FAIRYLAND
All day long the train pulled its length across across the state of
Pennsylvania, climbing mountains and bridging streams and piercing
tunnels. All day long Mr. Emerson's party was on the alert, dashing from
one side to the other of the car to see some beautiful vista or to look
down on a brook brawling a hundred feet below the trestle that supported
them or waving their hands to groups of children staring open-mouthed at
the passing train.
"Pennsylvania is a beautiful state," decided Ethel Brown as they
penetrated the splendid hills of the Allegheny range.
"Nature made it one of the most lovely states of the Union," returned
her grandfather. "Man has played havoc with it in spots. Some of the
villages among the coal mines are hideous from the waste that has been
thrown out for years upon a pile never taken away, always increasing. No
grass grows on it, no children play on it, the hens won't scratch on it.
The houses of the miners turn one face to this ugliness and it is only
because they turn toward the mountains on another side that the people
are preserved from the death of the spirit that comes to those who look
forever on the unlovely."
"Is there any early history about here?" asked Helen, whose interest
was unfailing in the story of her country.
"The French and Indian Wars were fought in part through this land,"
answered Mr. Emerson. "You remember the chief struggle for the continent
lay between the English and the French. There were many reasons why the
Indians sided with the French in Canada, and the result of the
friendship was that; the natives were supplied with arms by the
Europeans and the struggle was prolonged for about seventy-five years."
"Wasn't the attack on Deerfield during the French and Indian War?" asked
Ethel Blue.
"Yes, and there were many other such attacks."
"The French insisted that all the country west of the Alleghenies
belonged to them and they disputed the English possession at every
point. When Washington was only twenty-one years old he was sent to beg
the French not to interfere with the English, but he had a hard journey
with no fortunate results. It was on this journey that he picked out a
good position for a fort and started to build it. It was where Pittsburg
now stands."
"That was a good position for a fort, where the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers join to make the Ohio," commended Roger.
"It was such a good position that the French drove off the English
workmen and finished the work themselves. They called it Fort Duquesne
and it became one of a string of sixty French forts extending from
Quebec to New Orleans."
"Some builders!" commended Roger.
"Fort Duquesne was so valuable that the English sent one of their
generals, Braddock, to capture it. Washington went with him on his
staff, to show him the way."
"It must have been a long trip from the coast through all this hilly
country."
"It was. They had to build roads and they were many weeks on the way."
"It was a different matter from the twentieth century transportation of
soldiers by train and motor trucks and stages," reminded Mrs. Morton.
"When the British were very near Fort Duquesne," continued Mr. Emerson,
"the French sent out a small band, mainly Indians, to meet them. The
English general didn't understand Indian fighting and kept his men
massed in the road where they were shot down in great numbers and he
lost his own life. There's a town named after him, on the site of the
battle."
"Here it is," and Helen pointed it out on the map in the railway folder.
"It's about ten miles from Pittsburg."
"Washington took command after the death of Braddock, and this was his
first real military experience. However, his heart was in the taking of
Fort Duquesne and when General Forbes was sent out to make another
attempt at capturing it Washington commanded one of the regiments of
Virginia troops."
"Isn't there any poetry about it?" demanded Ethel Brown, who knew her
grandfather's habit of collecting historical ballads.
"Certainly there is. There are some verses on 'Fort Duquesne' by Florus
Plimpton written for the hundredth anniversary of the capture."
"Did they have a great old fight to take the fort?" asked Roger.
"No fight at all. Here's what Plimpton says:--
"So said: and each to sleep addressed his wearied limbs and mind,
And all was hushed i' the forest, save the sobbing of the wind,
And the tramp, tramp, tramp of the sentinel, who started oft in fright
At the shadows wrought 'mid the giant trees by the fitful camp-fire
light.
"Good Lord! what sudden glare is that that reddens all the sky,
As though hell's legions rode the air and tossed their torches high!
Up, men! the alarm drum beats to arms! and the solid ground seems riven
By the shock of warring thunderbolts in the lurid depth of heaven!
"O, there was clattering of steel and mustering in array,
And shouts and wild huzzas of men, impatient of delay,
As came the scouts swift-footed in--'They fly! the foe! they fly!
They've fired the powder magazine and blown it to the sky.'
"All the English had to do was to walk in, put out the fire, repair the
fort and re-name it."
"What did they call it?"
"After the great statesman--Fort Pitt."
"That's where 'Pittsburg' got its name, then! I never thought about its
being in honor of Pitt!" exclaimed Helen.
"It is 'Pitt's City,'" rejoined her grandfather. "And this street," he
added somewhat later when they were speeding in a motor bus to a hotel
near the park, "this street is Forbes Street, named after the British
general. Somewhere there is a Bouquet Street, to commemorate another
hero of the war."
