Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about
it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to
the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it
would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.
But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time.
And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she
lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when
he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there
wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur,
which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young
man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.
Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in
white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect
of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and
thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a
yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not
for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The
most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy
more than to git her to goin', as he called it.
He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz
about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the
same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd
invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let
forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going.
She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures
thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But
everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she
had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries
but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.
In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from
Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to
Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that
made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went
there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little,
as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his sex
with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would
show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost
putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the
deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described
her as holding her son by her apron string, as she termed it.
She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come
to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young
gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and
summer.
She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness
connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few
weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St.
Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale
and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been
cuttin' up. She sez:
"You know she _lacks_." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation
to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the
imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they
lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said
his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone
back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we
come.
Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only
remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change,
so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so
on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her
ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had
been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a
nice woman and didn't lack.
But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child--faithful
creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little
creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly
aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her.
Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs
hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition
brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best
impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so
near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no
paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie
wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that
she seemed to like me.
Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we
proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a noble lookin'
structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think
it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to
Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the
work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are
the pride and glory of our country.
"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the
very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong
as a bull."
"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that,
but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love
to be corrected.
And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from
kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to
work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of
labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music,
agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering
schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian
and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools,
people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training.
Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits,
but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the
foreign countries.
We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but
Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which
wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in
any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the
greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to
overcome space, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean
and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a
beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one,
for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors
can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into
the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and
nobody else--wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great
onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us,
helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't
see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.
And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have
tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the
world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed
it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry
and intolerance.
And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all
sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind,
telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of
electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one
place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless
power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical
exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe
to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.
There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and
magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of
all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.
There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model
City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't
hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin'
to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest
plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any
difference.
But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and
behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off,
strains of music. It's a sight.
And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may
discover the secret of _seeing_? Who knows what divine visitors are this
minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls
with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another
like as not."
And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their
footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as
they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their
garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their
tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If
they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light
and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered
brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.
"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their
voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If
their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and
sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it
by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. But
sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now
faintly apprehend."
Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'?
You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time
for eppisodin', if there ever _is_ a right time."
And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz
sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my
pardner out of the buildin'.
But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of
Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought
I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when
you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for
a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of
course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she
wouldn't set down if she could.
But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther
onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much
the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."
Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."
Then Josiah wondered if he couldn't borry the loan of a wheelbarru that
would hold me up. He could trundle me along as well as not.
Sez I, "I shall not enter the Palace of Transportation, Josiah Allen, in
a wheelbarrow."
"Well, I could probable git in Machinery Hall a pair of big castors and
fix 'em onto your shoes, and Blandina and I could push you 'round like a
buro. What do you think of that?" sez he anxiously.
"I shall not enter into any such operation!" sez I. "How it would look!"
"I d'no as it would look so dretful, you standin' up straight and easy,
and Blandina and I pushin' you along, and 'tennyrate I guess it would
look as well as bein' throwed onto the town! chairs cost like the old
Harry."
Sez I, "Don't worry, I shall pay with my own butter money." And so I
did, and rid to Transportation Buildin' with Josiah and Blandina walkin'
by my side. We entered one of its sixty doors, and the first thing we
sot our eyes on up in plain sight, but fur ahead wuz the wheels of a
great locomotive weighin' more than two hundred thousand pounds,
revolvin' 'round in dizzy speed. They said it went by compressed air,
another wonder, jest common air that you could dip up in your hand and
not think you had anything in it, and yet if managed right had power
enough to turn all the machinery we see goin'. Around this monster
engine wuz electric head-lights throwin' dazzlin' beams in every
direction. The hull thing well named, the Spirit of the Twentieth
Century. And all 'round it wuz grouped models showing the development of
the inventor's dream from the first rough effort at an engine up to the
most perfect specimen of to-day. All sorts of electrical railways,
freight and work cars, tracks, switches, signals, carriages,
ortomobiles, motor vehicles, naval architecture, models, boats,
steamships, men-of-war, battleships of the line.
Exhibits of all sorts, illustrating inland transportation in India,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and every other foreign country. You
could see to once that there wuz ways enough to travel, and if you
stayed to home it wuz your own fault.
Well, we went from there to Machinery Buildin', that bein' writ down
next on my pad. But as we walked along, I considerable riz up in my
mind, owin' to what I'd seen, who should we come acrost but the widder
Whisher of Loontown, a woman we knew well. She wuz settin' on a bench
cryin' as if her heart would break, and I sez:
"Why, sister Whisher, what is the matter?" (She wuz sister in the
meetin' house.)
She had a paper in her hand and held it out to us, "Jest see that! I
found it in the pocket of my innocent boy!" pintin' to a coat layin' by
her.
