They drew as near to the edge as they could without being seen. They did
not understand in the least. Robin was not given to practical jokes, but
what he had said sounded rather as if there was a joke somewhere. But
she saw Jones and Jerry enter the barn, and saw, before they entered,
that they were deep in talk. It was Jones who was speaking. Jones was
Aunt Matilda’s head man, and was an authority on many things.
“There’s been exhibitions and fairs all over the world,” he was saying,
“but there’s been nothing like what this will be. It will be a city,
that’s what it will be, and all the world is going to be in it. They are
going to build it fronting on the water, and bank the water up into
lakes and canals, and build places like white palaces beside them, and
decorate the grounds with statues and palms and flowers and fountains,
and there’s not a country on earth that won’t send things to fill the
buildings. And there won’t be anything a man can’t see by going through
’em. It’ll be as good as a college course to spend a week there.”
Meg drew a little closer to Robin in the straw.
“What are they talking about?” she whispered.
“Listen,” said Bob.
Jerry, who was moving about at some work below, gave a chuckling laugh.
“Trust ’em to do the biggest thing yet, or bust, them Chicago people,”
he said. “It’s got to be the biggest thing—a Chicago Fair.”
“It’s not goin’ to be the Chicago Fair,” Jones said. “They’re not goin’
to put up with no such idea as that; it’s the World’s Fair. They’re
going to ring in the universe.”
“That’s Chicago out an’ out,” said Jerry. “Buildin’s twenty stories
high, an’ the thermometer twenty-five degrees below zero, an’ a World’s
Fair. Christopher Columbus! I’d like to see it!”
“I bet Christopher Columbus would like to see it,” said Jones. “It’s out
of compliment to him they’re getting it up—for discovering Chicago.”
“Well, I didn’t know he made his name that way partic’lar,” said Jerry.
“Thought what he prided hisself on was discoverin’ America.”
“Same thing,” said Jones, “same thing! Wouldn’t have had much to blow
about, and have statues set up, and comic operas written about him, if
it had only been America he’d discovered. Chicago does him full credit,
and she’s goin’ to give him a send-off that’ll be a credit to her.”
Robin smothered a little laugh in his coat-sleeve. He was quite used to
hearing jokes about Chicago. The people in the country round it were
enormously proud of it, and its great schemes and great buildings and
multi-millionaires, but those who were given to jokes had the habit of
being jocular about it, just as they had the habit of proclaiming and
dwelling upon its rush and wealth and enterprise. But Meg was not a
jocular person. She was too intense and easily excited. She gave Robin
an impatient nudge with her elbow, not in reproof, but as a sort of
irrepressible ejaculation.
“I wish they wouldn’t be funny,” she exclaimed. “I want them to tell
more about it. I wish they’d go on.”
But they did not go on; at least, not in any way that was satisfactory.
They only remained in the barn a short time longer, and they were busy
with the work they had come to do. Meg craned her neck and listened, but
they did not tell more, and she was glad when they went away, so that
she could turn to Robin.
“Don’t you know more than that?” she said. “Is it true? What have you
heard? Tell me yourself.”
“I’ve heard a lot to-day,” said Robin. “They were all talking about it
all the time, and I meant to tell you myself, only I saw Jones and Jerry
coming, and thought, perhaps, we should hear something more if we
listened.”
They clambered over to their corner and made themselves comfortable.
Robin lay on his back, but Meg leaned on her elbows, as usual, with her
cheeks resting on her hands. Her black elf-locks hung over her forehead,
and her big eyes shone.
“Rob,” she said, “go on. What’s the rest?”
“The rest!” he said. “It would take a week to tell it all, I should
think. But it’s going to be the most wonderful thing in the world. They
are going to build a place that will be like a white, beautiful city, on
the borders of the lake—that was why I called it the City Beautiful. It
won’t be on the top of a hill, of course——”
“But if it is on the edge of the lake, and the sun shines and the big
water is blue and there are shining white palaces, it will be better, I
believe,” said Meg. “What is going to be in the city?”
“Everything in the world,” said Robin. “Things from everywhere—from
every country.”
“There are a great many countries,” said Meg. “You know how it is in the
geography. Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as America. Spain and
Portugal and France and England—and Sweden and Norway and Russia and
Lapland—and India—and Italy—and Switzerland, and all the others.”
“There will be things—and people—brought from them all. I heard them say
so. They say there will be villages, with people walking about in them.”
[Illustration: “EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD,” SAID ROBIN.]
“Do they walk about when they are at home?” exclaimed Meg.
“Yes, in the queer clothes they wear in their own countries. There’s
going to be an Esquimaux village.”
“With dogs and sledges?” cried Meg, lifting her head.
“Yes; and you know that place in Italy where the streets are made of
water——”
“It’s Venice,” said Meg. “And they go about in boats called gondolas.”
“And the men who take them about are called gondoliers,” interrupted
Robin. “And they have scarfs and red caps, and push their boats along
with poles. There will be gondolas at the Fair, and people can get into
them and go about the canals.”
“Just as they do in Venice?” Meg gasped.
“Just as they do in Venice. And it will be the same with all the other
countries. It will be as if they were all brought there—Spanish places
and Egyptian places and German places—and French and Italian and Irish
and Scotch and English—and all the others.”
“To go there would be like travelling all over the world,” cried Meg.
“Yes,” said Rob, excitedly. “And all the trades will be there, and all
the machines—and inventions—and pictures—and books—and statues—and
scientific things—and wonderful things—and everything any one wants to
learn about in all the world!”