"I saw 'Duquesne Way' marked on the map," announced Ethel Blue.
On the following morning they awakened to find themselves opposite a
large and beautiful park with a mass of handsome buildings rising
impressively at the entrance.
"It is Schenley Park and the buildings house the Carnegie Institute.
We'll go over them by and bye."
"It's a library," guessed Dicky, who was not too young to have the
steelmaker's name associated with libraries in his youthful mind.
"It is a library and a fine one. There's also a Music Hall and an art
museum and a natural history museum. You'll see more fossil ferns there,
and the skeleton of a diplodocus--"
"A dip-what?" demanded Roger.
"Diplodocus, with the accent on the _plod_; one of the hugest animals
that ever walked the earth. They found the bones of this monster almost
complete in Colorado and wired them together so you can get an idea of
what really 'big game' was like in the early geological days."
"How long is he?"
"If all the ten members of the U.S.C. were to take hold of hands and
stretch along his length there would be space for four or five more to
join the string."
"Where's my hat?" demanded Roger. "I want to go over and make that
fellow's acquaintance instanter."
"When you go, notice the wall paintings," said his mother. "They show
the manufacture and uses of steel and they are considered among the
finest things of their kind in America. Alexander, the artist, did them.
You've seen some of his work at the Metropolitan Museum in New York."
"Pittsburg has the good sense to have a city organist," Mr. Emerson
continued. "Every Sunday afternoon he plays on the great organ in the
auditorium and the audience drifts in from the park and drifts out to
walk farther, and in all several thousand people hear some good music in
the course of the afternoon."
"There seem to be some separate buildings behind the Institute."
"The Technical Schools, and beyond them is the Margaret Morrison School
where girls may learn crafts and domestic science and so on."
"It's too bad it isn't a clear day," sighed Ethel Blue, as she rose from
the table.
"This is a bright day, Miss," volunteered the waiter who handed her her
unnecessary sunshade.
"You call this clear?" Mrs. Morton asked him.
"Yes, madam, this is a bright day for Pittsburg."
When they set forth they shook their heads over the townsman's idea of a
clear day, for the sky was overcast and clouds of dense black smoke
rolled together from the two sides of the city and met over their heads.
"It's from the steel mills," Mr. Emerson explained as he advised Ethel
Brown to wipe off a smudge of soot that had settled on her cheek and
warned his daughter that if she wanted to preserve the whiteness of her
gloves she had better replace them by colored ones until she returned to
a cleaner place.
They were to take the afternoon train up the Monongahela River to the
town from which Stanley Clark had sent his wire telling his uncle that
"Emily Leonard married a man named Smith," but there were several hours
to devote to sightseeing before train time, and the party went over
Schenley Park with thoroughness, investigated several of the "inclines"
which carried passengers from the river level to the top of the heights
above, motored among the handsome residences and ended, on the way to
the station, with a flying visit to the old blockhouse which is all that
is left of Port Pitt.
"So this is really a blockhouse," Helen said slowly as she looked at the
little two story building with its heavy beams.
"There are the musket holes," Ethel Brown pointed out.
"This is really where soldiers fought before the Revolution!"
"It really is," her mother assured her. "It is in the care of one of
the historical societies now; that's why it is in such good condition."
Roger had secured the tickets and had telephoned to the hotel at
Brownsville for rooms so they took their places in the train with no
misgivings as to possible discomfort at night. Their excitement was
beginning to rise, however, for two reasons. In the first place they had
been quite as disturbed as Dorothy and her mother over the difficulties
attending the purchase of the field and the Fitz-James Woods, and the
later developments in connection with the man, Hapgood. Now that they
were approaching the place where they knew Stanley Clark was working out
the clue they began to feel the thrill that comes over explorers on the
eve of discovery.
The other reason for excitement lay in the fact that Mr. Emerson had
promised them some wonderful sights before they reached their
destination. He had not told them what they were, although he had
mentioned something about fairyland that had started an abundant flow of
questions from Dicky. Naturally they were all alert to find out what
novelty their eyes were to see.
"I saw one novelty this afternoon," said Roger. "When I stepped into
that little stationery shop to get a newspaper I noticed in the rear a
queer tin thing with what looked like cotton wool sticking against its
back wall. I asked the woman who sold the papers what it was."
"Trust Roger for not letting anything pass him," smiled Ethel Brown.
"That's why I'm such a cyclopedia of accurate information, ma'am,"
Roger retorted. "She said it was a stove."
"With cotton wool for fuel?" laughed Ethel Blue.
"It seems they use natural gas here for heating as well as cooking, and
the woolly stuff was asbestos. The gas is turned on at the foot of the
back wall and the asbestos becomes heated and gives off warmth but
doesn't burn."
