Johnny could scarcely wait for nine o'clock of the next morning to come
around. He wanted to see if his friend Louis was really alive and if he
would be at 60th street gate.
Louis was there dancing about in a fever of anxiety. At John's
appearance the two boys went off to talk about their mishaps. They had
achieved more adventure than they had bargained for.
"Have you seen the papers?" said Louis.
"Yes."
"Have you told anybody yet?"
"No, and my folks thinks it's best never to say anything about it."
"Then we never will."
"Say, Louis," said John confidently, "there was five of the alfiredest
best looking girls around at our house last night you ever saw. Fanny
found them at the Beauty show a looking at the sights. They live in a
town not very far from our farm and they are coming over to visit Fanny
before they have to go into school. You have to come down and visit me
while they are there or I will have to live in the barn."
The agreement was closed and the boys passed through the gates in quest
of new adventures, as if nothing unusual had ever occurred to them.
However, they instinctively avoided Midway Plaisance, and decided to see
what was on Wooded Island. They ranged through the hunter's camp,
through the Japanese Hooden, and all over the island in the vain attempt
to find something equal to their educated fancies of fun. Somehow Louis
learned that there was to be a religious dance in the Quackahl cabin.
Nothing else could have a place in the boys' minds until they had
tickets for the show.
Inside the hut was a strange sight. Wanug had arranged four of his
warriors on the east side of the hut, and these formed a quartet that
produced the music for the fearful dance to follow. In the center of the
hut a log fire burned briskly. The warriors had their faces smeared with
Indian ink, and some of the beauty spots looked like demi-semiquavers on
a sheet of music. The squaws, and even the papooses, were painted for
the occasion, and everyone of the Quackahls were dressed in blue robes,
ornamented with striking pearl buttons.
At a signal Hammasoloe suddenly sprang on the boards and began the
mythical movement known as the cannibal dance. It was symbolic of a
curious legend current among the Indians of Vancouver island, of a
strange spirit that dwells among the mountains and spends most of his
time eating the fat members of the Quackahl tribe. Hammasoloe took the
part of the spirit and crouched down as if ready to spring on his prey.
The sticks beat hard on the plank, and the music for the dance began.
A squaw pounded on a square box, which represented the Quackahl drum.
Two warriors were deputed to watch Hammasoloe while he circled around
the fire, for the usual ending to the dance is startlingly realistic.
Usually the dancer becomes so excited that he bites the arms of those
present in imitation of the actions of the great spirit on the
mountains. Whenever his eyes glared and his looks became ferocious the
warriors grasped his arms and quieted him. He disappeared behind a white
curtain, and a few minutes afterward out sprang another warrior wearing
a huge mask, representing a raven's head. The raven is a slave of the
spirit and is supposed to be represented by one man.
But Awalaskaius played the part of the raven. His body proved as supple
as a professional contortionist. He twisted his legs and whirled his
head around and snapped his jaws in a remarkable manner. Cries that made
the ears ring accompanied the dance.
When Awalaskaius had finished, Hammasoloe sprang out from behind the
white curtain wearing a blue gown on which the figure of the Quackahl
sun was worked. The rays of the sun were blazing red, and the man in the
orb was depicted winking in a gracious manner.
Louder grew the noise, and the quartet taunted the spirit so much that
he again disappeared. Then came forth Awalaskaius with a duck's head
mask, which is the sign of the great spirit. Again he went through his
curious contortions and scared some of the ladies, as he snapped his
beak dangerously near them.
When the dance was done and the boys were once more outside they were
quite satisfied with sight-seeing among savages and were quite contented
to spend the remaining days of the week among the more prosaic and
poetical scenes of the great Fair.
Uncle and Aunt had about walked themselves down in their sight-seeing,
and were now enjoying the comforts of the rolling chairs and listening
to the voluble information which the chair pushers thought it their duty
to impart.
Fanny was walking near them in a never ceasing enjoyment of people and
scenery. As they passed the Woman's building a large number of women
were seen coming out together. On going over the viaduct two well
dressed men from the Emerald Isle could be heard in critical
conversation.
One of them said:
"Look, Pat! It's women again! Do ye mind that now. Look at um coom out
ov that new building. It's the Fair that's bein' run by thim faymales.
Soon they'll want to run the wurrld, and they'll be votin'. The divil
will be to pay in a man's home. They should be taught their places at
once. If my wife should git that strong minded sure I'd be packin' her
off. Dacent homes are bein' ruined, Pat, and soon there'll be no homes.
