THE LAKE CITY.
About a week later, they arrived one day, late in the afternoon, in Chicago, and at once took a bus from the station to the hotel, the Blackstone. They were to sing at the Auditorium that evening. The concert they gave originally in Washington was to be repeated. As all were now familiar with their task, they did not have to practice unless so disposed.
Mr. Ludlow and his assistant hurried off to the Auditorium to see about decorations and to meet the committee that had charge of selling tickets there.
Mrs. Calvert, Dorothy, and Alfaretta hurried up to their rooms to get their things straightened out. Alfy found, having packed hurriedly that morning, that their dresses were badly wrinkled. She said to Mrs. Calvert:
“Aunt Betty, what shall I do? My dresses are very much mussed, and I guess Dorothy’s are in the same condition.”
“I have a little electric iron in my trunk that I always carry with me for just that purpose, when I travel, because one’s things are very apt to get wrinkled no matter how much care one takes of them,” answered Aunt Betty.
“May I have it?” questioned Alfaretta, eagerly, for she was always very fond of ironing, and always was very proud of her skill in that direction, for more than once Ma Babcock had praised her by saying even she couldn’t have done as well herself. “I would love to iron the things all out nice, and make them look like new.”
“Certainly, I will get it for you. You unscrew the electric light bulb and take it out, and then put the small disk in place and screw it tight. Then turn on the current, and place the piece with the wire attached into the socket. Then in a few minutes the iron will be hot enough to use,” directed Aunt Betty.
Alfy started off to look for things to press; ribbons, belts, ties, collars and the dresses that they wished to wear that night. These she laid on the bed, and Aunt Betty left her there, as happy and content as she could be in having found some way in which she could be useful.
When Dorothy was all alone at last, she opened a letter that the clerk had given her when she arrived, and read as follows:
Dear, Dear Girl:
I received your postal and letter from Washington, but was rather disappointed not to have had another letter from you ere this. But I suppose you have been very busy sight-seeing in all the places you have been, and then you must have given up considerable time to practicing for your concerts. I know that you have little time while you are traveling about.
I read the accounts of the first concert in the New York papers, and they all referred to it as being a great success. I am very proud of you, dear.
As yet I have heard nothing at all from the detectives concerning your locket and chain, but I have heard of a new detective, a private man. A fellow in the office was telling me about his good work in many cases; it seems that he is a friend of this fellow’s. The chap is a nice boy and is under me in my work. His name is Billie Clarke, and he lives uptown in New York. He has invited me up to his home to meet his mother and sister, some time next week. I shall go because it is very lonely here in this big city without you, dear. I miss you, little sweetheart, in a hundred different ways.
Mr. Van Zandt telephoned me and said that he had submitted the proof he had concerning you, to his colleague, who would comment upon it a little later, and would submit it to the London solicitors; and just as soon as I hear anything about the result I will write to you.
I asked him if he had been able to do anything in the line of tracing up little Lem’s people, but he said that he couldn’t say much as he had just started, and had found but very few traces. So that is something we will still have to hope for, though I am sure he will do his best to solve that mystery.
I like my new work very much indeed. There is a lot to learn, and I spend all my evenings reading up on matters I am not quite strong in, but, in time, I certainly hope to make good.
And, dearest, I hope to save up all I can, against that day when I will surely be the happiest man on earth. You know what day I mean, dear girl.
Mrs. Quarren has been just great to me, and has done everything she could to make my room seem homelike. The meals here are wonderful, and if I keep on eating as much as I have this last week, I shall be fat when you come back here again.
Now, dear, please, please write to me. You know how very lonely I am, and how anxious I am about you. Write and tell me all the news.
I love you, girl, always.
Your own,
Jim.
Dorothy read the letter once, and sighed, “Dear, dear Jim,” and then she slowly read the letter through again, kissed the signature, blushing as she did so. She then got up, walked to the writing desk, a pretty little mahogany one, fitted out nicely, selected some paper and started to write. She thought, “I will just write a little note to Jim to thank him for sending me those beautiful American beauty roses that everyone admired. I ought to have done so before.” Her letter was as follows:
Dear Jim:
The clerk just handed me your letter as I came into the hotel, for we just arrived in Chicago. I was very glad to hear from you.
Most of all, I want to thank you so very much for those flowers. They were just beautiful, and it pleased me so, to think of your remembering that we were to have the concert, and then sending those flowers to me by telegraph.
The President was at the concert, and in the intermission we went to his box, spoke to him, and shook hands with him. I carried your flowers with me all the time.
