What a feast it was—what a feast! They were so hungry, they were so
happy, they were so rejoiced! And John Holt watched them as if he had
never enjoyed himself so much before. He laughed, he made jokes, he
handed out good things, he poured out lemonade.
“Let’s drink to the Great Magician!” he said, filling the little glasses
he had brought; and he made them drink it standing, as a toast. In all
the grounds that day there was no such a party, it was so exhilarated
and amazed at itself. Little Ben looked and ate and laughed as if the
lemonade had gone to his head.
“Oh, my!” he said, “if mother could see me!”
“We’ll bring her to-morrow,” said John Holt.
“Are you—” faltered Meg, looking at him with wide eyes, “are you coming
again to-morrow?”
“Yes,” John Holt answered, “and you are coming with me; and we’ll come
every day until you’ve seen it all—if you three will pilot me around.”
“You must be very rich, John Holt,” said Meg. She had found out that it
was his whim to want her to call him so.
“I have plenty of money,” he said, “if that’s being rich. Oh, yes, I’ve
got money enough! I’ve more land than Aunt Matilda.”
And then it was that suddenly Robin remembered something.
“I believe,” he said, “that I’ve heard Aunt Matilda speak about you to
Jones. I seem to remember your name. You have the biggest farm in
Illinois, and you have houses and houses in town. Meg, don’t you
remember—when he got married, and everybody talked about how rich he
was?”
And Meg did remember. She looked at him softly, and thought she knew why
he had seemed gloomy, for she remembered that this rich and envied man’s
wife had had a little child and died suddenly. And she had even heard
once that it had almost driven him mad, because he had been fond of her.
“Are you—that one?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered, “I’m the one who got married.” And the cloud fell on
his face again, and for a minute or so rested there. For he thought this
thing which had happened to him was cruel and hideous, and he had never
ceased to rebel against it bitterly.
Meg drew a little closer to him, but she said no more about what she
knew he was thinking of. She was a clever little thing, and knew this
was not the time.
And after they had eaten of the good things, until hunger seemed a thing
of the past, the afternoon began as a fairy story, indeed. Little by
little they began to realize that John Holt was their good and powerful
giant, for it seemed that he was not only ready to do everything for
them, but was rich enough.
“Have you been to the Midway Plaisance?” he asked them. He felt very
sure, however, that they had not, or that, if they had, with that scant
purse, they had not seen what they longed to see.
“No, we haven’t,” said Meg. “We thought we would save it until we had
seen so many other things that we should not mind so _very_ much only
seeing the outsides of places. We knew we should have to make up stories
all the time.”
“We won’t save it,” said John Holt. “We’ll go now. We will hobnob with
Bedouins and Japanese and Turks, and shake hands with Amazons and
Indians; we’ll ride on camels and go to the Chinese Theatre. Come
along.”
And to this Arabian Nights’ Entertainment he took them all. They felt as
if he were a prince. And oh, the exciting strangeness of it! To be in
such a place and amid such marvels, with a man who seemed to set no
limit to the resources of his purse. They never had been even near a
person who spent money as if it were made for spending, and the good
things of life were made to be bought by it. What John Holt spent was
only what other people with full purses spent in the Midway Plaisance,
but to Meg and Robin and Ben it seemed that he poured forth money in
torrents. They looked at him with timorous wonder and marvelling
gratitude. It seemed that he meant them to see everything and to do
everything. They rode on camels down a street in Cairo, they talked to
chiefs of the desert, they listened to strange music, they heard strange
tongues, and tasted strange confections. Robin and Ben went about like
creatures in a delightful dream. Every few minutes during the first hour
Robin would sidle close to Meg, and clutch her dress or her hand with a
gasp of rapture.
“Oh, Meg!” he would say, “and yesterday we were so poor! And now we are
seeing _everything_!”
And when John Holt heard him, he would laugh half to himself; a laugh
with a touch of pleasant exultation in it, and no gloom at all. He had
found something to distract him at last.
He liked to watch Meg’s face, as they went from one weirdly foreign
place to another. Her eyes were immense with delight, and her face had
the flush of an Indian peach. Once she stopped suddenly, in such a glow
of strange delight that her eyes were full of other brightness than the
shining of her pleasure.
“Fairy stories _do_ happen!” she said. “You have made one! It was a
fairy story yesterday—but _now_—oh! just think how like a fairy king you
are, and what you are giving to us! It will be enough to make stories of
forever!”
He laughed again. She found out in time that he often laughed that short
half-laugh when he was moved by something. He had had a rough sort of
life, successful as it had been, and it was not easy for him to express
all he felt.
“That’s all right,” he said, “that’s just as it should be. But you are
giving something to me, too—you three.”
And so they were, and it was not a little thing.
Their afternoon was a thing of which they could never have dreamed and
for which they could never have hoped. Before it was half over they
began to feel that not only John Holt was a prince, but that by some
magic metamorphosis they had become princes themselves. It seemed that
nothing in that City Beautiful was to be closed to them. It was John
Holt’s habit to do things in a thorough, business-like way, and he did
this thing in a manner which was a credit to his wit and good sense.
Ben, who had never been taken care of in his life, was taken about in a
chair, and looked after in a way that made him wonder if he were not
dreaming, and if he should not be wakened presently by the sound of his
father’s drunken voice.
Robin found himself more than once rubbing his forehead in a puzzled
fashion.