In his excitement, his words had become so rapid that they almost
tumbled over each other, and he said the last sentence in a rush. There
were red spots on his cheeks, and a queer look in his black eyes. He had
been listening to descriptions of this thing all day. A new hand, hot
from the excitement in Chicago, had been among the workers. Apparently
he had heard of nothing else, thought of nothing else, talked of nothing
else, and dreamed of nothing else but the World’s Fair for weeks.
Finding himself among people who had only bucolic and vague ideas about
it, he had poured forth all he knew, and being a rather good talker, had
aroused great excitement. Robin had listened with eyes and ears wide
open. He was a young human being, born so full of energy and enterprise
that the dull, prosaic emptiness of his life in Aunt Matilda’s world had
been more horrible than he had been old enough to realize. He could not
have explained why it had seemed so maddening to him, but the truth was
that in his small, boyish body was imprisoned the force and ability
which in manhood build great schemes, and not only build, but carry them
out. In him was imprisoned one of the great business men, inventors, or
political powers of the new century. But of this he knew nothing, and so
ate his young heart out in Aunt Matilda’s world, sought refuge with Meg
in the Straw Parlor, and was bitterly miserable and at a loss.
How he had drunk in every word the man from Chicago had uttered! How he
had edged near to him and tried not to lose him for a moment! How he had
longed for Meg to listen with him, and had hoarded up every sentence! If
he had not been a man in embryo, and a strong and clear-headed creature,
he would have done his work badly. But he never did his work badly. He
held on like a little bulldog, and thought of what Meg would say when
they sat in the straw together. Small wonder that he looked excited when
his black head appeared above the edge of the straw. He was wrought up
to the highest pitch. Small wonder that there were deep red spots on his
cheeks, and that there was a queer, intense look in his eyes, and about
his obstinate little mouth.
He threw up his arms with a desperate gesture.
“_Everything_,” he said again, staring straight before him, “that any
one could want to learn about—everything in all the world.”
“Oh, Robin!” said Meg, in quite a fierce little voice, “and we—_we_
shall never see it!”
She saw Robin clinch his hands, though he said nothing, and it made her
clinch her own hands. Robin’s were tough, little, square-fingered fists,
brown and muscular; Meg’s hands were long-fingered, flexible, and
slender, but they made good little fists when they doubled themselves
up.
“Rob,” she said, “we never see anything! We never hear anything! We
never learn anything! If something doesn’t happen we shall be
Nothings—that’s what we shall be—Nothings!” And she struck her fist upon
the straw.
Rob’s jaw began to look very square, but he did not speak.
“We are twelve years old,” Meg went on. “We’ve been here three years,
and we don’t know one thing we didn’t know when we came here. If we had
been with father and mother we should have been learning things all the
time. We haven’t one thing of our own, Rob, but the chickens and the
Straw Parlor—and the Straw Parlor might be taken away from us.”
Rob’s square jaw relaxed just sufficiently to allow of a grim little
grin.
“We’ve got the Treasure, Meg,” he said.
Meg’s laugh had rather a hysterical sound. That she should not have
mentioned the Treasure among their belongings was queer. They talked so
much about the Treasure. At this moment it was buried in an iron bank,
deep in the straw, about four feet from where they sat. It was the very
bank Robin had hoarded his savings in when he had begun at six years old
with pennies, and a ten-cent blank-book to keep his accounts in.
Everything they had owned since then had been pushed and dropped into
it—all the chicken and egg money, and all Robin had earned by doing odd
jobs for any one who would give him one. Nobody knew about the old iron
bank any more than they knew about the Straw Parlor, and the children,
having buried it in the straw, called it the Treasure. Meg’s stories
about it were numerous and wonderful. Sometimes magicians came, and
multiplied it a hundred-fold. Sometimes robbers stole it, and they
themselves gave chase, and sought it with wild adventure; but perhaps
the most satisfactory thing was to invent ways to spend it when it had
grown to enormous proportions. Sometimes they bought a house in New
York, and lived there together. Sometimes they traded in foreign lands
with it. Sometimes they bought land, which increased in value to such an
extent that they were millionaires in a month. Ah! it was a treasure
indeed.
After the little, low, over-strained laugh, Meg folded her arms on the
straw and hid her face in them. Robin looked at her with a troubled air
for about a minute. Then he spoke to her.
“It’s no use doing that,” he said.
“It’s no use doing anything,” Meg answered, her voice muffled in her
arms. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do. We’re so lonely!”
“Yes, we’re lonely,” said Robin, “that’s a fact.” And he stared up at
the dark rafters above him, and at some birds who were clinging to them
and twittering about a nest.
“I said I wished there was a City Beautiful,” Meg said, “but it seems to
make it worse that there is going to be something like it so near, and
that we should never get any nearer to it than a hundred miles.”
Rob sat up, and locked his hands together round his knees.
“How do you know?” he said.
“How do I know?” cried Meg, desperately, and she lifted her head,
turning her wet face sideways to look at him. He unlocked his hands to
give his forehead a hard rub, as if he were trying either to rub some
thought out of or into it.
“Just because we are lonely there _is_ use in doing things,” he said.
“There’s nobody to do them for us. At any rate, we’ve got as far on the
way to the City as the bottom of the Hill of Difficulty.”
And he gave his forehead another rub and looked straight before him, and
Meg drew a little closer to him on the straw, and the family of birds
filled the silence with domestic twitters.