The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair Part 18

"Oh, I do not leesen. Eet ese my beesness to go out weeth you ven you ask eet."

And then they followed him out.

"What a horrid place that was and we thought at first it was so nice,"

said one.

"In all our lives we can never have a dream half so frightful as that was," said a third.

"One thing sure," said Mary, "this terrible experience has bound us forever and forever together; and because of our common experience in this awful adventure we must initiate f.a.n.n.y into the mysteries of the n.o.ble order of progressive girls, C. C. of C. C."

_CHAPTER XV_

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Foreign theaters, mazes, labyrinths, panopticons, spectatoriums and their ilk had no more charms for the girls, but with Uncle and Aunt they spent the next day in the museums, casinos and panoramas of the city.

But wax figures and brain-muddling deceptions were still the value they received for their money.

"I will be contented," said Aunt, "never to leave the farm again. I can be happy there the rest of my born days in knowing that when I look at a cow it is not a stuffed cow, that the calf by her side can move; that the man on the barn floor with his pitchfork in the hay can really lift it over into the manger for the cattle. This mornin' I see a lady standin' on one of the stairs tryin' to tie her shoes. She was having a time of it, I knew, so I says, says I, 'leddy, let me help you.' She didn't say nothing, so I jest stooped down to help her. I pulled the tongue of the shoe up and tapped the sides together over it, when a perfect chill came over me, for I pressed the lady's ankle, and it felt just like sawdust. Poor woman! I thought some terrible accident had cut off her leg and she had a false one. I looked up into her face, and she looked so pale like and deathly that I was awful scared, then I looked more and more and I see she was dead, died maybe of heart disease while she was a stooping over. O what a shock! I can not get over it to my dying day. I nearly screamed but I knew I must not, so I just called to the feller sitting at the table writing visiting cards to come there quick; but he just set there stock still and never moved. I didn't want to attract attention from the folks around so I just picked up a nail a lying there and hit him square on the cheek but he never flinched. I spoke then to the woman leaning over the railing laughing at the little girl down below but she never changed her smile at all. I couldn't tell what to make of it when a feller came up to me an' says, 'Do you want anything, old lady?' I stared at him and says 'Hist, sir, don't you see this poor woman is dead. Died a stooping over too sudden.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SO I SAYS, SAYS I, 'LEDDY, LET ME HELP YOU.'"]

"Then he just laughed at me a little, and pulled her dress to one side and showed me that she was only a wax head and a stuffed body. That made me mad, for it is a sin and a shame for to deceive people that way, and defraud 'em of their hard earned money. I told him to show me the way out, and I would report how he was defrauding the public to the humane society or somebody. He just laughed at me again and invited me to take a chair in the office if I wanted to wait for my folks. I went in there and an awful nice woman talked to me and explained things till I wasn't so mad as I was; but I still think it is a shame that a Christian city should allow such awful frauds on peoples' eyes and nerves. Anyhow, when I get home I want to go around and touch everything and make sure that there is no more foolin', so I can live in peace and facts."

Aunt was very indignant. She could stand the deceptions that Uncle had been so opposed to at the Fair, but when she was deceived in her acts of kindness, it was carrying things entirely too far.

The places of interest, as the guide books said, had now all been visited, and they were walking down the street fully satisfied that they had seen all the sights of the city from the skysc.r.a.pers to the organ grinders. The police courts and the stock yards were not considered as places of interest by them.

John and f.a.n.n.y were in the lead, with the five girls just behind them, and Uncle and Aunt bringing up the rear. As they reached the corner there was a clamor and a scattering of people crossing the street, and a rumbling that jarred the earth as two great fire engines dashed by rolling smoke upward and clanging a bell in a way that was frightful.

"Fire, fire!" shouted Johnny.

"Oh that's what we want to see, a fire, a big fire," echoed the girls.

In a moment they were all running pell mell after the engines, jostling against the people and exciting the merriment and wonder of every body.

The engines were running in the direction of their hotel and very likely it was on fire and they would lose all their clothing.

"Come on girls," shouted John as he led the way like a foxhound. "Come on, I know it's only just around the corner. I see the smoke rolling up from the house."

The engines had turned another corner and Johnny felt a great pride in being the guide and encyclopedia of ready information for six girls. Out of breath they reached the corner where they supposed they would see a terrible fire with people jumping out of the windows twelve or fourteen stories high, perhaps safely into blankets, possibly to their death. Or, brave firemen scaling ladders and bearing lovely girls out of the horrible flames. But they discovered that the smoke they had seen was coming out of a tall chimney, and that far down the street almost a mile away they could get glimpses of the fire engines still forging straight ahead. But they were not to be daunted thus. There must be a great fire somewhere down there that it would take many hours for the engines to get under control. On and on they ran, out of breath, to be sure, but determined to see the great Chicago fire that required two such great engines to bring under control. They had run several blocks, when they became so tired they could only walk. Another block or two was traversed, when they met the engines coming leisurely back. It was a bitter deception, there was no fire. They turned back; and, when they met Uncle and Aunt, also entirely out of breath with the chase, Aunt declared that this was only another case of Chicago's base deceptions.

It could joke with dead people and jest with fires and make a playhouse exhibition costing many millions of dollars, and fool old people and the young alike and with equal conscience.

