The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair Part 10

At one end of this room is the collection of pictures loaned from the Vatican by Pope Leo. No one is allowed to go up the steps. One of the Columbian guards standing there said, in answer to one of Uncle's questions:

"This is the altar. It is sacred and no one is allowed up there, because these pictures are very valuable and very small."

The mention of the size in that connection meant that they could be carried off easily. But nothing could be carried off easily with those watchful "regulars" about. A contract was made by Spain with the United States before the collection left there that it should be guarded by a detachment of United States soldiers. That contract is fulfilled to the letter. No one is allowed even to touch the gla.s.ses of the case.

There are some wonderful pictures on the wall of Musaico Filato, which belong to Pope Leo. They are wonderfully beautiful as pictures, without thought of the thousands of tiny mosaics used in making the pictures, and that each one was placed in by hand. Some of the other pictures are wonderful, too--wonderful in their hideousness. No two artists seem to have the same idea of the features of Columbus. There seemed to be but one thing that they agreed upon fully, and that was that Columbus wore his hair chopped off on his neck. There is a great likeness there.

Ferdinand and Isabella looked painfully disturbed on being trotted out at this World's Fair, and just exactly as if they never could have agreed on allowing Columbus or any one else to discover us. Some of the pictures were not numbered, and some of them had two numbers. The young lady who sold catalogues said they would be all right after a while.

"Say, can you tell me--is these 'ere things all Columbus' works--did 'e do 'em all?" asked Uncle.

"No, it is the history of his life."

"Didn't he do any of 'em?"

When the young lady shook her head, Uncle walked away, disappointed. He knew just what it was to dig and toll down on his farm, and he could gauge greatness only by labor. And if Columbus did not do any of it, paint any of the pictures, or build the convent, he could not understand what had made them go to so much expense to build the old convent when a good picture for a few dollars would serve just as well.

After going through the narrow entrance of La Rabida they found little dark rooms with pictures and maps and charts of Columbus and Isabel in many different forms. In the southwest room they found a table and doors and bricks and the key from the house of Columbus. In the case among the many sacred relics was a locket said to contain some of the dust of that great man. They saw the Lotto portrait which was used on the souvenir half dollars. There were the Indian idols which Columbus brought to Isabel, one of the canoes in which the Indians came out to meet him, and even one of the bolts to which Columbus was chained. Each one of the party were continually discovering the most wonderful things. f.a.n.n.y found an autograph letter of the great Cortez and she wrote in her note book from the book of Waltzeemuller where he said, "Americus has discovered a fourth part more of the world and Europe and Asia are named for women this country ought to be called America or land of Americus because he has an acute intellect."

While she was writing this an old gentleman came up to her and said, "Say, Miss, I want to see the remains of Columbus, I heard they are here with a soldier on each side of his body."

f.a.n.n.y pointed to the place where the locket was but he was disappointed and did not care to go "just to see a pinch of dust in a locket."

Aunt was sitting on her camp stool in the room where the table of Columbus was, but to get a nearer view of something she left it for a moment. Just then a family of man and wife with five children came in and found that they were standing at the table and by the door of Columbus. The woman saw the chair and supposing it to be a part of the Columbus furniture sat down in it. Then she arose and called her husband. "Henry come here and set in this chair. Thank G.o.d I've set where Columbus set." The husband sat in it awhile and then each one of the children time about, while Aunt Sarah waited patiently for them to get through, not wanting to break the pleasure of their great achievement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THANK G.o.d I'VE SET WHERE COLUMBUS SET."]

Tired of further sight seeing, our family decided to leave the grounds, and started on their homeward journey with over two hours ahead of them.

There was no use walking through streets when they could pa.s.s nearly the whole distance through buildings. This was one of the ways to economize on travel and time.

Across the bridge from La Rabida was the great archway entrance of the Agricultural hall. Around the old convent with its low-browed walls ran a width of fresh dirt at intervals over which were stuck the ancient signs, "Keep off the gra.s.s," but no gra.s.s was yet visible.

"That's what I don't like about this White City. So much of it is so, and so much of it ain't so that I never can tell what is so," said Uncle.

In the Agricultural hall there were never ending wonders for the farmer.

All the agricultural ingenuity of the earth was centered here.

"Now, come on, father, we can see plows and lawn mowers when we get home."

But Uncle lingered longingly over a new device for lacerating the soil and destroying its noxious productions. Uncle and Aunt had ceased their usual exclamations after the first two or three days. In the first place exclamations, such as the good deacon would use, were entirely inadequate, and in the second place the cords of utterance had become exhausted.

"Well, ef they haint gone and got some dog fennel here. I wonder where the cuckle-burrs are, and the tick-seed, and the jimson weeds and the puff-b.a.l.l.s. It's a mean discrimination to bring one of the nuisances without bringing them all."

They went through and out over the bridge of the south ca.n.a.l, on past the bandstand to the Administration building.

"What inspiring music," said f.a.n.n.y. "It is hard to tell whether our eyes or our ears can bring us the most joy. Surely I can live to be a better woman now every day of my life."

