THE PEOPLE OF THE “ZONE.”
When Rob and his chum left the building they carried the empty suitcase;
and besides, Professor Marsh had written and signed a long and effusive
message to his learned colleague in care of Judge Collins, at Hampton,
Long Island, which Rob was empowered to send, at his own expense, by wire
as a night letter.
“That job is done,” said Rob, with the air of one who has gotten rid of a
load that had been on his mind.
“And just to think how we can enjoy ourselves for weeks if we feel like
staying that long,” pursued the happy Andy, fairly bubbling over with
enthusiasm and joy.
“Even when we decide to start back home,” laughed Rob, “the fun isn’t
over by a huge sight.”
“You mean, Rob, we’ll have the time of our lives traveling across the
Canadian Rockies, taking in wonderful scenery that is better, lots of
people say, than anything across in Switzerland?”
“Yes,” said the scout leader, “and if we choose to stop over for a day or
two to try the trout fishing at a lake we were told about, haven’t we got
our rods and other material along in our trunk?”
“It takes a wideawake fellow like you to think of every little detail,
for a fact!” declared Andy, with genuine admiration.
“Oh! I’m far from perfect, I want you to know,” the other told him. “I
can remember plenty of times when I’ve found that, after all, the very
thing of most importance was forgotten or neglected. But it pays to try
and cover the ground. It saves lots of trouble and disappointment in the
long run.”
“I believe you, Rob; with me it seems as though I fall into the way of
letting some other fellow do my thinking for me. I know it’s wrong, but
anyhow it’s satisfying to have that confidence in your chum.”
“You didn’t think of letting some other scout do your work for you at the
time you were learning the various bugle calls, I noticed, Andy.”
“Shucks! that’s different,” returned the other, hastily. “Now that you
mention it, I can’t remember ever asking a substitute to do my _eating_
for me when meal time rolled around. Guess you must be right, though,
Rob; some of these days I intend to wake up and even think for myself.”
“Believe me you can’t make that day any too soon, Andy. If you happened
to find yourself cast adrift on a big desert you would be sorry you
delayed so long, though, if you pulled through alive, it might be the
making of you.”
“Oh! I’ll buckle down to the job without being forced that way,” Andy
hurriedly assured the scout leader. “What’s the next thing on the
program?”
“I know you’re just dying to get into the amusement section of the
Exposition called the Zone, and which is a good deal like the Streets of
Cairo and the Midway of the Chicago Fair. I’ll make a bargain with you,
Andy.”
“All right; let’s hear the particulars,” exclaimed the other eagerly.
“First of all,” began Rob, “I want to get rid of this suitcase, and we’ll
make for that tobacconist’s odd booth, to leave it with him until we’re
going back to the hotel.”
“That’s over this way, past the big California building, with the Oregon
one that has a colonnade of logs alongside. Well, after we’ve shunted the
bag on the man who runs the tobacco shop, what next?”
“We’ll put in the rest of the morning,” Rob explained, “in rummaging
through some of these places clustering around the Tower of Jewels. I’ve
got a string of things I’m wild to see, and that’s as good a place to
make a start as anywhere.”
“That brings us to noon, when we agreed to meet Hiram, you remember, for
lunch?” Andy reminded his chum.
“Yes, and I understand there are dozens and dozens of eating places to be
found in the Zone. If you want you can have an Arab dinner, a Chinese
chop suey, a French meal _à la carte_, a German one, or anything your
taste calls for. So we might as well head that way for our lunch, and
pick out a place that seems to promise good things for hungry fellows.”
“Huh! after I once get inside the Zone, Rob, nothing can drag me out
again for the whole afternoon. So, I hope you’ve concluded to make a
sacrifice, and devote the rest of the day to keeping me company in
roaming around among all the queer sights they tell me you can run up
against there.”
Rob nodded his head and smiled.
“I promise you that, Andy, because I know you too well to believe there
could be any peace until you have had your way. Yes, and I admit that I
can get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing all those foreign things, as
well as the more important exhibits in Machinery Hall and such places.”
“Sure thing,” said Andy, with an assumption of great sagacity. “In one
case we are shown wonderful development in the world’s progress along the
lines of science and commerce; while in the Zone you can see man himself
as he appears all over this ball, how he lives, what his forefathers have
done for ages and ages in the past, and in fact study human nature. To me
that is better than gaping at some machine I never could understand in a
lifetime.”
By this time they had reached the shop where arrangements had been made
with the obliging proprietor to act as a medium of exchange between the
three scouts during their stay. The empty suitcase was disposed of and
once more the boys started out to gaze upon some of the myriad strange
sights that were to be met with on every hand.
Doubtless Rob took a considerably greater amount of interest in what they
viewed during those several hours than did his companion, though now and
then Andy managed to display more or less enthusiasm.
It would be utterly impossible to mention the things they saw as they
wandered hither and thither about that section of the grounds. Even a
guide-book of the Exposition would have to skim over the details, such
were the numberless attractions on every hand.
