The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair Part 20

"Well, what's the matter with these I've----," began the young man, but the interpreter hushed him.

"He says you must stay in Chicago, good place. If you travel you will not have as much money as you will have when you get with the fat man.

You must stay here if you want to be rich and have good clothes. Aha!

this is very good. Put your head near. He says you are very warm-hearted, like all of the women. Yes, yes, that's it, you love one in particular, your wife or some one. He wants to know who it is you love."

"I am not married," said the young man.

"He says," resumed the interpreter, "that it's all right."

"All right, eh?"

"Yes, you will marry her, but not this year."

"How long do you think you will live?"

"Give it up."

"You will live to be 87. He says so."

That was all, and the puzzled young man arose to go away.

"How was it? How was it?" asked all the women who had been looking on and marveling.

"I'll tell you," said the young man. "The past and present are both a little cloudy, but the future is all that any one could ask."

Then he started away, keeping a sharp lookout for a fat man who seemed to be rich.

At the end of the street is the Temple of Luxor, where the curious pa.s.s under the deity-covered portal, and gaze upon the reproduced wonders of ancient Egypt. They bend over withered mummies of kings dead 5,000 years ago, and listen to music that has not been played for ages.

Near here is the pa.s.sage way outside, and, as f.a.n.n.y came out with her ears ringing with the strange jargon that everywhere met her, she was at once relaxed from the tension of sights and sounds she had just been in by seeing two country people rush together just before her. One said:

"Well, what in the world are you doin' here?"

"I swan, is that you? What are you doin' here?"

"Oh-h-h, we had to see the Fair, couldn't miss it, you know, not if it took a leg."

"That's right, that's right. Bring your folks?"

"Oh, yes, they're around here somewhere. Mother's about f.a.gged. Says she'd rather cook for harvest hands than walk all day. Going to stay long?"

"Calculate on being here all next week if body and soul stick together.

'Spose you'll be here sometime."

"Can't tell yet. Just about give up seeing it all. Half the time don't know whether I'm on my head or my heels. Blamedest place I ever struck."

"That's right, that's right."

It was enough to cause her to smile at their homely enthusiasm, and the striking contrast of language. It was a relief to hear intelligible language once more, and in the rural dialect so familiar to her ears.

The soft, balmy days of June were now in their glory, and Uncle and Aunt sometimes spent nearly the whole day sitting around on Wooded Island imagining they could hear their cattle lowing in the pasture across the creek, and dreaming their lives over again from their early happy days.

It was so peaceful there. Then they loved to go over by the lake and look upon it as a painted ocean, as calm and quiet as a pond of Raphael.

It was something to see the stretch of blue go on till it touched the low-hung clouds at the edge of the world. Beyond the mists and the smoke of the white steamers were dimly outlined streaks of yellow and light, which turned the whole heavens into a softened sky of good promise. In the foreground of the vista the giant figures of victory, with charging horses and chariot, and all the Apollos and Neptunes, stood out like silhouettes. There was no noise save the ripple of the water down the cascade at Columbia's feet. Gentle winds lapped the waves along the beach, the furious breakers of other days were toned into a delicate murmur, which sounded very like some sweet symphony or the hymn of a winged choir. Waves which had for weeks been tangled ma.s.ses of white caps and had thrashed with frantic anger the bases of the towering pillars dropped to the dainty ripples of a summer breeze. There was no crash, no roar, no splashing spray, driven on by a gale that snorted and snapped. So delicately and silently did the waters kiss the sh.o.r.e that sparrows and wrens and a flock of wandering doves walked to the very edge and filled their crops with the pure white sand. Then this, the best great work of any race of any age, comes over the spirits of worshipful men like heavenly benedictions of good-will and peace.

Sometimes as they sat in some quiet place alone saying nothing but thinking joy, the music of holy melodies came floating across the waters of the basin and re-echoed from the heaving lake to the Administration dome. They were sitting at the feet of that human genius which G.o.d had hallowed for the sake of those who revere His holy name.

They were everywhere thrilled with the supremely gifted achievements of their fellow men, inspired by the living canva.s.s from every clime, and amazed to know that the lumps of Parian stone could be made to speak the heroism of the world.

_CHAPTER XVIII_

UNCLE IN THE LOCK-UP

Our family felt that they could remain in the grounds forever and never be done seeing; but the time was drawing near when they must return home. Uncle decided that this Sat.u.r.day must be their last day at the Fair. Surely they had seen enough, even if there was so much more not yet seen. They had seen notable people all the way from the Infanta of Spain to Faraway Moses, of Egypt. But they were all the same to Uncle.