As they entered the Administration building they saw a man in the center of the court looking up through the building at the great dome which seemed to pierce the sky. He leaned farther and farther back until he fell backwards and lay there on his back still gazing intently upward. A number of people rushed up to him horror stricken, as if he had just fallen from the top of the dome and they expected to see him a crushed ma.s.s. As they began to close up around him he yelled out: "O you get away you fool people, you don't know what a fine view I'm a getting of the top."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HIS HALF-DOLLAR ENTRANCE FEE GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO SEE THE DOME FROM THE MOST ADVANTAGEOUS POSITION."]

But one of the Columbian guards seemed to think that was not the legal way to view the dizzy heights of the building and forthwith jerked him to his feet and ushered him to the outside. The last seen of the man he was muttering, "Them fool builders put them picters clear up at the top and then the fool guards wont let a fellow enjoy them."

He evidently believed he had been treated outrageously in a free country by an autocratic guard, and that his fifty cents entrance fee ent.i.tled him to view any object in any position of vantage.

They went on into the Mines building where the sparkling ores of a thousand mines were in piles and pyramids or wrought into colonnades, facades and burnished domes. There were dazzling diamonds and beautiful opals, emeralds and gems from all parts of the earth; Michigan's copper globe, North Carolina's pavilion of mica designs, Montana's famous Rehan statue of solid silver resting on a plinth of gold, Arizona's old Spanish arastra and New Mexico's mining cabin.

From a northwest doorway they pa.s.sed on out of this world of subterranean wonders across the street into the Transportation building.

"I don't believe these things are used anywhere," said Johnny. "They're like the four-legged woman--just made for show. Father, you can't expect me to ride in no common farm wagon after bringin' me to see this."

"These cars do represent awful improvement in three generations," said Uncle. "Now, it is supposed that when I was a boy I rode in that 'Flyer'

there, or on the one they call 'Rocket;' but I didn't, 'cause I never seed a train till I was past twenty. f.a.n.n.y would be supposed to ride up there in that gay three-story palace on wheels, and Johnny will get to ride a hundred and fifty miles an hour on that 'lectric railroad; but a common cattle car is fast enough for me. I don't know what the world's a comin' to when people rides a hundred and fifty miles an hour and choose to sleep fourteen stories high."

They had wandered around the locomotive section, and on their way curiously viewed the famous "John Bull," the oldest locomotive in America. Near by some workingmen throwing a pile of dirt into a cart, caught Uncle's eye.

"Well, look at them fellers. Ef my farm hands was to work that way I'd not get enough corn to feed my Jerseys a month."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A FIGHT, A FIGHT!"]

He was quite disgusted with their slow and listless movements. They returned down another aisle and came out in front of the magnificent doorway of the building. They were just behind two elegantly dressed ladies, who were looking up at the decorations.

"Well, upon me wohd, do obswerve that dohway. How intwesting. I am shuah it seems to me to be pewfectly supub. It is so lovie, so sreet."

"O Grandpa," said Johnny, "do tell me what language they are talking."

"I don't know, Johnny; ask f.a.n.n.y."

John's attention was here caught by the loud arguments of some gondoliers at the landing near by, and he ran down to see the fight he was sanguine enough to believe was about to take place.

They made noise enough to be sure but perhaps this was their way of attracting attention. There were at least a dozen excited foreigners gesticulating over some exciting topic. Evidently some foreigner had been riding and he thought the fare was too high. Noise and genteel swearing were the chief argument.

They swore in German, French and Russian; In Greek, Italian, Spanish, Prussian; In Turkish, Swedish, j.a.panese-- You never heard such oaths as these.

They scolded, railed and imprecated, Abased, defied and execrated; With malediction, ban and curse They simply went from bad to worse; Carramba! O, bismillah! Sacre!

(And ones than which these aren't a marker.) The very air with curses quivered As each his favorite oath delivered; A moment's pause for breath, and then Each buckled up and cursed again.

But the storm ceased as quickly as it had begun and in a minute they were all as complacent and jolly as children.

f.a.n.n.y read aloud to her grandfather the words over the archway:

"There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, and easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place."

"Grandpa, Bacon wrote that and he lived in the time of Shakespeare, when Elizabeth was Queen of England."

"Yes, yes, child, it's a great prophesy of our greatness. I thought before I came here that the soil done about all of it and what little was not done by the soil was done by the workshop but I see that there is just as much necessity and greatness outside of these things."

"Grandpa, let me read what is on the right side of the doorway: "Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most for civilization." That was Macaulay, the great essayist and historian of England. I wish I had known he said that, for last month we debated in our literary society the question: "Resolved. That bullets have done more for the spread of civilization than books.""

It is rather an amusing thing to note how the exposition affects different people. Some of the visitors are of a type which nothing moves. They have lived all their lives in the pursuit of a placid routine of simple duties, and, while they have come to the fair from a sense of duty and fully intend to see all that may be seen, still they are p.r.o.ne to retire on occasion to some quiet corner where they can rest un.o.bserved, and then their talk invariably drops into some simple, natural channel that is in accord with the tenor of their dally lives.

Of course this is tinctured more or less with the unaccustomed sights and sounds about them, but not greatly so; for the most part they simply ignore their surroundings.