the counter and thanked the German woman again. It was Meg who spoke to her.
“We want to say thank you again,” she said. “We are very much obliged to you for letting us eat our breakfast in here. It was so nice to sit down, and the coffee was so splendid. I dare say we do seem rather young to be by ourselves, but that makes us all the more thankful.”
“That’s all right,” said the woman. “I hope you don’t get lost by der Fair—and have good time!”
And then they went forth on their pilgrimage, into the glorious morning, into the rushing world that seemed so splendid and so gay—into the fairy-land that only themselves and those like them could see.
“Isn’t it nice when some one’s kind to you, Rob?” Meg exclaimed joyfully, when they got into the sunshine. “Doesn’t it make you feel happy, somehow, not because they’ve done something, but just because they’ve been kind?”
“Yes, it does,” answered Rob, stepping out bravely. “And I’ll tell you what I believe—I believe there are a lot of kind people in the world.”
“So do I,” said Meg. “I believe they’re in it even when we don’t see them.”
And all the more, with springing steps and brave young faces, they walked on their way to fairy-land.
They had talked it all over—how they would enter their City Beautiful. It would be no light thing to them, their entrance into it. They were innocently epicurean about it, and wanted to see it at the very first in all its loveliness. They knew that there were gates of entrance here and there, through which thousands poured each day; but Meg had a fancy of her own, founded, of course, upon that other progress of the Pilgrim’s.
“Robin,” she said, “oh, we must go in by the water, just like those other pilgrims who came to town. You know that part at the last where it says, ‘And so many went over the water and were let in at the golden gates to-day.’ Let us go over the water and be let in at the golden gates. But the water we shall go over won’t be dark and bitter; it will be blue and splendid, and the sun will be shining everywhere. Ah, Rob, howcanit be true that we are here!”
They knew all about the great arch of entrance and stately peristyle. They had read in the newspapers all about its height and the height of the statues adorning it; they knew how many columns formed the peristyle, but it was not height or breadth or depth or width they remembered. The picture which remained with them and haunted them like a fair dream was of a white and splendid archway, crowned with one of the great stories of the world in marble—the triumph of the man in whom the god was so strong that his dreams, the working of his mind, his strength, his courage, his suffering, wrested from the silence of the Unknown a new and splendid world. It was this great white arch they always thought of, with this precious marble story crowning it, the blue, blue water spread before the stately columns at its side, and the City Beautiful within the courts it guarded. And it was to this they were going when they found their way to the boat which would take them to it.
It was such a heavenly day of June! The water was so amethystine, the sky such a vault of rapture! What did it matter to them that they were jostled and crowded, and counted for nothing among those about them? What did it matter that there were often near them common faces, speaking of nothing but common, stupid pleasure or common sharpness and greed? What did it matter that scarcely any one saw what they saw, or, seeing it, realized its splendid, hopeful meaning? Little recked they of anything but the entrancement of blue sky and water, and the City Beautiful they were drawing near to.
When first out of the blueness there rose the fair shadow of the whiteness, they sprang from their seats, and, hand in hand, made their way to the side, and there stood watching, as silent as if they did not dare to speak lest it should melt away; and from a fair white spirit it grew to a real thing—more white, more fair, more stately, and more an enchanted thing than even they had believed or hoped.
And the crowd surged about them, and women exclaimed and men talked, and there was a rushing to and fro, and the ringing of a bell, and movement and action and excitement were on every side. But somehow these two children stood hand in hand and only looked.
And their dream had come true, though it had been a child’s dream of an enchanted thing.
They passed beneath the snow-white stateliness of the great arch, still hand in hand, and silent. They walked softly, almost as if they felt themselves treading upon holy ground. To their youth and unworn souls itwaslike holy ground, they had so dreamed of it, they had so longed for it, it had been so mingled in their minds with the story of a city not of this world.
And they stood within the court beyond the archway, the fair and noble colonnade, its sweep of columns, statue-crowned, behind them, the wonder of the City Beautiful spread before. The water of blue lagoons lapped the bases of white palaces, as if with a caress of homage to their beauty. On every side these marvels stood; everywhere there was the green of sward and broad-leaved plants, the sapphire of water, the flood of color and human life passing by, and above it all and enclosing it, the warm, deep, splendid blueness of the summer sky.
It was so white—it was so full of the marvel of color—it was so strange—it was so radiant and unearthly in its beauty.
The two children only stood still and gazed and gazed, with widening eyes and parted lips. They could not have moved about at first; they only stood and lost themselves as in a dream.
Meg was still for so long that Robin, turning slowly to look at her at last, was rather awed.
“Meg!” he said; “Meg!”
“Yes,” she answered, in a voice only half awake.
“Meg! Meg! We arethere!”
“I know,” said Meg. “Only it is so like—that other City—that it seems as if——” She gave a queer little laugh, and turned to look at him. “Rob,” she said, “perhaps we aredead, and have just wakened up.”
That brought them back to earth. They laughed together. No, they were not dead. They were breathless and uplifted by an ecstasy, but they had never been so fullyalivebefore. It seemed as if they were in the centre of the world, and the world was such a bright and radiant and beautiful place as they had never dreamed of.
