ALL winter we had been talking about the Fair, reading up about the
Fair, making plans for the Fair; and Belle declared that even if she
never saw the Fair she would be glad it had been, on account of the
amount of preparatory information she had laid up.
We did get off at last in the end of June, the whole of us, including
Mary, of course--my first experience of traveling in her company. We
went to Chicago by boat,--a night's crossing,--and a rare time I had
securing berths for the family in the overcrowded propeller. I was
thankful for an "extension," a sort of shell run out between two
staterooms and partitioned off by curtains and poles. The boys had to
sleep on sofas, floor, anywhere, which to them was but the beginning of
the fun.
The first of my Herculean labors at an end, I was enjoying my smoke aft
in the cool of the evening, when Belle came back to me, her brow drawn
up into what I had begun to call the "Mary wrinkle."
"David, I'm afraid you'll have to talk to that girl. She's sitting up in
the bow there flirting with one of the waiters, and though I've sent
Watty twice after her, she won't stir."
As majestically as my five feet four would permit, I moved to the front
of the boat.
"Mary, Mrs. Gemmell wants you right away."
She took time to exchange a laughing farewell with the good-looking
waiter, and explained to me _en route_:
"That's Bill Moreland. I knew him quite well in Lake City. I've met him
at balls."
In the morning before we reached Chicago, she managed to get in a long
confabulation with another waiter, whom I am sure she had never met in
Lake City, nor anywhere else.
"See here, Mary! If this is the way you're going to behave, you go
straight back to Lake City on that boat, and don't see one bit of the
Fair."
Her manners were mended till we were actually in Jackson Park, but then:
"She's a philanthropist, Belle, a lover of _man_kind--Columbian Guard,
Gospel Charioteer, Turk in the bazaar. The creed or the color doesn't
matter so long as he calls himself a man."
I am afraid I was cross, for it did not take one day to realize what an
undertaking it was going to be to keep track of my family, who had never
before seemed too numerous. Daily at 10 A. M., in the Michigan Building,
did I hand over to Will Axworthy the most troublesome of the lot, and
daily did I wish he would keep her for better or worse.
On the Fourth of July cannonading began at daybreak, and for once I
sympathized in my mother's objection to the license accorded to young
Americans. They set off firecrackers, not by the bunch but by the
bushel; kerosene and dynamite were their ambrosia and nectar. What with
fighting for lunch in overcrowded restaurants, and then retaliating by
stealing chairs out of the same, hunting through the various booths in
the Midway to collect my three younger sons when it was time to send
them home, and rescuing my two little girls from an over-supply of ice
cream sodas and chocolate drops, I did not specially enjoy the glorious
Fourth.
Toward evening there was not a foot of Fair ground undecorated by a
banana skin, a crust of bread, or a flying paper. Belle considered the
signs "Keep off the Grass" quite superfluous, and pulling one up by the
roots she sat down on it, thereby keeping the letter, if not the spirit
of the law.
"Now, Dave," said she, "the family are all safe off the grounds, and you
can go and get a gondola to come and take us for a sail before dark.
Everybody is moving toward the lake front to wait for the fireworks, and
the lagoons are not so crowded as they were. Let's pretend we're on our
honeymoon."
So seldom does Belle wax sentimental over me, I hailed her proposition
with outward indifference but inward joy. Securing a gondola to
ourselves, in it we were gently swayed through canal and under bridge in
the mystical evening light.
The distant rumble of a train on the Intramural, or a quack from a
sleepy duck among the rushes, alone broke the stillness.
"This is where I belong!" exclaimed Belle. "I've seen before those
Eastern-looking towers and minarets, with the sunset glow on the cloud
masses behind them. Look! there's a Turk and a Hindoo crossing the
bridge. This is the region, this the soil, the clime. I always knew I
wasn't meant for Western America."
"You must have been very naughty _last time_ to have been raised in
Michigan this trip. Still this is only Chicago!"
"It's not Chicago! It's the world! Listen to that now--the music of the
spheres!"
We approached another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center
of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was
doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy
Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria
Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but
in the unique stage setting, which included a group of eager listeners
on abridge behind him, one could forgive a break on a high note or two.
The singer threw himself into the spirit of the composition, cast his
eyes upward with hand on his heart, and bent them to earth again for the
approval of his passengers. There were but two, a young man and a young
lady, and to the latter was the hero in costume directing his amorous
glances.
