Zigzag Journeys in the White City. With Visits to the Neighboring Metropolis

by Hezekiah Butterworth

THE STORY OF THE FAIR.

If ever there was a man with the heart and intelligence to welcome the world, it is Judge Bonney, whose generous spirit and hearty words millions of people will remember. As the leading mind of the Exposition’s Auxiliary Congresses, as many as possible of the delegates to the many Congresses met him, and the questions which he answered in the Art Palace in Chicago, would have filled many Bibles. We hope that he took a long rest after the close of the Exposition, for no man ever better earned such a right.

With a patience that was beautiful, and ought to serve as a national lesson, he met every one courteously, and every last person that met him felt that he had found a friend, and left him rejoicing that the newly-collected world was so friendly in its representative. His intelligence was equal to his courtesy, and his tact to both. The people all have good wishes forever for Judge Bonney.

Our trio had been told to report to Judge Bonney. They found him at his desk in the Art Palace in the city, and one look from him assured them that they were expected.

“Judge,” said Ephraim the elder, “I have called with my son here, who is a delegate to the Folk-Lore Congress. There are a few things about the Fair that I would like to know.”

“I shall be most happy to give you any information that I have, my friend. Sit down, sit down.” We give the judge’s answers from a general memory of like scenes.

“I thank thee, friend Bonney.”

“I see that you are a Quaker,” said Judge Bonney. “There are several people here already who are interested in the Folk-Lore Congress. I will see that you are introduced to them. What are some of the questions which you wish to ask?”

“Well, friend Bonney, what is the history of this great Fair? How did it originate?”

“In the minds of many, who agreed to act as one,” we may imagine the answer to have been. We shall speak of this topic again. We are inclined to the belief that the secret of the success of the Fair may be found in the fact of this supposed answer.

“By whom was Chicago selected as the site of the Fair?”

“This city was selected as the site of the Fair by vote of the National House of Representatives, February 24, 1890.”

“What other cities were voted upon?”

“New York, St. Louis, and Washington.”

“When did Congress authorize the Fair?”

“The Act of Congress authorizing the Fair was approved April 25, 1890. This was followed by the President’s Proclamation, inviting all nations to participate, which was issued December 24, 1890. The World’s Fair Grounds were dedicated October 21, 1892. Preceding the opening of the Fair, May 1, 1893, was the grand Naval Review in New York Harbor, April 26, 27, 28, 1893.”

“How about the appropriations, friend Bonney? Where did the money come from?”

STATUE OF THE REPUBLIC AND MANUFACTURES BUILDING.

“From various sources. The States and territories appropriated nearly $5,000,000, and foreign countries nearly $6,000,000. The capital stock amounts to $5,000,000, the City of Chicago Bonds to $5,000,000, the Souvenir half-dollars (appropriated by Congress), to $2,500,000, and the Debenture Bonds to $4,000,000.”

“What is the total value of the exhibits?”

“It is estimated to be $300,000,000.”

“What will the Fair cost?”

“The total estimated expense is $21,250,000.”

“How many visitors are expected?”

“It is expected that there will be about 20,000,000 visitors.”

“The gate receipts from them would amount to $10,000,000. How much ground does the Fair cover?”

“The total number of acres in the Exposition Grounds is 633, of which Jackson Park occupies 553 acres, the Midway Plaisance, 80, the space available for buildings, 556, and the Interior Waterways (61 acres) and Wooded Island, 77.”

“Now I wish to know something about the size of the different buildings. Which is the largest one?”

“The Manufactures Building is the largest. It is 1,687 feet long, and 787 feet wide, covering 44 acres of floor. Its cost was $1,600,750. Of the other buildings, the Stock Sheds cover 25 acres, the Machinery Building and Annex, 23.2 acres, the Agricultural Building and Annex, 19 acres, the Transportation Building, 17.9 acres, the Electricity Building, 9.3 acres, the Building of Mines, 8.5 acres, and the Building of Horticulture, 8 acres. The total number of acres covered by buildings is 240.”

“How much did they cost, Judge Bonney?”

“Twelve million two hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars.”

“How many other World’s Fairs have been held, and where?”