"Why," sez I, "that paper is took more than any other almost; I like it
myself first-rate, its editorials are the brightest and smartest you'll
find anywhere."
"Oh, but it is so sensational! so vulgar, so demoralizin' to the tender
and innocent heart of youth. And to think that my spotless child that I
have guarded so sedgously from every breath of evil should have it
concealed in his pocket. I have always burnt every copy I've found." And
agin she sobbed, and agin I sez:
"Sister Whisher, don't take it so to heart; he'll have to weather worst
storms than this on the sea of life. And you can't expect to be with him
always and stand to the hellum."
"Oh, but Reginald Heber is so innocent, so pure-hearted; almost an
angel," sez she, "I have been so afraid that he wuz too perfect for this
sinful world!" And her tears flowed afresh.
Well, I see I couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with
sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder
soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better
than common children so fur as I could see.
And after goin' a few steps, Josiah and I in advance, Blandina a little
in our rears, who should we see comin' directly towards us but Reginald
Heber himself. He evidently didn't notice who we wuz, but wuz merely
takin' note of a new victim, for after takin' fair aim at my stomach he
bent his head down and went, "Choo, choo!--choo, choo!" like a engine
and run towards me at full speed, and bunted his round shingled head
right into my stomach with almost the force of an arrer shot out of a
catamount, yellin' all the while like a demon.
"Git out of the way, you old four-eyed devil you!"
Makin' light of my spectacles, I spoze, though truly I wuz too weak to
reason. After doublin' me up in agony he sought safety in flight. But my
indignant pardner ketched him by his little short-tailed coat and
dragged him back to his ma, hollerin' at her:
"I'll give you a specimen of your innocent boy! He's jest the kind of an
innocent angel I'd love to take a hemlock shingle to, and would, if it
wuzn't for makin' talk." And he told the hull thing before I could
interfere.
She wept afresh, but sez she, lookin' at the whimperin' and strugglin'
Reginald H., "How soon the demoralizin' effects of that paper shows----"
But Josiah continued on in that same loud axent, his liniment red as
blood with anger, "If I had your darling to deal with a spell, there
would be a change in him, or a funeral appinted, and the body would be
ready at the time sot, I can tell you that!"
Josiah wuz fearful excited and by the side of himself. Such voylent
language is almost a perfect stranger to him, but he feared for my
bones. But I found after walkin' 'round a spell that they wuz intact,
but the pain in my stomach hung about me all day, and that night, no
matter how high my standin' wuz in the W.C.T.U., I had to take a
peppermint sling.
But to resoom backward. Machinery Buildin' wuz an immense beautiful
palace. And when I tell you its contents are valued at eight millions
you won't expect me to disscribe the hull on 'em, no, it hain't
reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over
fifty thousand horse-power.
Now, jest think on't, a one horse-power hain't to be despised. Why, I've
thought our old mair power when she wuz hitched onto a bob sled wuz
powerful. But jest think of fifty thousand horse-power. Why, if they wuz
hitched in front of each other with lines about the usual length, the
line would reach more than a hundred miles. Why, the very idee is
staggerin' to the intellect.
But, there it was right there before our eyes grindin' out power to run
this monster Exposition, and not complainin' or needin' the whip as the
fifty thousand horses would, only jest knucklin' down stiddy to the
work, groanin' considerable loud, and who blames it. And you could see
everything in the line of engines from the little half horse-power gas
engine, about half the mair's strength, about cow power, mebby, and from
this up to a steam turbin of eight thousand horse-power, a rotary steam
engine. And in the Belgian exhibit wuz a gas engine of three thousand
horse-power, a common sized horse can be driv through its cylinders, it
takes about thirty tons of coal a day to run it. And there wuz a big
French steam engine turnin' three hundred and thirty times a minute. And
there wuz a great hydraulic press from Germany that exerts the terrific
pressure of ninety thousand pounds to the square inch--what would it be
to the yard? My brain hain't powerful enough to tackle the idee.
Well, there wuz every kind of machinery in the world from all the
foreign countries as well as ours, and the methods of making and running
them. And we stayed there till my head seemed to turn 'round and 'round,
and I told my pardner I must git out into the open air or I should begin
to turn 'round and revolve in spite of me. I spoze I did look bad, and
Josiah said we would go and have lunch. He said there wuz a caff right
'round the corner, as he pronounced cafe it sounded like a young cow.
But the idee wuz good, and after we eat quite a good meal and rested a
little we started to tackle Agricultural Buildin' which wuz writ next on
my pad.
It wuz quite a journey there, in fact, as I've said before, you have to
walk a long distance to git anywhere, but jest before we got there we
see sunthin' that made us forgit for the moment our achin' limbs. On the
side of a slopin' hill at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, that
lead up to the north entrance of Agricultural Hall is the most wonderful
clock that wuz ever seen on this globe, and I don't believe they've got
anything to beat it in Mars or Saturn.