They meet in clubs to worship the rich, and who will do our mending and
cook our meals? It's all wrong, all wrong. The women must be taught
their places."
[Illustration: "VOLUBLE AND PERHAPS VALUABLE INFORMATION."]
And the poor man looked worried. He is probably teaching Bridget her
place today.
Aunt was looking wistfully over toward Wooded Island as if it reminded
her of home.
"I tell ye, I haven't saw anything as nice as them flowers. They tell ye
of the country, and its quiet over here. Ye get too much of a good
thing sometimes out among the white buildings. It's sort o' dreamlike
over here, ye know."
She was right, it is dreamlike and it is restful. Din and noise are far
away and nothing breaks the stillness but the faint music as it floats
down from the plaza. The azalias are in full bloom, and orchids and
pansies and nearly every other blossom meet you at every turn.
They stopped at a place where a number of people were looking up at the
roof of the Liberal Arts building. Countless small black specks could be
seen moving along the roof. Then it was perceived that those specks were
really men and women. It is only by such a comparison that they could
realize the vastness of these buildings.
"What a jumble of bigness all this is!" Aunt exclaimed, "them people
look just like flies on the ceiling or swallows on the peak of our new
barn."
The chair pushers took them slowly through Wooded Island.
"What was that, Fanny, that you used to tell me about Alladin and his
wonderful lamp?" said Uncle. "I keep a thinking' of that story every
time I try to picture all these things at once. Here is fifteen acres of
fairy land just like in the fairy books I used to buy for Mary."
They then went on with the crowd past the Government building and the
Liberal Arts hall to the basin. On the viaduct, over behind the Statue
of the Republic, they stopped to look over that never-fading picture
there presented to view. Over the peristyle were written some of the
sayings of great men. Fanny read one that heightened the scene into a
thrill of thankfulness and patriotism: "We here highly resolve that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not
perish from the earth."
"Now," said Aunt. "I believe I know the meaning of this vast
expenditure of money and energy. It is not only to show us and others
that we have not all the brains; that we are not doing all that is done,
but to teach us mutual gratitude for the great privileges of our
republic, and fix firm the resolve in the breast of every man that our
government of freedom and conscience shall live forever."
They went on out to the pier and dismissed their chairs for seats in the
cool lake breeze, where they could see the people coming off of the
steamers and approaching them down the long pier on the moving sidewalk.
Wearied with the constant commotion in which they had never been before,
it was decided to return home and to spend the remainder of the week in
rest and recuperation for another struggle with the world of culture in
Jackson Park.
When Sunday came. Uncle was told that the Fair would be opened for
visitors. He had been so busy sight-seeing that he had not read the
papers or he would have known better. He did not know just what to do on
that day, whether to go to church, or the parks, or the Fair, but he was
anxious to see what the Fair looked like with most of the people
promenading the streets all in their Sunday best. He came to Chicago to
see the sights and seeing sights never appeared to him to be wrong.
Every Sunday it was his custom to go out into the pasture and look at
his jerseys, congratulate himself on how fast his herd was increasing,
and contemplate the prospects for the future. Grass grew, the birds
sang, the cattle bellowed, and nature was as bright on Sunday as any
other day. Besides he had some neighbors who believed that Saturday was
the holy Sabbath and he had never been able to disprove their arguments.
He believed on general principles that the Fair should be closed on
Sundays and that the grass ought not to grow, but since the grass did
grow, he would profit by the increase and if the Fair was opened on
Sundays, he would not miss its magnificent object lessons.
"Ah, Jeremiah," said Aunt, "every one of them big buildings comes over
my spirit like a prayer and when I go inside I see the answer and the
benevolence of God. To shut people out is like padlocking the orchards
on Sunday, and stopping the machinery that makes the apples grow. Six
days are the rich men's days and God made the Sabbath for the poor.
Because our neighbor raises hogs and eats pork it is none of our
business because we raise Jerseys and drink milk. The Good Book says:
"Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of
any holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.""
They concluded to go back home and then stroll out, and in their walk to
go into the first church they found.
They did so, and came into a great church just in time to hear the
minister read the text: "And God said unto Jonah, Doest thou well to be
angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto
death. Then said the Lord, thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which
thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night
and perished in a night; and should I not spare Nineveh?"