“Between the years 1851 and 1889, eight World’s Fairs were held,—two of them in London, four in Paris, one in Vienna, and one in Philadelphia.”

“How does the size of the grounds here compare with those of the other World’s Fairs, Judge Bonney?”

“Of the previous World’s Fairs, that of Paris in 1889 covered the largest area—200 acres—which is not quite one third the size of this.”

“How many visitors had that Fair?”

“Twenty-eight million, one hundred and forty-nine thousand, three hundred and fifty-three.”

“Now, Judge Bonney, tell me about the World’s Fair Auxiliary and its Congresses, of which you are the representative. When do the Congresses meet, and where?”

“There are nineteen Departments of the Congresses of the World Fair Auxiliary. Each lasts usually a week. In May we held the Congress of Woman’s Progress, Public Press, and Medicine; in June, will be those of Temperance, Moral and Social Reform, and Commerce and Finance; in July, of Music, Literature, Education, Engineering, and Art; in August, of Government, Science and Philosophy, and Labor; in September, of the Departments of Religion; and in October, the closing month of the Fair, those of Sunday Rest, Public Health, and Agriculture.”

THE ART PALACE.

The good judge took the trio into the Hall of Columbus and the Hall of Washington, and the various art rooms in the Palace where the Congresses were to meet. The engines shrieked as they passed the sunny windows, and the blue lake rolled afar as in fathomless distance. The world seemed on the march in the great avenues below the balconies. Near by rose the Great Auditorium, and near it a colossal bridge led the way to the steamers and cars.

How bright and happy the world looked from the open windows of the smoke-colored Art Palace. As they passed one of those windows, the White City some miles distant, gleamed afar over the blue lake like a radiant vision. Constantinople from the Golden Horn was not as celestial and beautiful.

“White, Judge Bonney,” said old Ephraim.

“Yes, my friend, it is built of Staff.”

“Judge Bonney, what is Staff?”

“Staff is a mixture of plaster—often called plaster of Paris—and a small per cent of cement, into which are introduced frequent fibres of hemp, jute, or Sisal grass, to give it toughness, so that it may be bent, sawn, nailed, or bored, at will.”

“How is it cast?”

“It is cast in moulds. The plaster and cement are first wet up to the consistency of thick treacle, a layer of which is spread on the well-lubricated mould. Then follows a layer of the long, tough fibres; over this is poured another coating of the liquid plaster, covering in the fibre and filling the mould to the required depth.”

“Are there many moulds?”

“Yes, there are a thousand or more of different patterns and sizes, from those for casting plain staff-board for walls, to those for the most complex, beautiful, or fantastic ornamentation.”

“Are statues ever made of it?”

“Yes, both statues and statuary groups. The moulds are first fashioned in clay, then coated with staff.”

“How long does it take to make it ready for use?”

“Oh, in the course of half an hour the composition hardens sufficiently to be handled and taken away to the buildings in process of construction.”

“How long will it last?”

“If kept painted, it will withstand the weather for a number of years. If it cracks or crumbles off, it can readily be repaired with a brush or trowel, from a tub of the liquid mixture. It is fireproof, and, to a great degree, waterproof.”

“They say, Judge Bonney, that there is a sidewalk there that goes all by itself. Is that so? Tell us all about it.”

MICHIGAN AVENUE.

“The Multiple Speed Sidewalk is also called the Travelling Sidewalk, or the Locomotive Sidewalk. It is a mechanical device for facilitating travel on the long pier—nearly one half a mile long and two hundred and fifty feet wide—near the Peristyle, thus enabling the tourist to make the trip over the pier in ease and comfort, refreshed by the lake breeze. The sidewalk, which traverses the entire length of the pier on one side, returns on the other, making a loop at each end. It is on low wheels. There are two parallel sections, or platforms, one moving at a rate of three miles an hour, about ordinary walking speed, and the other at six miles an hour, an easy driving rate. One may ride on either section.”

The Judge led the trio back to his room. It was crowded with people seeking information.

“I am obliged to you, Judge Bonney, for those bits of information. But what are these few things that I have learned to a Fair like that? I’ll call again, Judge Bonney, and give you a chance to tell us some more. ’Tisn’t often that I find a man so well stocked with information about the world.”

