"Now for the battleship," said Johnny, "that's what I want to see." As
they came on board the brick ship, the first words they heard were quite
nautical.
"It's eight bells."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
The bos'un, or whoever it was that received the order from the
Lieutenant, climbed up and tapped out eight strokes on the big brass
bell. About twenty people, with lunch baskets and camp-chairs, ran after
him and watched the performance.
"What's that for?" asked a young woman.
"That tells the time of day," answered her escort.
"But it's after 12 o'clock by my watch and he struck it only eight
times."
"Well, they--ah--they have a system of their own. It's very
complicated."
"Look at that crooked thing there," said one of the visitors, pointing
to the air-tube leading to the stoker. "Is that their foghorn I've heerd
about?"
"They don't need no foghorns on warships. I jedge it's a shootin'-iron
of some kind or other, maybe a gattlin' gun what jest blows the shot
out. You see it's pointin' out like at an enemy."
An elderly woman stepped up to the Lieutenant and said: "I'd like mighty
well to see some of the Gatling guns."
"Yes, ma'am, you will find them at the foretop."
"How's that?"
"At the turret in the fore-top."
[Illustration: "MAYBE ITS A FOG HORN, OR A GATLING GUN."]
"Do you mean up in the little round cupola?"
"Cupola, great heavens," murmured the officer under his breath. Then he
called a marine and had him show the woman to the fore-top. It is the
experience of a lifetime for a naval officer who has cruised in the
Mediterranean and rocked over the high waves of the south Atlantic to be
placed in command of a brick battleship, which rests peacefully
alongside a little pier and is boarded by hundreds of reckless
sight-seers every day. The conning towers are of sheet-iron and some of
the formidable guns are simply painted wood. It is said that if anything
larger than a six-inch gun should be fired from the deck of the mimic
battleship the recoil would upset the masonry and jolt the whole
structure into a shapeless mass.
Below the water line the Illinois is a hollow mockery, but the two
decks, the turrets and the heavy battery are made so realistic that any
one who had not seen the brick laid and the plating put on might suppose
it was a real war vessel that had stranded well in toward the beach. As
a matter of fact, about one-third of the visitors are deceived, which
fact may be vouched for by any one of the marines parading the deck. A
man who looked as though he read the newspapers, called a sergeant of
marines "Cap," and remarked that it was a very fine vessel.
"Yes, indeed, sir," replied the sergeant.
"She'll be here all summer, will she?"
"Oh, yes."
"Did this boat take part in the review at New York?"
"No, sir; this battleship is stuck fast here. It is a shell of brick,
built up from a stone foundation, and is intended to represent a model
battleship."
"You don't tell me. Made of brick, eh?" Uncle, listening to the talk,
shared the countryman's disgust.
"There, Fanny, how do you excuse them for that piece of mockery?
Everybody getting fooled as if they were in a cheap dime show. It's too
bad the government should be a partner to sich deceptions. And then just
hear them fellows making fun o' the likes o' us. It's a shame. Of course
we hev to ask questions when they use all the art in the world to make
deceiving things and then make fun if they do such good work as to fool
us. We don't know any more about their work than they do about our
farm. I guess they couldn't tell a Jersey from a short-horn, nor a
header from a clover-huller."
One of the sailors was telling of the questions asked by the public.
Some person asked him if the gulls flying around the ship were
sea-gulls, and whether they had been brought on especially for the Fair.
Another asked why the guns were plugged up at the end with pieces of
wood. A marine said the plugs of wood made them air-tight, so that they
wouldn't sink if they fell overboard. Maybe the man believed it. He
didn't say anything.
From sight-seeing at the ship they came over to the Fisheries building.
The throng of visitors here at first detracted their sight from the wall
of fish and wonders of the sea around them.
"Oh," said Aunt when she looked about, "I nearly have to gasp to make
sure I'm not at the bottom of the sea. Just look at them fish swimming
around on both sides of you."
"Well I feel sorry for these poor fish, they look so tired," said Fanny,
"but it's very evident they can't keep lively all the time."
One of the big scaly-backed tarpons in the fountain was fanning his tail
and moving slowly through the water. On the railing at the edge of the
pool sat a tired man with a baby hanging over his arm. If the tarpon had
stuck his nose out of the water he could have grabbed the man by the
coat-tail and pulled him backward. The mother was standing a few feet
away. She turned around and saw two beady eyes shining up through the
water.
"Hold tight to that child," she said. "If you ever drop him that big
pike would gobble him right up."
"He don't eat babies," replied the husband, calmly. "Besides, it ain't a
pike; it's a sturgeon."
