CHAPTER III
The Party Separates — Harry Goes to the Battle-Ship — The Government
Building — The Convent and the Caravels — The Movable Sidewalk.
Sunday proved a welcome relief after the long journey of Saturday, followed by the fête night at the Fair; and they were glad to begin the busy week that was to follow with one restful day apart from bustle and confusion.
At breakfast Monday morning, one of the dishes Mr. Douglass ordered was steak; and, as he sawed through it, he remarked:
“This is tough!”
“But I thought you didn’t approve of slang?” Harry inquired, with an air of grave interest.
“I wasn’t thinking so much of how I said it as of the fact,” Mr. Douglass replied. “But the proverb says that ‘shoemakers’ children are always the worst shod,’ and so we ought to expect poor beef in Chicago, the great beef-market of the continent; but I don’t like to waste my strength on mere beef while there is so much before us. What are your plans?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Harry, after a moment’s pause, “I’m going to ask you to let me ‘paddle my own canoe.’ It is hard for three to keep together in a crowd.”
“That’s true,” Philip agreed; “and especially when one is near-sighted. I think I tried to follow seven different wrong men yesterday.”
“Yes,” added Harry; “‘Follow my leader’ is a difficult game to play when we are all leaders and followers at the same time.”
“All right,” the tutor said. “To-day, then, we will separate. I may not go to the Fair at all, for I have several letters on my mind. Remember, we came away on very short notice. What will you do, Philip?”
“Oh, I think I shall spend a long while in the Art Galleries. It’s a good place to go to by one’s self, for two people seldom agree about pictures—especially boys.”
So, after breakfast, Harry, with a proud feeling of being his own master, set forth by himself. He had a very clear idea of what he wished to do first. He meant to go to the model of a United States man-of-war—the “Illinois.” He had read much about the White Squadron, and felt that he would never have so good an opportunity to understand just how a man-of-war was worked.
He had bought a guide-book to the Fair, and found that the route of the launches would bring him quite near enough to the vessel. But in spite of his singleness of purpose, his thoughts were distracted as soon as he came near the entrance.
He noticed first the clicking of the turnstiles. They revolved so continually, as people passed in, that Harry was reminded of the sound of a watchman’s rattle. Next, he caught sight of a white-robed and turbaned Turk standing in line at the “Workmen’s Gate,” as placidly as if he were in his native Constantinople. Harry’s turn to enter at the “Pay Gate” soon came, and he made his way toward the Court of Honor. As he passed the great Liberty Bell, which was chiming musically, he read upon it the words:
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.
He could not help remembering what followed the ringing of the original Liberty Bell, and he hoped that this, its namesake, would bring peace rather than war—a sober reflection that he recalled later in the day.
To the tune of “Hold the fort, for I am coming,” played by a peal of musical bells,—very fittingly, he thought,—Harry began the quick journey that ended when the little launch came to a landing called “The Clambake.” When the man called out those words, Harry did not budge; but when the man added, “Here’s where yer get off,” he rose and abandoned the craft.
On the way there, Harry learned that the ducks in the Lagoon were useful as well as pretty. The pilot said that two or three ducks would do more toward keeping a pond wholesome than six or eight hard-working men.
He was too early to get upon the “Illinois,” and therefore turned back to see the Viking ship. It was not far away; and just in front of it were three armor-plates in which were the imprints left by the great conical shot used in testing them.
Harry had read all about the old Northmen’s vessel, and ordinarily could have spent hours in studying her mast, her one crossyard, her awning, the shields along her side—but this was a land of wonders. He looked at the boat only long enough to take a mental snap-shot that he could develop at leisure, and then walked on toward the United States Government Building, passing on his way a company of marines at drill.
But again he was diverted. He turned into the Weather Bureau, and was glad he had done so, because of the wonderful series of photographs he found on the walls. Lightning flashes in streaks and sheets, clouds in storm and wind, moonlight and snow effects, were there, but in impossible numbers. He sighed, wished that he had more leisure, and left. This time he succeeded in getting to the rifled cannon in front of the Government Building, but stopped only long enough to take a sight over one of them.
He tried to go regularly around the exhibits, but surrendered almost at once. The Patent Office models discouraged him; but the Geological Department!—the great transparent pictures in the windows convinced him that he couldn’t (as he once heard a man say) “poss the impossible and scrute the inscrutable.”
But he did notice some things.