“Getting on toward noon, Rob!” suggested Andy, finally, as he laid a hand
on his stomach, as if to call attention to the fact that it was unusually
flat.
“And there’s Hiram coming this way, too, as if he was beginning to
remember his promise to meet us for lunch. I wonder if we can keep him
with us the rest of the day?”
“Not unless you get a rope and tie him,” chuckled Andy, “for he’s clean
gone daffy over the line of exhibits he fancies most, and will haunt that
part of the Exposition nearly all the time we’re here.”
Hiram caught sight of them about that moment, and hurried over.
“Just on the way to the meeting-place,” he announced. “Knew it was near
grub time and wanted to get it over with. Say, they’ve got the greatest
lot of things worth while on exhibition over there in the building
devoted to inventions you ever saw. And the aviation field is a peach. My
stars! but they’re a busy bunch of willing, hustling workers there.”
Rob had been studying the other’s face, and it told him something.
“You found your firm represented there, of course, Hiram?” he remarked.
“’Course they are, and cutting some high jinks, too,” came the reply.
“They’ve got some of their finished products working in the field, with
air pilots of national renown in charge of the flights. You must get over
that way some time and see.”
“We will, perhaps before the day is done,” Rob assured him; “but I
suppose now, Hiram, you didn’t introduce yourself to the Golden Gate
people?”
“Naw. I just took it all in, and browsed around everywhere, laughing to
myself to think how surprised they were going to be when they found out
that the Hiram Nelson, inventor of the wonderful stabilizer for
aëroplanes, was only a Boy Scout. But what are we going into the Zone
for, tell me?”
“Why, to get something to eat, to be sure,” remarked Andy.
“But I’m no cannibal,” expostulated Hiram, holding back in pretended
alarm; “even if they do have that stripe of people here on exhibition. I
don’t hanker after trying a roast Fiji Islander, or a fricasseed Igorrote
from the Philippine Islands—I’m not _that_ hungry.”
“Oh!” Andy told him, tugging at his sleeve, “we’ll find a thousand places
here where they cook meals after the fashion of every nation under the
sun. I hope we pick out one that is close to that giant seesaw; because
I’m wild to go up in it so as to get a magnificent view of the harbor,
the Exposition grounds and the City of San Francisco.”
It was found to be an easy matter to accomplish this, and they were soon
being served at a table that stood out-of-doors, so that as they enjoyed
their lunch they could watch the endless procession of people passing and
repassing.
As so many attractions in the amusement concession were connected with
foreign countries, it was really almost as good as being abroad to see
the various representative types that sauntered or hurried by.
“I wonder how many of those Arabs, Turks, Algerians, Persians, Hindoos,
Hottentots and others are the real thing, and how many rank fakes,”
suggested Hiram.
“That’s more than anybody can tell,” laughed Rob. “It’s the easiest thing
to put stain on the skin of an Irishman, dress him in the Oriental style,
clap a red fez on his head, and then call him a Turk. Only he has to keep
his tongue tight-locked; because his brogue would give him away. If you
listen to them chattering in their own tongue you can tell which are the
real thing.”
“As for me,” spoke up Andy, frankly, “I just don’t question any of them,
but take it for granted they’re what they make out to be. And I want to
say, fellows, it’s the biggest treat to me to be here, watching the
congress of all the nations and people on the globe.”
Hiram’s lip curled and he snickered, but Andy pretended not to hear. To
Hiram’s mind any one who could confess to caring for such frivolous
things when there was a building not far away just jammed with the most
marvelous inventions known to modern science and ingenuity—well, it
bordered on silliness. But then “many men, many minds,” and perhaps it is
just as well that people do not all think alike. There is a deal of truth
in that old proverb to the effect that what is “one man’s food may be
another’s poison.”
So they sat there for a long time while the procession of Head Hunters
from Borneo, natives of the island of Ceylon, South American _vaqueros_
in their picturesque attire, pigmies from the heart of Africa, Mexican
bull-fighters, Moros from our island possessions in the Orient, Chinese,
Japanese, Servians, Tyrolese mountain climbers and yodlers, and a
multitude of others continued to pass, many of them coming from the
villages and side shows of the great amusement park.
From time to time the amazing arm of the giant Aëroscope would project up
against the heavens, the car filled with those visitors who wished to
obtain a view of their surroundings.
Every time it arose, slowly but majestically, Andy would stop talking to
gape and watch, as though just then the one longing in his heart was to
take that skyward trip.
Rob knew it would be the very first thing Andy would want to do after
they left the table; and indeed, he was not feeling at all averse to
complying with such a request, for it seemed as if the extensive view to
be obtained must be well worth the price charged for the trip aloft.
“Three hundred and sixty-five feet they say in the guide book,” Andy
gushed; “and all for a small sum in the bargain. I wouldn’t miss that
sight for ten times fifty cents. Why, only for the Rockies being in the
way, with a _real good_ glass you might get even a peep in at Hampton
town, unless one of those nasty sea fogs blocked you off,” and then, of
course, he had to laugh himself at the idea of any glass being able to
cover a distance of something like three thousand miles.