I can't give you much idee of it by writin', nobody can, but I can
probably describe it so you can see it goes ahead of your own clock on
the kitchen wall or mantelry piece. To begin with how long do you spoze
the minute hand is? The minute hand on our clock is about three inches
long, and the minute hand to this is fifty feet long, and its face is
about three hundred feet 'round and all made of the most beautiful
posies.
Why, the figures that mark the hours are fifteen feet long, most three
times as long as my pardner, if he lay flat as a pan-cake to be measured
by a pole, jest think of that and these figgers are all made of bright
colored foliage plants. The ornaments 'round the face of the clock is a
border of twenty-five different plants, each one fifteen feet wide. Some
different from the ornamental wreath 'round our clock face, that hain't
more'n half an inch wide, if it is that. Our clock has a picture
underneath of old Time with his scythe a mowin' down the hours and
minutes as his nater his. And I told Josiah how beautiful and symbolical
it wuz to think old Time had laid down his scythe for a spell, and wuz
measurin' off the hours here in this Fairy Land with beautiful posies.
And Josiah said, "The hours ort to be marked here with canes and
crutches," he said his legs ached like the toothache.
The distances are awful and I couldn't deny it, and you do git tuckered
out, but then, as I told Josiah, jest think what you're tuckered for.
And he said, "When you're as dead as a door-nail he didn't know what
good some steeples and flags wuz goin' to do you, or floral clocks." I
mistrusted he'd walked too fur lately, and had strained the cords of his
legs, and his patience too much, though the last-named wuz easy hurt and
always wuz.
But Josiah took out his watch and looked at it and said he'd promised to
meet a man on important bizness, and he'd meet us at a certain spot in
Agricultural Hall in jest one hour.
I asked him what bizness it wuz, and he hesitated a little and said as
he hurried away that it wuz "Bizness connected with the meetin' house,"
and I asked him "What meetin' house?" and he didn't answer me, he wuz
walkin' off so fast--_mebby_ he didn't hear me.
Well, Blandina and I stayed lookin' at this wonderful clock for some
time, and she said that the man that invented this clock wuz a powerful
genius and how she did wish she could meet him. She said such a man
needed a kind and lovin' companion to take every care offen him and pet
him and make of him.
The machinery of this clock, what makes it go, is up above a little ways
on the hill in a small pavilion. There are glass doors, and you can look
in and see the works of the clock. A great bell there strikes off the
hours and quarter hours, and there is a big hour-glass there too. One
thousand electric lights light it up at night so folks can see day or
night jest how time is passin' away.
Agricultural Building is the largest on the ground. The two palaces of
Agriculture and Horticulture stand up on a beautiful hill surrounded by
orchards, gardens, vineyards, shrubs, vines of all sorts. This outside
exhibit covers fifty acres. There are beautiful lakes full of the rarest
aquatic plants, from the great Egyptian lotus, whose leaves are large
and strong enough to hold up a good-sized child, and all kinds of
smaller plants, but jest as beautiful; indeed, there is everything rare
and lovely in that display that ever grew in water or on land, and they
make it one of the most beautiful places of the hull Exposition.
The enormous display outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every
inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by
Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its
cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools,
implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers,
threshers, etc., run by horse-power, steam or electricity.
Among the ploughs we see a small old-fashioned one made of wood, used by
Daniel Webster when he wuz a poor farmer boy. Workin' hard at his humble
work but his boyish mind, most probable, sot on sunthin' fur above,
lookin' at the hard soil ahead on him that he must break up, with them
wonderful, sad, eloquent eyes of hisen, and seein' visions, no doubt,
and dreamin' dreams. Callin' out to his oxen or horses, "gee," or "whoa"
as the case might be, and they not sensin' the fact that this voice wuz
goin' to give utterance to silver-tongued, heart thrillin' eloquence in
the highest places of Europe and his native land.
As I looked at it pensively I pictured the tired boy holdin' the onhandy
handles of the plow and trudgin' along behind his team through the long
sultry days, and thought to myself, what hopes and dreams and ambitions
wuz turned over by that old plow as well as green-sward.
Right by that little plow wuz a big powerful one that went by
electricity. A sight that would probable looked as strange to Daniel,
could it have appeared to him then, as any of his wildest day-dreams
materilized.
And there wuz all the methods of irrigation, draining, engines,
wind-mills, pumps, farm wagons, all kinds of fruit, sugar canes,
vegetable sugar, candy stores, confectionery displays, vegetables of all
kinds that wuz ever hearn on, some on 'em of such monster size that you
never dremp on 'em, unless it wuz in a night-mair.