Uncle Jeremiah listened for the story of Jonah and the gourd to be
applied in some way for a lesson to the hearers, but only once, when the
minister told what he had seen in Palestine, did he become intelligible
to Uncle. It was all so transcendently ethical. Uncle got a remote idea
that Chicago was to be likened to Nineveh, and the gourd to the World's
Fair, but when the sermon was done, and all said, he felt that he would
have enjoyed the hour so much better in some of the quiet shades of one
of the parks, where he would have heard so reverently the still small
voice of nature's teachings.
After noon they went to Lincoln Park, and as they stood before
Lincoln's statue, Aunt said: "This is greater than any sermon I ever
heard." They read the words and sat on the bench encircling the statue,
while Fanny read the sayings of Lincoln chiseled on the stone. Then they
visited Grant's monument. They sat down on the stone steps and looked at
the noble figure. Uncle was carried away with a religious patriotism
that held all the emotions of divine presence.
[Illustration: "THIS IS GREATER THAN ANY SERMON I EVER HEARD."]
"There," said Aunt, "we are listening to another sermon that can not be
surpassed by the tongues of men. A whole life of great deeds for our
country is here speaking to us. No man can be a bad man if he were to
come every Sunday and give his emotions up to the lessons of the lives
of Grant and Lincoln. Divine emotion is not aroused alone by words from
the pulpit or the silent walls of a house. Seeing is as great a means
of God as hearing, but seeing receives its sermons from the infallible;
hearing listens to that which may come only from the brain."
[Illustration: "THE POLICEMAN CAME OUT OF THE BOX AND WALKED RAPIDLY
DOWN THE STREET."]
It was late in the afternoon when the four of them got off the cable car
at Monroe and Dearborn streets and walked leisurely toward their hotel.
At one of the street corners they saw a policeman come out of the patrol
box and walk rapidly down thestreet. In a moment more he was joined by
three other policemen from another street. Uncle turned to watch them,
when suddenly they began to run, then faster, almost as in a race.
"Sure they're going to arrest somebody," said John, and he started
after them at break-neck speed with visions of a murder probably being
done just around the corner. Uncle became excited also and started after
them followed by Aunt and Fanny, not knowing what else to do. Uncle and
John reached the corner breathless and looked each way to see where the
robbery or murder was being done, but what was their disgust to see the
three policemen climbing into a cable car and calmly taking a seat. It
was an outrageous sell on all of them, but it could not be helped, and
there was no law by which they could sue the policemen for a false
alarm. They had the right to run to catch a car if they wanted to. The
family went on more deliberately now for they had no breath to spare and
there was but little to be said. Uncle felt that Chicago was very much
of a mockery anyhow. But he had seen enough to make him desire to see
more.
The tremendous puffing and blowing of a tug was heard somewhere in the
river and they concluded to go over to the bridge and see what it was.
There was a mystery anyway about how those big boats got past the
bridges.
Uncle and Aunt walked on over the bridge but John and Fanny stopped to
hear the music made by a cornet band of girls on one of the excursion
steamers. The tall masts of a lumber boat could be seen coming rapidly
toward them in tow with an insignificant little steamer. There was a
jing-aling two or three times of a bell hid somewhere in the framework
of the bridge, teamsters and people were hurrying across, and all at
once the bridge began to move. Johnny saw some people remaining on the
bridge and catching Fanny by the hand he cried, "Here let's take a ride"
and in a moment they were swayed past the street and out over the
stream. Over at the other end they saw Uncle and Aunt holding
desperately on to the railing. They had not been able to get over when
the bridge moved away. Presently the boats were past and the bridge
rapidly swung into place. Down the street half a block Johnny saw some
steam issuing from the middle of the street. Instantly the idea of a
volcanic eruption in the middle of Chicago possessed his mind. He called
Fanny's attention to it and their curiosity was greatly excited. They
had heard that Chicago was a very wicked place and their preacher had
once remarked that he would not be surprised at any time to hear of an
upheaval by the Lord sending the city over into the lake. In
considerable dread lest the overthrow was about to take place, they
walked towards the place along the sidewalk, as the famous Harry walked
up to the guidepost at the country crossroads on that cloudy night so
long ago. But they were greatly reassured when they found the people
about them were so indifferent and they were chagrined to learn that
they were again deceived. It was no volcano, there would be no terrible
cataclysm, it was only an inoffensive man-hole to the sewers, into which
the waste steam of one of the factories near by was escaping.