"I stayed in Pittsburg once in a boarding house where the rooms were
heated with natural gas," said Mr. Emerson. "It made a sufficient heat,
but you had to be careful not to turn the burner low just before all the
methodical Pittsburgers cooked dinner, for if you made it too low the
flame might go out when the pressure was light."
"Did the opposite happen at night?"
"It did. In the short time I was there the newspapers noted several
cases of fires caused by people leaving their stoves turned up high at
night and the flames bursting into the room and setting fire to some
inflammable thing near at hand when the pressure grew strong after the
good Pittsburgers went to bed."
"It certainly is useful," commended Mrs. Morton. "A turn of the key and
that's all."
"No coal to be shovelled--think of it!" exclaimed Roger, who took care
of several furnaces in winter. "No ashes to be sifted and carried away!
The thought causes me to burst into song," and he chanted ridicuously:--
"Given a tight tin stove, asbestos fluff,
A match of wood, an iron key, and, puff,
Thou, Natural Gas, wilt warm the Arctic wastes,
And Arctic wastes are Paradise enough."
As the train drew out of the city the young people's expectations of
fairyland were not fulfilled.
"I don't see anything but dirt and horridness, Grandfather," complained
Ethel Brown.
Mr. Emerson looked out of the window thoughtfully for a moment.
"True," he answered, "it's not yet dark enough for the magic to work."
"No wonder everything is sooty and grimy with those chimneys all around
us throwing out tons and tons of soft coal smoke to settle over
everything. Don't they ever stop?"
"They're at it twenty-four hours a day," returned her grandfather. "But
night will take all the ugliness into its arms and hide it; the
sordidness and griminess will disappear and fairyland will come forth
for a playground. The ugly smoke will turn into a thing of beauty. The
queer point of it all is," he continued, shaking his head sadly,
"fairyland is there all the time and always beautiful, only you can't
see it."
Dicky's eyes opened wide and he gazed out of the window intent on
peering into this mysterious invisible playground.
"Lots of things are like that," agreed Roger. "Don't you remember how
those snowflakes we looked at under the magnifying glass on Ethel Blue's
birthday burst into magnificent crystals? You wouldn't think a handful
of earth--just plain dirt--was pretty, would you? But it is. Look at it
through a microscope and see what happens."
"But, Grandfather, if the beauty is there right now why can't we see
it?" insisted Ethel Brown.
Mr. Emerson stared out of the window for a moment.
"That was a pretty necklace of beads you strung for Ayleesabet."
"We all thought they were beauty beads."
"And that was a lovely string of pearls that Mrs. Schermerhorn wore at
the reception for which you girls decorated her house."
There could be no disagreement from that opinion.
"Since Ayleesabet is provided with such beauties we shan't have to fret
about getting her anything else when she goes to her coming-out party,
shall we?"
"What are you saying, Grandfather!" exclaimed Helen. "Of course
Ayleesabet's little string of beads can't be compared with a pearl
necklace!"
"There you are!" retorted Mr. Emerson; "Helen has explained it. This
fairyland we are going to see can't be compared with the glory of the
sun any more than Ayleesabet's beads can be compared with Mrs.
Schermerhorn's pearls. We don't even see the fairyland when the sun is
shining but when the sun has set the other beauties become clear."
"O-o-o!" shouted Dicky, whose nose had been glued to the window in an
effort to prove his grandfather's statement; "look at that funny
umbrella!"
Everybody jumped to one window or another, and they saw in the gathering
darkness a sudden blast of flame and white hot particles shooting into
the air and spreading out like an umbrella of vast size.
"Look at it!" exclaimed the two Ethels, in a breath; "isn't that
beautiful! What makes it?"
"The grimy steel mills of the daytime make the fairyland of night,"
announced Mr. Emerson.
Across the river they noticed suddenly that the smoke pouring from a
chimney had turned blood red with tongues of vivid flame shooting
through it like pulsing veins. There was no longer any black smoke. It
had changed to heavy masses of living fire of shifting shades. Great
ingots of steel sent the observers a white hot greeting or glowed more
coolly as the train shot by them. Huge piles of smoking slag that had
gleamed dully behind the mills now were veined with vivid red, looking
like miniature volcanoes streaked with lava.
It was sometimes too beautiful for words to describe it suitably, and
sometimes too terrible for an exclamation to do it justice. It created
an excitement that was wearying, and when the train pulled into
Brownsville it was a tired party that found its way to the hotel.
As the children went off to bed Mr. Emerson called out "To-morrow all
will be grime and dirt again; fairyland has gone."
"Never mind, Grandfather," cried Ethel Brown, "we won't forget that it
is there just the same if only we could see it."
"And we'll think a little about the splendiferousness of the sun, too,"
called Helen from the elevator. "I never thought much about it before."