Meg felt rather as if she had become a princess. Somehow, she and John
Holt seemed to have known each other a long time. He seemed to like to
keep her near him, and always kept his eye on her, to see if she was
enjoying herself, and was comfortable, or tired. She found herself being
wheeled by Ben, when John Holt decided it was time for her to rest. He
walked by her and talked to her, answering all her questions. More than
once it flashed into her mind that it would be very awful when all this
joy was over, and they parted, as they would. But they were going to see
him to-morrow, he had said.
It seemed as if they marched from one climax of new experience to
another.
“You’re going to dine with me,” he announced. “You’ve had enough
hard-boiled eggs. And we’ll see the illuminations afterwards.”
He took them to what seemed to them a dining-place for creatures of
another world, it was so brilliant with light, so decorated, so
gorgeous. Servants moved to and fro, electric globes gleamed, palms and
flowers added to the splendor of color and brightness. John Holt gave
them an excellent dinner; they thought it was a banquet. Ben kept his
eyes on John Holt’s face at every mouthful—he felt as if he might vanish
away. He looked as if he had done this every day of his life. He called
the waiters as if he knew no awe of any human being, and the waiters
flew to obey him.
In the evening he took them to see the City Beautiful as it looked at
night. It was set, it seemed to them, with myriads of diamonds, all
alight. Endless chains of jewels seemed strung and wound about it. The
Palace of the Flowers held up a great crystal of light glowing against
the dark blue of the sky, towers and domes were crowned and diademed,
thousands of jewels hung among the masses of leaves, or reflected
themselves, sparkling, in the darkness of the lagoons, fountains of
molten jewels sprung up, and flamed and changed. The City Beautiful
stood out whiter and more spirit-like than ever, in the pure radiance of
these garlands of clearest flame.
When first they came out upon it Robin involuntarily pressed close to
Meg, and their twin hands clasped each other.
“Oh, Meg!” cried Robin.
“Oh, Robin!” breathed Meg, and she turned to John Holt and caught his
hand too.
“Oh, John Holt!” she said; “John Holt!”
Very primitive and brief exclamations of joy, but somehow human beings
have uttered them just as simply in all great moments through centuries.
John Holt knew just the degree of rapturous feeling they expressed, and
he held Meg’s hand close and with a warm grasp.
They saw the marvellous fairy spectacle from all points and from all
sides. Led by John Holt, they lost no view and no beauty. They feasted
full of all the delight of it; and at last he took them to a quiet
corner, where, through the trees, sparkled lights and dancing water, and
let them talk it out.
The day had been such an incredible one, with its succession of
excitements and almost unreal pleasures, that they had actually
forgotten that the night must come. They were young enough for that
indiscretion, and when they sat down and began to realize how tired they
were, they also began to realize a number of other things.
A little silence fell upon them. Ben’s head began to droop slightly upon
his shoulder, and John Holt’s quick eye saw it.
“Have you had a good day?” he asked.
“Rob,” said Meg, “when we sat in the Straw Parlor and talked about the
City Beautiful, and the people who would come to it—when we thought we
could never see it ourselves—did we ever dream that anybody—even if they
were kings and queens—could have such a day?”
“Never,” answered Robin; “never! We didn’t know such a day was in the
world.”
“That’s right,” said John Holt. “I’m glad it’s seemed as good as that.
Now, where did you think of spending the night?”
Meg and Rob looked at each other. Since Rob had suggested to her in the
morning a bold thought, they had had no time to discuss the matter, but
now each one remembered the bold idea. Rob got up and came close to John
Holt.
“This morning I thought of something,” he said, “and once again this
afternoon I thought of it. I don’t know whether we could do it, but you
could tell us. Do you think—this is such a big place and there are so
many corners we could creep into, and it’s such a fine night—do you
think we could wait until all the people are gone and then find a place
to sleep without going out of the grounds? It would save us buying the
tickets in the morning, and Ben could stay with us—I told his mother
that perhaps he might not come home—and he could have another day.”
John Holt laughed his short laugh.
“Were you thinking of doing that?” he said. “Well, you have plenty of
sand, anyway.”
“Do you think we could do it?” asked Meg. “Would they find us and drive
us out?”
John Holt laughed again.
“Great Cæsar!” he said, “no; I don’t think they’d find you two. Luck
would be with you. But I know a plan worth two of that. I’m going to
take you all three to my hotel.”
“A hotel?” said Meg.
Ben lifted his sleepy head from his shoulder.
“Yes,” said John Holt. “I can make them find corners for you, though
they’re pretty crowded. I’m not going to lose sight of you. This has
begun to be _my_ tea-party.”
Meg looked at him with large and solemn eyes.
“Well,” she said, “it’s a fairy story, and it’s getting fairyer and
fairyer every minute.”
She leaned forward, with her heart quite throbbing. Because it was he
who did this splendid thing—he to whom all things seemed possible—it
actually seemed a thing to be accepted as if a magician had done it.
“Oh, how good you are to us!” she said. “How good, and how good! And
what is the use of saying only ‘Thank you?’ I should not be surprised,”
with a touch of awe, “if you took us to a hotel built of _gold_.”
How heartily John Holt laughed then.
“Well, some of them ought to be, by the time this thing’s over,” he
said. “But the lights will soon be out; the people are going, and Ben’s
nearly dead. Let’s go and find a carriage.”