He sketched the skull of the Dinoceras mirabile (and copied the name, too), because he was sure that it was the very ugliest thing in the world. He walked around a section of the big tree from California. He really studied a few life-like and life-size groups showing Indians at work, and wished sincerely that he were Methuselah, and that the Fair would last all his days. It was a petrified Wild West show. He said they were splendid, to a gray-bearded Westerner, who replied emphatically:
“They are so—and I have been used to the scoundrels all my life!”
Harry sketched a queer Indian “priest-clown’s” head. At first he felt a little afraid to bring out his book and pencil; but he found out that every one had more to do than watch a boy drawing, and before the day was over he drew whatever he chose, entirely forgetting the crowd.
Different things attracted different people. He heard one farmer-looking man say: “My stars, Ma! Look-a here!” and expected to see a marvel. He found only some stuffed chickens. Probably the farmer had never seen fowls stuffed unroasted.
But when he came to the War Department collection he gave up skipping. He had to see that. Just at the entrance was a splendid bust of General Sheridan, the face wearing the expression the general must have had when he said at Winchester, “Turn around, boys! We’re going back!” Against the windows were more fine transparencies, and the whole floor-space was filled with everything having to do with war and soldiers. Small arms, from a brass blunderbuss to the latest breech-loader—yes, and to the earliest, for there was one Chinese breech-loader of the 14th century.
“Instead of trying to get up new things,” said Harry, half aloud, “we ought to go to China and study ancient history.”
Harry had a feeling of discouragement in spite of his interest. He had always entertained a vague idea that some day he might give his mind to it and make a big invention—a phonograph or a flying railway, or some little thing like that; but now, when he saw how everything seemed to have been done, and done better than he could have dreamed of—well, he said to himself, “This Fair has spoiled one great inventor, for I would not dare to think there was anything new!”
But then he caught sight of a picture called the “March of Time,”—representing a great procession of soldiers, of generals and veterans,—which restored his good spirits, for right in front, “leading the whole crowd,” was a row of rollicking small boys. He was grateful to the artist.
One stand of arms showed muskets—relics of the Civil War—injured by bullets. Into one of them a Confederate bullet had entered to stop a forthcoming shot, and, meeting, they had burst open the barrel. Another had been split into ribbons at the muzzle. There were also relics of the Custer massacre, and a gun recaptured from an Indian after he had tastefully ornamented it with brass-headed nails.
The less bloody side of battle was recalled by General Thomas’s “office wagon,” the side of which formed a desk when lowered, and revealed some very neat pigeonholes for papers, pens, and red tape. Uniforms and equipment, models of pontoons, artillery, a model of undermining, one by one each claimed the hasty glance that was all any visitor had to spare. A longer look was claimed by an oil painting showing Lieutenant Lockwood’s observation of the “Farthest North.”
Then Harry returned to the Rotunda, and executed a rapid circular movement, hasty, but full of reverence, toward the cases of Revolutionary and Colonial relics—portraits on ivory, letters, flags, snuff-boxes—an endless array of antiquities. Harry was glad to see one miniature, excellently painted, by Major André; for up to that day he had not thought much of the unfortunate major’s drawing, having seen only the well-known “sketch of himself” in pen and ink. Washington’s diary was another thing the boy found very interesting: as he said, it was “neat as wax and right as a trivet.” Harry wondered whether it wouldn’t be fun to keep a diary. This reminded him of the flight of time, and, looking at his watch, he set his face once more toward the “Illinois,” for it was after half-past ten.
Many were going that way—and, indeed, in every other. Two small boys who, in sailor suits, strode along the pier like two pygmy admirals, gave him another subject for his sketch-book; but they were but atoms in a long procession, for there was no cessation in the coming and going of visitors all the time he was on the vessel.
He went at once below decks, and came plump up against an ice-machine—“to keep the men cool while in action,” he heard a young fellow say. Around the bulkheads were draped flags of all nations, and here and there were hung mess-lockers,—shelves behind wire gratings,—hammocks, neatly varnished kegs for stores, and everything Jack afloat could desire. Upon the lower deck also were glass cases protecting exquisite models of the new cruisers and battle-ships.
“Now, if they’ll give me just one of those as my share,” said Harry, “I’ll go home contented. Anyway, I think I will go to Annapolis and become an officer in the navy.”
As if to answer this thought, he came next to the room where the work of the cadets was shown. The splicing, the foot-ball statistics, the fencing foils and masks, were welcomed; but the tables full of text-books and the neat drawings on the walls spoke so plainly of hard study and long hours of work that Harry’s determination was somewhat shaken. And, indeed, before he had left the Government Building, a soldier of the regular army, guarding some exhibits, had said to him, “The time for war is over.” The man seemed to speak seriously, and then it was that Harry recalled the new Liberty Bell and its inscription. War was not all uniforms and parading.