I am going to rest for a while after I write this letter, as we give a concert here to-night at the Auditorium.
The members of the company that joined us at Washington are very fine. There is a trio, and their singing is exquisite; also a Miss Winters, who is a wonderful dancer. She fairly floats about the stage, and makes a very pretty picture.
The whole company is very good, indeed, and I guess we are doing very well, judging from the applause we earn. Mr. Ludlow seems pleased with the finances. You know Mr. Dauntrey takes care of those and helps Mr. Ludlow in general. Although the latter is very considerate and helpful, I don’t know just why it is, but there is something I don’t quite like about him. He is so very handsome that most girls, including Ruth, are raving about him.
We have a few busy days. A concert every night and train by day. We go from here to St. Louis, and then to the Coast. I am anxious to get to San Francisco. I want to look up that old house there on the bluff that we had that year we took Aunt Betty there for her health when Monty Sharp was with us. Do you remember, Jim?
I am so sorry about that locket, but I know that you will find it, and then we can clear up the whole affair.
And so you think that perhaps Mr. Van Zandt will find out all about poor little Lem’s parents just from that sampler that Alfy found in the attic? I do so hope so.
Aunt Betty and Alfy, I know, would wish to be remembered, if they knew I was writing, so I will send their love anyway.
Now, isn’t this a nice, long, newsy letter?
I have to practice a little now, so I will stop.
I am yours, as ever,
Dorothy.
She read the letter she had just written over again, and then sealed it. She then opened the door, stepped into the hall and dropped it into the mail box chute near the elevator. Then she returned to the room to dress and rest before the concert.
In a little while Alfy entered and found her dressing.
“See what I have been doing,” she said, gayly, holding up the dresses she had just finished pressing so that Dorothy could see and admire them.
“You dear girl,” commented Dorothy, going over and kissing her. “You are always doing something for me. Thank you, dear, for pressing my dress. Doesn’t it look nice now?—like new again.”
“Is there anything else that you would like to have pressed, now that I am working?” Alfy inquired.
“Why, there is that blue waist that I have been wearing in the train. It is very mussy,” added Dorothy, “but if you are in a hurry, don’t bother with it; I really can get along without it.”
“Give it to me,” responded Alfy. “I just love ironing, and will have it done in no time. I might as well press mine while I am about it, too.” And taking Dorothy’s waist from her, she quickly found her own, and started off with them.
The girls were soon ready, and then went down the stair with Mrs. Calvert.
Mr. Ludlow called for Dorothy at seven o’clock that evening, and they started for the Auditorium.
The stage, this time, was decorated with huge bunches of chrysanthemums, and large green palms that hung their great, fan-like leaves in a regular bower effect over the stage, making a very effective background for the performance. The programs here were, of course, inside much like the Washington ones, but this time the cover was of heavy, dark brown manila paper, embossed into a large dull gold chrysanthemum, and tied with a yellow ribbon bow at the top end. They were very pretty and effective.
The committee of ladies that had charge of selling the seats here in Chicago had arranged to have the programs sold. They had selected ten very pretty and charming debutantes, and had provided them with pretty little dainty satin bags, with yellow chrysanthemums handpainted on them. These bags were hung over their shoulders by yellow ribbons. The whole effect was very pretty and artistic. The girls were to charge twenty-five cents for the programs, and the money they slipped into a little pocket in the bag which held them.
During the intermission, most of the people retired to the cosy little tea-room in front of the place, where cool and refreshing drinks as well as ice creams and ices were served at a moderately low fee.
There the girls met many charming Chicago people, and the committee of ladies made it very pleasant for them by introducing them to almost everyone. A most informal and successful evening, they all agreed they had spent.
The next day was Sunday, and as a few of their number were visiting friends in Chicago, the rest of them decided to spend the day sight-seeing.
The trio, for so they were always called by the rest, all had gone to visit relatives, and little Miss Winter had promised to visit a friend who lived in a suburb of the city. So the rest of the company felt quite lost, and thought the best way to amuse themselves in this large, strange city was to go sight-seeing and become acquainted with it.
“Did you know,” said Mr. Ludlow as the little party started out on a tour of the city, “that Chicago is especially famous for its highly developed and extensive boulevard systems and parks? The public parks cover an area of over four thousand acres and are being added to every year.”
“Yes,” responded Mrs. Calvert, “and the great boulevards of the city encircle the metropolis and connect parks and squares. These great roads, splendidly paved and shaded by trees, and lined with ornamental lamp posts, are throughout the year favorite highways for the automobilists.”