"Well, he looks awful mean, anyway." The husband, merely to reassure
her, moved a few feet further along and let the baby lie over his
shoulder and watch the little fish chase one another. The aisles were
crowded full of people, who had found that a visit to the east end of
the Fisheries building was almost as good as a dive to the bottom of the
ocean.
It is in this place where you may stand with coral reefs and ring-tailed
shells on either side and watch strange fish with spikes on their backs
open their mouths and gape until each one looks like the letter O. The
sea turtles stand on their heads and wave yellow flippers at the
wide-eyed crowd, and a devil crab makes all the women shiver and pull
the children away from the glass. In one aquarium there are so many
catfish that they make the water cloudy.
In front of one of the cases there was a learned discussion. The label
simply said "Anemone." On the rocks and shells were some things shaped
like stars and mushrooms, except that they were moss-colored and had
whiskers floating out in the water. "Annymone, what the dickens are
they?" asked a man with a linen duster.
"Some kind of sea-weed, I believe," said an elderly gentleman in a
patronizing manner.
"No, they ain't they're animals, broke in a third.
"But, sir, they are stuck fast there and can't move," said the elderly
gentleman.
"I know that but they reach out with those whiskers and grab stuff and
feed themselves that way."
"Well, that's the first time I ever heard of anything feedin' itself
with its whiskers."
One of the young women looked at the sheepshead aquarium and murmured:
"What long bills they have." Her escort smiled in a knowing way and
said: "That is not a bill; that is a proboscis, I believe. I wish I had
a hook and line."
A Columbian guard said he was tired of hearing the same old jokes, for
nearly every young man who came in with a girl said: "When I come back
here I'll bring a hook and line."
They finished the day here, and wearied with the noise and tumult of the
streets were glad to find rest in their rooms when evening came.
[Illustration: "NEXT TIME I'LL BRING A HOOK AND LINE."]
The sweetness of this rural family was nowhere better to be seen than
when they were resting at home in the evening after the fatiguing
experiences of the day.
"Grandpa," said Fanny, when they were comfortably at rest, "I can't help
but get angry at the women as I walk about, for I do see them do so much
foolishness. Why, to-day I saw one crazy for souvenirs, and I believe
she thought everything was a souvenir. I saw her pick up a nail and put
it into her handbag, and when she came up to the Pennsylvania coal
monument in the Mining building, she commenced putting pieces of the
coal in her pocket. Then one of the working men played really a mean
joke on her. He came up with a lump as big as a water bucket. Then he
asked her if she wouldn't like to have that to remember the Fair by. And
what do you think, she just said she thought he was very kind, but she
didn't believe she could take it, for it was so big. But she would like
awfully to have it. I saw the man shut one eye and say to the other man
that the woman was crazy, because it was just the same kind of coal that
she put into the stove every day at home."
"Now the only thing I've got to grumble about," said Uncle, "is what's
models and what's facts. There is no use of scaring people to death with
things that ain't so. Now over in the Government building I saw some hop
plant lice that was not less than a foot long; there was a potato bug
nine inches long, and there was a chinch bug two feet long, for I out
with my rule and measured it. When I seen them I said, the Lord help the
people who live where them things do, and then some city folks laughed
at me, when at last Fanny came along and said they was models. Then we
went into another room and there was soldiers from everywhere and army
things that made me believe I was back again with Sherman, but there
again they were wax, excepting the wagons and guns. I went up to one of
the officers when I fust come in and I says, says I, "Are you regular
army folks or Illinois militia?" and he didn't answer, and I turned to
one of the privates and I asked why there was so many of them bunched
together, then I seed some folks a laughing at me and I slunk away. I
say the government is in poor business when it makes sport of its own
defenders."
[Illustration: "A souvenir for her."]
"Over there in the Transportation building I seen what it said was the
boat Columbus sailed in; but after all, Fanny said it was a model. Right
close to it was the boat what Grace Darling rowed out into the storming
sea and saved so many lives. I thought it was a model, but Fanny said it
was the very boat she used. I jest thought ef that was really the boat,
we could all be sure that Grace Darling didn't stand o' Sunday mornins
afore the glass a paintin' and a powderin'." He was getting himself
worked up to the belief that he was a very much abused old soldier, when
Fanny said:
"Grandpa, I have just cut a splendid piece of poetry out of the paper
about the Fair. The man who wrote it don't live far from us, for his
address says at the bottom, 'Mr. Matthews, from Effingham County,' and
I'm going to keep it in my scrap-book. Let me read it to you:
_The City of the Workers of the World_