“Where shall we go first?” said Meg. “What shall we do?”
But it was so difficult to decide that. It did not seem possible to make a plan and follow it. It was not possible for them, at least. They were too happy and too young. Surely visitors to fairy-land could not make plans! They gave themselves up to the spell, and went where fancy led them. And it led them far, and through strange beauties, which seemed like dreams come true. They wandered down broad pathways, past green sward, waving palms, glowing masses of flowers, white balustrades bordering lagoons lightly ruffled by a moment’s wind. Wonderful statues stood on silent guard, sometimes in groups, sometimes majestic colossal figures.
“They look as if they were all watching the thousands and thousands go by,” said Robin.
“It seems as if they must be thinking something about it all,” Meg answered. “It could not be that they could stand there and look like that and not know.”
It was she who soon after built up for them the only scheme they made during those enchanted days. It could scarcely be called a plan of action, it was so much an outcome of imagination and part of a vision, but it was a great joy to them through every hour of their pilgrimage.
Standing upon a fairy bridge, looking over shining canals crossed by these fairy bridges again and again, the gold sun lighting snow-white columns, archways, towers, and minarets, statues and rushing fountains, flowers and palms, her child eyes filled with a deep, strange glow of joy and dreaming.
She leaned upon the balustrade in her favorite fashion, her chin upon her hands.
“We need notpretendit is a fairy story, Robin,” she said. “Itisa fairy story, but it is real. Who ever thought a fairy story could come true? I’ve made up how it came to be like this.”
“Tell us how,” said Robin, looking over the jewelled water almost as she did.
“It was like this,” she said. “There was a great Magician who was the ruler of all the Genii in all the world. They were all powerful and rich and wonderful magicians, but he could make them obey him, and give him what they stored away. And he said: ‘I will build a splendid City, that all the world shall flock to and wonder at and remember forever. And in it some of all the things in the world shall be seen, so that the people who see it shall learn what the world is like—how huge it is, and what wisdom it has in it, and what wonders! And it will make them know whattheyare like themselves, because the wonders will be made by hands and feet and brains just like their own. And so they will understand how strong they are—if they only knew it—and it will give them courage and fill them with thoughts.”
She stopped a moment, and Rob pushed her gently with his elbow.
“Go on,” he said, “I like it. It sounds quite true. What else?”
“And he called all the Genii together and called them by their names. There was one who was the king of all the pictures and statues, and the people who worked at making them. They did not know they had a Genius, but they had, and he put visions into their heads, and made them feel restless until they had worked them out into statues and paintings. And the Great Genius said to him: ‘You must build a palace foryourpeople, and make them pour their finest work into it; and all the people who are made to be your workers, whether they know it or not, will look at your palace and see what other ones have done, and wonder if they cannot do it themselves.’ And there was a huge, huge Genius who was made of steel and iron and gold and silver and wheels, and the Magician said to him: ‘Build a great palace, and make your workers fill it with all the machines and marvels they have made, and all who see will know what wonders can be done, and feel that there is no wonder that isn’t done that is too great for human beings to plan.’ And there was a Genius of the strange countries, and one who knew all the plants and flowers and trees that grew, and one who lived at the bottom of the sea and knew the fishes by name and strode about among them. And each one was commanded to build a palace or to make his people work, and they grew so interested that in the end each one wanted his palace and his people to be the most wonderful of all. And so the City was built, and we are in it, Robin, though we are only twelve years old, and nobody cares about us.”
“Yes,” said Robin, “and the City is as much ours as if we were the Magician himself. Meg, who was the Magician?Whatwas he?”
“I don’t know,” said Meg. “Nobody knows. He is that—that——” She gave a sudden, queer little touch to her forehead and one to her side. “That, you know, Rob! The thing thatthinks—and makes us want to do things and be things. Don’t you suppose so, Rob?”
“The thing that made us want so to come here that we could not bearnotto come?” said Robin. “The thing that makes you make up stories about everything, and always have queer thoughts?”
“Yes—that!” said Meg. “And every one has some of it; and there are such millions of people, and so there is enough to make the Great Magician. Robin, come along; let us go to the palace the picture Genius built, and see what his people put in it. Let us be part of the fairy story when we go anywhere. It will make it beautiful.”
They took their fairy story with them and went their way. They made it as much the way of a fairy story as possible. They found a gondola with a rich-hued, gay-scarfed gondolier, and took their places.
“Now we are in Venice,” Meg said, as they shot smoothly out upon the lagoon. “We can be in any country we like. Now we are in Venice.”
Their gondola stopped, and lay rocking on the lagoon before the palace’s broad white steps. They mounted them, and entered into a rich, glowing world, all unknown.
They knew little of pictures, they knew nothing of statuary, but they went from room to room, throbbing with enjoyment. They stopped before beautiful faces and happy scenes, and vaguely smiled, though they did not know they were smiling; they lingered before faces and figures that were sad, and their own dark little faces grew soft and grave. They could not afford to buy a catalogue, so they could only look and pity and delight or wonder.
“We must make up the stories and thoughts of them ourselves,” Robin said. “Let’s take it in turns, Meg. Yours will be the best ones, of course.”