Meanwhile, Uncle and Aunt had stepped off of the bridge and were
intensely bewildered all at once to find that the excursion steamer and
the houses next to it had all apparently jumped across the river to
their side.
"Did we come acrost that bridge?" Uncle asked.
"I know we never."
"How did we git acrost without coming acrost?"
"I can't see how anybody could come across without comin' across, and I
know we never," said Aunt.
"Well, ef we hain't acrost, then the houses are acrost, and it is more
natural fer us ter be crazy than for the houses to get acrost."
"Ask the policeman."
Uncle went up to the policeman and said: "Say, Mister, we want to know
if you will be so kind as to tell us ef we are acrost or not acrost."
"Do you mean on the north side or the south side?"
"No; I mean on this side or the other side."
"Well, which side did you come from?"
"I thought I came from the other side," said Uncle, "but it seems now as
if I came from this side and didn't go over to the other side at all."
"Where have you been?" asked the policeman, making a mighty effort to
untangle himself.
Uncle was becoming impatient.
"I tell you I've been acrost that river 'cause I walked acrost, and then
I never walked acrost again, and here I am not acrost, and I want to
know how I got back acrost again."
"Say, old lady!" said the policeman, "ain't he crazy?"
"This is the first time I really ever thought so. We've been seeing too
much, and I guess we're both crazy."
"In that case," replied the officer, "I am compelled to take charge of
you."
"O Grandma!" cried Fanny, just then running up, "ain't this great.
Johnny and I have been nearly half an hour trying to figure out how we
got across the river, and I found out first. You see the bridge just
went straight half around, and so when we got on this end here it
carried us around to the other side and carried you back around to this
side."
"Bless the Lord!" said Uncle, fervently; "Sarah and me ain't crazy yet,
and the policeman needn't worry himself." But the policeman was gone.
"You see, Fanny, we couldn't make it out, and Sarah and me and the
policeman all agreed that we was stark gone daft."
Uncle and Aunt now had enough for one day, and they heartily wished they
were back on the farm. But they swallowed their discomfiture: and,
after a good night's test at home, determined to visit the Board of
Trade, where Bob Simmons had lost the fortune his father left him.
[Illustration: "IS THEM THE FELLERS THAT THE FARMERS IS AFRAID OF?"]
Uncle and family did not get around to the Board of Trade till nearly
eleven o'clock the next morning. There was a wide entrance with a
stairway on either side. Uncle saw the people in front of him, and he
was accustomed to pass right in among the congregation and take his seat
in the amen corner. He did not notice that the others had stopped at the
door, but he plunged right ahead. The door-keeper evidently had his
attention engaged at something else, for he let Uncle walk on in. Some
one at the door spoke to the ladies and told them to take the left
stairway to the gallery. They reached there just in time to see Uncle in
a difficulty below. A young man had him by the arm and was pointing very
vigorously toward the door.
"Who do you want to see, sir?"
"I want to see the Board of Trade. Where is it?"
"Go outside and up the stairs into the galleries and you can see it all
you want to, but not here."
Uncle did as he was bid, but found that he was quite widely separated
from his family, because he had been sent up the opposite stairway from
them.
"I came up to see the Board of Trade," he said, confidently, to a
well-dressed stranger next to him.
"Well, there it is in all its glory," said the stranger.
"Oh, I see! The board is that table where them fellers is a tickin' them
machines. You see I thought they would be a setting and a trading across
a long, wide board like they used to do at the country stores for
counters. But them fellers down there acts like a lot of lunatics. I
don't see how they can ever come to a bargain, yelling and spewing
around that way. And then I don't see the bulls and bears that change
the market."
The stranger thought it a useless job to try to enlighten him.
When Uncle and his family came down, he went up to the doorkeeper and
asked, "Say, do you belong here?" The keeper nodded. "Did you know Bill
Simmons what lost five thousand dollars here last year?" The door keeper
shook his head. "Well, say, I just want to ask one more question. Are
them people down there the bulls and bears themselves, and are they the
Board of Trade and are they the people that the farmers are so afraid
of?" The keeper nodded.
"Well," continued Uncle, "I've got this to say; any set of farmers as is
fools enough to be afraid of them yelling idiots, aint got no backbone
at all."
Chicago was unsettling many of Uncle's ideas, and he began to decide
that the only real, bonafide thing he could swear by was his own farm,
and that the great outside world was only a great circus of art and
extravagant genius.
_CHAPTER XIV_