The captain’s room and office were most attractive, except that a set of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” seemed out of its element—a British book with a Latin name hardly rhymed with a United States man-of-war.
A courteous officer on the “Illinois” told Harry that people’s questions were at times hard to answer. “One man,” he said, “looked long at the Howell torpedo, read the labels, and with keen interest wanted to know whether it wasn’t a flying machine!”
Harry thought that he might have been told that it was a machine to make other machines fly; but he didn’t interrupt the officer, who gave him a clear explanation of a life-buoy hanging in the cabin.
While ascending to the upper deck, he heard a woman say, “Oh, is there another story?” and wished Rudyard Kipling had been there to tell her that it was quite another story. But he made his way to the conning-tower, paying heed to the admonition of a mischievous boy who said, “Push, but don’t shove.”
The conning-tower was hardly big enough to lose one’s temper in, but gave the commanding officer full view of his surroundings through tiny slits cut through the solid steel. Electric buttons were convenient to push when he wished the guns, rifles, torpedoes, and other assistants to do the rest.
Leaving the vessel, Harry was again launched back to the other end of the grounds, landing at the Agricultural Building. He passed through this great show-house with his eyes well restrained, but did notice some birds flying about under the lofty roof. He wondered if they had come to study the best methods of securing a living at the farmers’ expense, and hoped rather that they wished to know what harmful insects it was best for them to destroy.
After eating lunch at a table in the open air near by, Harry boarded Columbus’s “Santa Maria.” Coming directly from a modern cruiser, the quaint little cockle-shell was a pathetic witness to the great discoverer’s hardships. Harry went into the forecastle, looked at the queer old galley, the swivel-gun, the anchors, and wished that he had been aboard the original on that first westward trip. The modern vessels were scientific, correct, and fine, of course; but somehow Harry would rather have sailed the ocean blue in the days when the galley-fires flared fitfully on these pictured sails.
He skipped the “Pinta” and “Niña,” sketching from the shore a sailor on the latter who was “guarding” the little vessel, only reflecting that those on the biggest vessel were better off than their fellows in these two, and went over to the Convent de la Rábida. Harry thought everybody knew about that building; but he met a group of three men, one of whom asked in all earnestness, “That hain’t the Fisheries Buildin’, is it?” Then the boy remembered how amused the great Napoleon was when they brought to his court a man who had never heard of him, of the Empire, or of the Revolution! Harry wondered whether there might not be in the Fair Grounds a few who hardly recalled having heard of a man named Columbus.
Inside the convent were old charts, pictures, and manuscripts, to which Harry gave but a passing glance. But the open court inside at once gave him a sense of antiquity, and the tropical plants recalled thoughts of distant lands, until he caught sight of a tired man worrying a piece of mince-pie for lunch. He started to go out, and only paused before an old globe whereon the lands were full of odd pictures.
“Geography must have been like a book of fairy-stories then,” he thought as he left the convent door and came face to face with to-day.
Oh, but he was tired! His legs ached, his back was lame, and he felt like the deacon’s “one-hoss shay”—as if he might give out “all at once and nothing first.” Seeing in the distance the movable sidewalk, it occurred to him that it was a good place for resting.
The convent had been a little depressing. Others felt the same effect, for he heard one woman say, “I’m glad I’m not a monk”—and then, after a reflective pause—“nor a nun.”
As he approached the traveling platform that ran on wheels far out along a pier, this cry met him:
“This way for the movable sidewalk! An all-day ride for five cents—the cheapest thing on the grounds!”
It was irresistible. Harry stepped on the slower platform, then to the quicker one, and dropped into a seat. It proved an excellent change. Out he glided upon the long pier, rested and cooled by the breeze and by the sight of the placid waters, now an opaline green in the afternoon light. Harry thought less of the scene than of his muscles.
“If I wanted to make money at this Fair,” he said, “I would put on sale a patent back-rest and double-back-action support; and after the Fair it could be sold to farmers for weeding.”
Harry made the round trip, and got off nearly where he started. He did not wish to go back to the hotel, but he could not really enjoy anything more, though so long as he could walk he wanted to see, see, see. Nor was it all seeing; a blind man would have enjoyed that day, so many funny remarks were made, so much music was in the air. Bands played, wheels whirled, people chatted, laughed, and exclaimed.
Everybody seemed happy, perhaps because with all the sight-seeing there went plenty of enjoyable exercise in the clear, bracing September air.
As for Harry, he returned to the hotel healthily weary, but not exhausted.