"There's romance for you!" said I to Belle, who is notoriously on the
lookout for it. I directed our gondolier to draw nearer to his
enamoured compatriot. My wife replied uneasily:
"I don't know the man, or boy, for that's all he is, but if that isn't
Mary's hat----"
"Mary! Phew! What's become of Axworthy?"
As we approached the comfortable-looking pair, Mary bowed to us
smilingly, and called the attention of her companion to her "father and
mother"--darn her impudence!
The boat ride was spoiled for Belle and me, our white elephant having
arisen to haunt us once more. We landed and walked over to the lake
front, where the whole slope was packed with people waiting for the
fireworks to begin.
Someone started to sing "Way Down upon the Swanee Ribber," and everybody
joined in. "Nearer, my God, to Thee" was also most impressive from the
vast impromptu chorus. In the foreground Lake Michigan lay darkly
expectant, with a large black cloud upon its horizon, though the stars
shone overhead. A half-circle of boats extended from the long Exhibition
Wharf on the right, round to the warship _Illinois_ on the left, and
from the latter a search light, an omnipresent eye, swept the crowd with
rapidly veering glance, till it concentrated its gaze on the dark
balloon which rose so mysteriously from the water. Suddenly from this
balloon was suspended the Stars and Stripes in colored lights. The crowd
cheered like mad, the boats whistled, and sent up rockets galore.
On went the programme. Bombs tested the strength of our wearied
ear-drums, fiery snakes sizzled through the air, big wheels spurted
brilliant marvels, and along the very edge of the lake, to the great
discomfort of the front rows of the stalls, a line of combustibles
behaved like gigantic footlights on a spree.
"David, who do you suppose that was with Mary?"
I had been up in the air with George Washington, surrounded by "First in
War, First in Peace, etc.," in letters of fire, and I was unwillingly
recalled to earth.
"Haven't the remotest idea. Hope she hasn't given Axworthy the slip."
"I'm only hoping that he has not given her the slip. I'd never have
brought her to the Fair if he hadn't agreed to look after her."
At that moment there was a surging of the mighty crowd, caused by a band
of college students pushing their way through, shoulder to shoulder,
singing one of their rousing ditties. Some people who had been standing
on their hired rolling chairs had narrow escapes from being flung upon
the shoulders of those in front. Some did not escape--Mary for
instance, who landed between us as if shot from a catapult.
"I knew I was going to fall, so I just jumped to where I seen you two,"
said she, with her customary calmness, and then she turned to assure her
escort of the gondola, who was anxiously elbowing his way to her, that
she was entirely unhurt.
Blushing prettily, she introduced the lad as "Mr. Tom Axworthy--cousin
of the Mr. Axworthy you know."
Mr. Tom talked to Mrs. Gemmell with the ease and assurance of ninety
rather than nineteen, while I exchanged a few words aside with the
maiden:
"Where is the Mr. Axworthy that we know?"
"He had some business to do in town to-night, so he left me in charge of
this cousin of his--just a lovely fellow!"
"Humph! Introduced you to any more of his relations?"
"Oh, yes--an uncle; quite an old bachelor, but lovely too!"
"And I suppose you've been round with the uncle as well."
"Not very much. He was to have taken me up in the balloon yesterday, but
the cyclone burst it."
"We're going home now, and I think you'd better say 'Good-night' to Mr.
Tom Axworthy and come with us."
After waiting two hours and a half for standing room on a suburban
train, we reached the hotel at an early hour on July the 5th, dusty,
smoke-stained, and powder-scented, like veterans from a field of battle.
That was not by any means the last of Mr. Tom Axworthy. During the
remainder of our stay in Chicago it was he quite as frequently as his
more mature and eligible cousin who exchanged a lingering farewell with
Mary at the ladies' entrance to our hotel, and a great fear arose in the
heart of Belle that the young woman was fooling away her time with this
impecunious boy, instead of making the most of her opportunities to come
to a satisfactory understanding with his cousin. Every morning did she
gaze pathetically into my face, saying:
"I do hope Axworthy will propose to-day!" and once she added:
"I cannot face another winter in the same house with that girl and your
mother. Grandma has taken it into her head that Mary is my pet lamb, the
idol of my heart, for whom she, and you too, have been set aside. She
doesn't see that it worries me half to death to have Mary tagging round
after me the whole time, and overrunning the house with her beaux.