Judge Bonney did not look tired. With a serene face he met the crowd awaiting him, many of whom would ask him these questions over again. Our fancied interview is but a picture of the Judge’s work for nearly a year.

The Marlowes, under the influence of the officers of the World’s Auxiliary, who invited them to a literary reception soon after their arrival, arranged to spend their home-life in Chicago with Mr. and Mrs. Edmand, who led a Folk-Lore Society which met at their home on Michigan Avenue. The Edmands family were from New England, and had known the Marlowes by reputation, and received them as their guests. It was agreed between the Edmands and their guests that the Folk-Lore Society should meet every Saturday evening, and that, on these occasions, the Marlowes should relate as a part of the exercises Folk-Lore stories.

The first of these stories that was told at the Saturday evening meetings was “Miraculous Susan of Quaker Hill.” It was told by Grandfather Marlowe, and we shall give it in its place. Another of these stories was “Hannah, Who Sang Countre.” It was told by Mr. Marlowe, who illustrated it by singing old-time tunes. This we shall also give in an interval between the sight-seeing at the Fair.

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CHICAGO IN 1830.

CHAPTER V.
CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS—THE CITY OF THE 20TH CENTURY.

HE first purpose of our tourists was to see Chicago, the wonder of the West.

They began at the Art Palace, where the statue of La Salle met their view on the boulevard, bringing to mind those December days of 1681, when the bold explorer coasted along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and ascended the Chicago River, on his way to the Mississippi. Did he dream on that day that he entered the Chicago that the live city of the West would be there?

There were great arches of bridges between the statue and the Art Palace, and all the world seemed passing to the railroad and the boats. The Lake rolled in splendor before the towering buildings, but everything, the Art Palace included, seemed discolored with smoke. The doors of the great Art Palace stood open, as it were, to receive the homeless multitudes, coming from everywhere. It was the hospitable door of Chicago.

CHICAGO FROM THE AUDITORIUM.

LA SALLE.

It was a short walk from the Art Palace to the Auditorium Building, which is a grand hotel and a theatre, and whose corridors might have been halls of the Pharaohs, they are so dazzling, airy, and beautiful. Every one here seemed to be in a hurry. If each one’s life were to be fated to end with the day, no one could be more in a hurry. Yet every one looked happy; it was not an anxious hurry, but an inspired hurry. New York is slow and Boston slower, but here is the clock of destiny, and one must do, ere it strike. The Chicagoan loves Chicago, and resolves to make it the grandest city in the world.

The dream is likely to be fulfilled. Our good Quaker friend said to a boy in the pillared waiting-room of the Auditorium:

“My boy, how many miles is it to Boston?”

The boy gave a lightning glance, gathered up his mouth for one long breath, and answered:—

“Thirty-two hours from Boston (1150 miles); twenty-nine hours from Montreal; twenty-six hours from New York; twenty-four hours from Philadelphia; twenty-six hours from Washington; three and a half days from San Francisco; five days from the City of Mexico; nine days from Queenstown; ten days from Paris; fifteen days from Rome, and sixteen from St. Petersburg. Are there any other places that you would like to inquire about?”

“The land of the ocean! No, not now. You seem to know all about the world. Who is your father, my lad?”

“Daddyism don’t count in Chicago. You came from the East.”

“Yes, I came from the East; and how might a man from the East best see Chicago?”

“Take an elevator—don’t you know the dining-room here is up top, and the roof sweeps the city, the Lake, the Fair and everything!”

“Take an elevator?” said our sedate friend. “I never take any; I favor temperance principles.”

“Oh, then take the elevator. There, it is running now!”

“How many inhabitants do you claim, my lad?”

The answer was as extraordinary as the first:—

“South Division, half a million and more; West Division, half a million and more; North Division, quarter of a million and more. I reckon we are about two million in all. Can’t keep the run of the census here.”

“My boy, if I should conclude to go to Lincoln’s tomb at Springfield, what road would I take?”

The answer was more amazing still:—

“Oh, take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. and change, or the C. A. and change, or the C. I. If you take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. or the C. I., you will have to change in this way”—Here the boy began such a distortion of the alphabet as could only be heard in a primary school.