About ten minutes’ walk from the hotel brought them to Grant Park on the lake front. There the Art Institute attracted their attention, and they found the building open.
“The center of art interests in Chicago is located here,” said Mr. Ludlow. “This building contains the Museum of Fine Arts and the School of Design. Its collections and the building and its work are entirely conducted on voluntary subscriptions.”
“I have heard that the Art School here is the largest one in America,” said Mrs. Calvert.
They visited the various rooms in the museum, including the Hall collection of casts of ancient and modern sculpture, and the Higinbotham collection of Naples bronzes, the rooms containing French sculpture and musical instruments, scarabæae, Egyptian antiques, Greek vases of glass and terra-cotta, and found all very interesting.
They then visited Blackstone Hall, containing the great Blackstone collection of architectural casts chiefly from French subjects. Then the paintings of George Inness. These canvases are so diverse and representative that it is highly improbable that another equally significant group of works by Inness will ever come into market again.
From the north side of Grant Park and extending south to Garfield boulevard near Washington Park is Michigan Boulevard. This historic drive, part of which was once an Indian trail, is a main artery of automobile travel from the lake front hotel districts to the south parks.
The party then took a surface car to Jackson Park, which was a short distance. It was the site of the world’s Columbian Exposition.
“The Field Museum of Natural History was the Fine Arts Building in the Exposition of 1893,” said Mr. Ludlow. “Let’s visit that part first.”
This museum was established soon after the close of the world’s Columbian Exposition, and occupies one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the whole exposition group covering two acres. The building is classic Greek in style, constructed with brick and steel, covered with ornamental stucco, in imitation of marble.
Marshall Field, whose name the institution perpetuates, was the person who made the building possible by his generosity. He gave about one and a half million dollars. Then at his death in 1906, he left the institution eight million dollars, one-half for endowment, and the other half for a magnificent permanent building, worthy of the unrivaled scientific collections which it contains.
The nucleus of the material now on view was gathered by gift and purchase from exhibitions at the world’s Columbian Exposition.
From here they walked to the Wooded Island, an interesting feature of which is the Cahokia Court House, reputed to be the oldest public building in the whole Mississippi valley.
It was built, it is said, about the year 1716, at Cahokia, Illinois, and has served in various public capacities. At different periods it was employed for both civil and military purposes, and is recognized as the oldest county seat building (Saint Clair County, Illinois) in the original Northwest Territory.
The building is constructed of squared walnut logs, set on end in the early French manner of stockade construction, the logs being held together with wooden pins. Three flags, French, English and American, float from the flagstaff of the Old Cahokia Court House, daily.
Within the building are a number of photographs of the original documents which pertain to its interesting history.
The Japanese buildings, representing three periods of Japanese history, remain in their original site at the north end of Wooded Island, and near them is a tiny garden in formal Japanese style.
The United States Life Saving Station is near the lake shore and was one of the interesting government exhibitions, and has ever since been maintained as a regular life saving station.
La Rabida, at the south end of the park on the lake shore is an exact reproduction of an ancient Spanish convent, where Columbus was at one time sheltered and befriended, in the days before he was able to secure aid from the Spanish court.
“And an interesting reminder of Columbus can be seen in those three small caravels,” said Mr. Ludlow. “Do you know their names? They are reproductions of the small craft that brought Columbus and his followers on their first voyage to the New World.”
Dorothy, who had remembered reading an article on Columbus in a recent magazine, exclaimed joyfully, “I know, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.”
“Right,” laughed Mr. Ludlow.
“Oh, I am hungry,” said Alfy, suddenly, “I am most starved. What time is it, I wonder? I feel as if it were way past dinner time.”
Mr. Ludlow consulted his watch and said, “It is just six forty-five.”
“I guess we had better start back to the hotel, now,” broke in Mrs. Calvert. “I am rather tired and hungry, too.”
“We have seen quite a lot of the city and we can go into the shopping district and see that in the morning. There are some few things I would like to purchase,” remarked Dorothy.
“I would like to visit Marshall Field’s. I have always heard so much about it and I would like to see if these Chicagoans really know what a good store is.”
“You will find that Marshall Field’s is indeed a very wonderful store. Just like our New York stores, though, but a trifle better, anyway,” said Mrs. Calvert. “Yes, I think you will all agree with me, when you visit that wonderful store in the morning.”
They hurried back to the hotel and prepared for dinner, after which Mr. Ludlow took Ruth, Dorothy and Alfaretta to church. Aunt Betty stayed home, being too tired to go out.