He had heard all kinds of music, from the Spanish band to the Samoan tom-tom. "Some of the music," he said, "was so peaceful like, but the rest was not half so nice as the growin' pigs rubbin' against splinters in the sty back of the barnyard." He had surely been all over, and there was nothing more of a startling nature to see. He had watched them check babies at the children's building as if they were poodles or handbags, and he had been over to the Irish village and seen the people kissing the "Blarney Stone." On a card tacked near by he read:

This is the stone that whoever kisses He never misses to Grow eloquent.

A clever spouter He'll turn out an orator In Parliament.

Uncle had no ambition that way, and so he let the rest do all the kissing.

He had completed his sight-seeing in the city by taking a Turkish bath, and he considered himself now ready to "pull up stakes" and return to the farm.

"I've made hay in July, and punched it back into the loft," said Uncle; "I've harvested in August, and drunk out of the branch; I've cut hoop-poles in the swamp, and done lots of other hot things, but fer real sultuy weather nothing is ekal to the Turkey bath. Some feller told me it was the healthiest bath a feller could take when there was no creek around. You see, I looked at the Chicago river and decided it wasn't altogether a proper place fer a swim; then I went over to the lake whar they were a paddling around, but somehow the water didn't warm up even a little bit in the afternoons, and then I thought I might just as well pay a dollar and take a Turkey bath.

"Well, it do beat anything in the wash line I ever see. I went into the barber shop where the sign was and paid a woman a dollar, and she took my silver ticker and chain and all my spare change, and my pocket book, and put 'em all into a box and locked it and then fastened the key around my wrist. Well, I wondered if I was a going down there whar they had to protect me that way from getting robbed.

"I went down stairs where I stopped to see a feller a doing some thing to a feller's feet. I seed he was a cutting the nails, and then I thought how awful lazy these city people do get, that they can't even cut their own toe nails.

"A feller came up and put me in a little room and told me to strip off and foller him. Well, sir, that feller he just stuck me into a room that was hot enough to fry eggs and bake Johnny cakes. I da.s.sent breathe hard for fear of burning my nose off. He set me into a lean back chair and decently covered me over with a sheet. I've biled sap, an' I've rolled logs; I've sc.r.a.ped hogs over the kettle and made soap, but this beat anything I ever see fer hot weather. If I hadn't seen other respectable folks goin' in there I'd a knowed I was a gittin' basted for my sins in the bad world. I couldn't set there, so I tried to walk around, but I seen my feet was liable to get roasted, and the air was hotter at the top, so I set down again.

"Well, sir, I sot there till I got hotter'n biled corn, and then I hollered worse nor the Johnnies at Kenesaw mountain.

"Then a feller stuck his head in at the door and told me to come out there, and when I did a colored feller shoved me on to a bench and began to slap the daylights out o' me with both hands, and then another feller he turned the hose on me, and then I cut loose.

"Well, sir, you ought to a seed me. I'm gittin' old, but 'nough is 'nough, and I kin be painters an' wild cats when I want to. I was in a pecooliar place without a st.i.tch on me, but I jest run the slapper into the bake oven, and I made the buggy washer jump into the fish pond or swimmin' hole what they aimed to chuck me into next; and then a feller came out and took me into another room, where he rubbed me down kind a horse like, and I got my clothes on and went up to the woman and got my things give back; and I told her I was awful glad to see daylight again.

She laffed, an' I didn't say no more, but I done lots of thinkin'."

They were sitting on a rustic bench, just across the southwest bridge on Wooded Island, when Uncle's talking was brought to a stop by a great noise in the direction of the "Plaisance." Just then two Turks came trotting by with a sedan chair in which was seated a nervous-looking woman who seemed anxious to reach the place from which the medley of noises seem to be issuing. She nervously grasped the sides of the chair and looked at the bent form of the toiling Ottoman in front. Over the bridge they went, the carriers executing a double shuffle diagonally down the steep descent. The pa.s.senger opened her mouth and gave a scream that made the Turk in front stumble as he bent his head to see what was wrong. Then she screamed harder, frightening a flock of sea-gulls off the island and bringing a Columbian guard on a run from the north entrance of the Horticultural building to see what was the matter. Then she insisted on getting out, and she was so glad, that she gave the Turk a dollar, and left before he could give her any change.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE GAVE A SCREAM THAT SCARED SOME GULLS OFF OF THE ISLAND."]

The noise over towards the "Plaisance" continued, and Johnny cried out, "The parade, the Midway Plaisance parade! Come on, the whole earth is parading!"

The front of the procession just then appeared in view, and the family went to the top of the bridge where they could review the strangest procession that ever walked on the western world. Processions may come, and processions may go, but there never was one like that which was then winding through the broad streets of Jackson Park.