Neither of our own girls is old enough yet, thank goodness, to consider
herself my companion and equal, to wear my gloves, my boots, my best
hairpins, and to use my favorite perfume; to come and plant herself down
beside me whenever I'm talking confidentially to anyone, to be
determined to have her finger into every pie, to know what I'm reading
or thinking about. She'll insist on knowing my dreams next!"
"Perhaps you mesmerize her."
"If I did, I'd make her keep away from me! I could stand it all better
if I thought she really cared a straw for me, but I have the feeling
that she regards me merely as a basis for supplies."
"We can only trust, then, that the basis may be speedily transferred to
Axworthy!"
On our return from the World's Fair, the family stopped off at
Interlaken, but I had to go on into town to the _Echo_ office. To my
surprise, Mary joined me at my solitary dinner at the "House of the
Seven Gables," where Margaret, as usual, was in charge, and she remained
there for the rest of the week.
"Where's Mary?" was Belle's greeting, when I joined her on Saturday.
"She's in town."
"Why didn't you bring her out with you?"
"Didn't know you wanted her. She said she'd like to stay in Lake City
over Sunday, to take the Communion."
"Take the Communion indeed! She wants to be left there alone with
Margaret, so that she'll have a chance to flirt with every man in town.
I thought you had more sense, David."
I pulled my soft felt hat further over my diminished head.
"Did she get any letters?"
"One or two."
"Wretch! I told her to come out here with you to-night for certain."
Monday morning, mother, who had been spending the summer with my married
sister in Lake City, came out to stay for a week with us at Interlaken.
She could hardly wait till the youngsters were out of hearing to pour
her story into my ears. I had to take back to town the train by which
she had come out, but she made the most of her time.
"There's been great doin's in yer hoose in yer absence. Marg'et 's been
tellin' yer sister's servant a' aboot Mary's luv affairs. Mary tell't
her 'at Eesabelle bade her write Willum Axworthy an' spier his
intentions; that if she didna, Mrs. Davvit said she'd d'it hersel'. An'
a' the time she's correspondin' wi' a yunger ane, an Axworthy tae, 'at
she tells Marg'et she likes a hape better. Yer sister's sair affronted
to think o' the w'y the fem'ly name's bein' cairted thro' the mire."
Belle came out on the veranda, her broad hat in her hand, ready to walk
down to the train with me.
"So Axworthy didn't propose at the Fair?" said I, when we were out of
earshot of the cottage.
"No; and I think it's a crying shame, too, after the way he appropriated
the girl all last winter, and in Chicago too."
"A great relief to you! Well, I guess the whole town knows by this time
that you made Mary write and ask his intentions."
"This is too much! Has your mother----"
"Mary's been making a _confidante_ of Margaret, that's all. That
inestimable domestic is so much one of ourselves, it was hard for the
unsophisticated mind to know exactly where to draw the line."
"I hope she has drawn the line at showing Margaret his reply. I haven't
seen that myself."
"What can you expect it to be? If he had wanted to marry the girl there
was nothing to prevent him asking her, and if he did not, no letter of
yours would make him want to."
"She wrote it herself, and all she said was that she would like to know
definitely how she stood with him. I did nothing but correct the
spelling."
"Better if you had written in your own name, and without her knowledge.
No daughter of the house would ever have been put in such a position. So
far as I can judge, Mary and Mr. Will Axworthy are quits. If he has had
a good time in her society, she has had an equally good time in his, and
he does not enjoy her letters so much as he did her propinquity."
"He's a cold-hearted, cowardly----"
"Tut! tut! my dear!"
By this time we were on the platform, and the engine was backing its one
car down to receive me and the other unhappy toilers compelled to go
away and leave that sapphire-blue lake behind.
"Don't you think, Isabel, that it's about time you quit trying to play
Providence and gave God a chance?"
"Dave! you're blasphemous!"
"No, I'm not. I only wish to remark that in your schemes for the welfare
of one particular person, you are apt to overlook the comfort and
happiness of everyone else concerned. That's the worst of not being
omniscient. You're only an amateur sort of a deity after all."
"Send that girl out here by the very next train." And I obeyed.