Uncle observed that it proved to him that Barnum was right when he said that a fool was born every minute, and that the Americans were a people who delighted in being deceived.

The girls decided to remain that night with f.a.n.n.y, and to visit the Fair together the next day. A pleasant evening was spent, but the subject of fire and fire escapes were the chief topic of conversation. Each of the windows of their room had a fire-escape fastened to the facing, and the instructions printed underneath were carefully studied and mastered by all before retiring.

The next morning they were gathered in the main room awaiting the time for breakfast. Johnny raised a window to get a look outside, when the well known clang! clang! clang! of the Chicago fire engine was heard.

Instantly all was excitement. Clang! clang! clang! and another came by.

Then there were two or three more, and they seemed to stop right under the window. People across the street, even up to the top stories, were complacently sitting in the windows and looking into the street as if such a thing as great flames lapping upward and smothering them to death, were unknown. Johnny, who was looking out of the window, yelled: "O Lord! it's our house on fire, and we are five stories high!"

The streets began to fill with people. Uncle, panic-stricken, looked out and saw the engines puffing below. The cool audacity of the people at the windows across the street was appalling. They did not care for death. All at once Uncle recovered himself and yelled: "Everybody to the life preservers! Git into the fire escapes and save yourselves!"

But the room was empty. "Oh Lord," Uncle groaned, "they have gone insane and run down into the flames below."

Wringing his hands he ran to the door and cried, "Oh Sarah, Sarah, come back and let us die together." But neither Sarah nor the rest were anywhere to be seen. He was alone.

Remembering the instructions regarding the fire escape, he ran to the window, fastened the straps about his waist and climbed out of the window. He pulled the string that was to unreel the rope and let him down. Down, down, he went expecting every moment to feel the fierce heat about him. He seemed to be half way down when the reel ceased to work and he hung there suspended in mid air awaiting an awful death. He gave a despairing jerk when down he went within three feet of the pavement with a sudden stop that took his breath away. A crowd of people began to gather about him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE HUNG SUSPENDED IN MID AIR, AWAITING AN AWFUL DEATH."]

"What's the matter old man," said a man who had seen all the performance.

"Where's the fire," said Uncle wildly.

"It is two blocks further up," he answered.

"And ain't my folks all burnt up?" he said pathetically.

The answer was at once before him for he had let himself down directly over the entrance of the hotel and his family just then arriving at the bottom of the stairway came out to him. There never was a more happy meeting for Uncle than that one. His ridiculous adventure was not clear to him till he had time to study it over. But there really was a fire further on and they were not to lose such a sight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE FIRE WAS TWO BLOCKS AWAY."]

A large dry goods house was on fire, and eighteen or twenty monster engines were puffing and roaring, each one like a threshing machine on Uncle's wheat field. They pressed themselves forward to the very front of the spectators, and so close that the heat of the flames could be distinctly felt. A heavy wind was blowing, and all the force of the fire department was out to stop the flames. It was truly the grandest and most fearful spectacle the family had ever seen. There came a puff of wind toward them and the flames came down, almost scorching their clothing. Then the policemen commenced to drive the crowd back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SOMETHING HAPPENED."]

There was almost a panic, and the girls nearly had their lives crushed out of them. It was an adventure they cared never to repeat. Johnny did not fare so badly, for he was more intent on the workings of the engines. He was free from mishaps till he chanced to take a position over the great hose-pipe through which the water was sent with such tremendous force on its mission. Something happened. He is not able to relate just how it was. But the hose burst directly under him, and he was tossed over into the streaming gutter with a precision he can forgive but never forget. After this happened it was time to go home to be more agreeably clothed. Johnny was a sadder though a wiser boy.

_CHAPTER XVI_

TO BUY A DOG

Jackson Park was a paradise of peace and rest compared with the nerve destroying difficulties of sight-seeing in the city. Uncle had experienced all the adventures he wanted, and his great desire now was to escape all further mishaps until he could get back safe among his Jerseys on the farm.

Tired from much walking among the scenes of the Exhibition, the family sat down upon one of the rustic seats in Wooded Island. It was a most picturesque place, a most inspiring spot from which to contemplate the great sweep of history that had culminated on those grounds.

"The longer I stay about this Fair," said Uncle, "and the more I see, the more I wish I knew. I can see folks discussing things with such great delight when I can't understand anything but the ifs and ands and buts. I heard a man say to-day that Columbus never discovered America, that he was a pirate. He said that all these doings should have been for a Viking or some such name. I knew it wasn't so, for so many people couldn't be fooled. How may that all be, f.a.n.n.y?"

"There are a great many theories and stories set afloat about the discovery of America by people who desire more to show off their ability to construct plausible heresies against accepted things than to give real historic truth. But there is much that at least seems to be evidence of the Nors.e.m.e.n having been in America 500 years before Columbus touched the outlying islands of the West Indies. The Sagas of Leif the Lucky and Eric the Red told some marvelous stories of discoveries to the southwest of Iceland. Some of these stories seem to be verified in many ways, by digging up the logs of the Norse huts, by the written characters on Dighton rock, by the old tower at Newport, by the Benheim map of 1492, and a number of other important things.

"Then there has been found what seems to be beyond doubt a figure of Buddha in Yucatan, and also a Buddhist monument in Central America.