“Do you know all the railroads that go out of Chicago?” asked the Quaker.

“Most of them. There’s the A. T. and S. F; the B. and O.; the C. B. and Q.; the C. E. and L. S.; the C. M. and S. P.; the C. R. I. and P.; the C. S. P. and K. C.; the C. and A.; the C. and E.; the C. and E. I.; the C. and G. T.; the C. and N.; the C. and N. P.; the C. and S.; the C. and W. M.; the C. and W. I.; the C. C. C. and S. L., which is the Big 4; the I. C.; the L. S. and M. C.; the M. C.; the M. L. S. and W.; the M. P.; the N. Y. C. and St. L. Nickle Plate; the P. F. W. and W.; and the W. C.”

ILLINOIS CENTRAL TERMINUS AND THE HARBOR.

“If you wish to go to Springfield by a zigzag, picturesque kind of route, take the—” Here the boy went off into the alphabet again.

“I am afraid I would never get there,” said our good friend, with uplifted hands. “I think that we have about concluded to go to Lincoln Park.”

The party did not find this an easy matter. They went to State Street; the sidewalks were thronged with hurrying crowds; high buildings towered in the sunny and smoky air.

“If I were to come to Chicago,” said the confused Quaker, “I would go into the business of collars and cuffs. Mine were clean when I started out—just see them now! But everybody looks clean; how do they do it?”

After many directions from policemen, the party found the car for the famous park which is the delight and summer rest of Chicago. How lovely it was! The great bronze statue of Lincoln arose before the province of greenery; the Lake rippled near, expanding in purple glory. They hurried toward the Zoölogical Gardens, which are among the finest in the world. The parks and park lands of Chicago are many, and cover nearly two thousand acres. But Lincoln Park, with its lake view and animal shows, has a charm that exceeds all others, and not the least of its attractions is “Admission Free.”

On their return from the park, where they visited the Grant Statue, the flower gardens, and the wonderful collections of tamed animals, the party went to the Auditorium Building, and looked down from the top on the city as it lay spread out in the sunset. How different was the scene from the fort and little hamlet in 1830! The city practically filled the view.

The Post Office and Masonic Buildings are works of marvellous strength and beauty; the stranger would pause in awe before them, did not the crowd at all hours of the day hurry him on. One cannot conveniently stop to talk on the streets in the activity of this rapid city. The Women’s Temple is one of the noblest structures ever erected for benevolent work by women, and the Produce Exchange fittingly expresses its purpose.

PRODUCE EXCHANGE.

The Palmer House is associated with the history of the city since the fire, as few other buildings have been. There are few business men in the country who have not at some time stopped there. The beautiful private residence of its proprietor is famous for its hospitality, and is as unique as it is noble. The women of America are proud of the record of Mrs. Potter Palmer, and are glad that a woman of such public spirit can organize her plans in such a liberal home. The private residences of Mr. Kimball, Mr. McVeach, and the long procession of mansions on Michigan Avenue, display an air, not of ease and rest, but of purpose and energy. They picture the spirit of the times.

STATE STREET.

There are few public buildings in Europe that display a more massive grandeur than the City Hall. It looks like a colossal palace reared upon lofty foundations, and one from abroad would think that such a structure would have cost the labor of a score of years. The city is full of buildings from eight to sixteen or more stories high, that look like towers.

MR. POTTER PALMER.	MRS. POTTER PALMER.

The Union Stock-Yards here are the largest in the world. They cover three hundred and fifty or more acres with more than eight miles of streets,—a city of cattle. More than $200,000,000 worth of live-stock are sold here annually.

Chicago is the world’s granary. Her grain-elevators would make a city. She handles some 150,000,000 bushels of grain a year.

RESIDENCE OF MR. M^cVEACH.

The Chicago River in 1830 flowed clear and full in view. It is now shut into bridges, and is hardly noticed. The arrival and clearances of vessels in Chicago harbor greatly exceed those of New York, and are probably as many as or more than at the ports of New York and Boston combined.

The lofty and substantial buildings greatly interested the good Quaker, and on returning to the waiting-room of the Auditorium, he met the bright boy who had given him such luminous instructions in regard to the railroads.

“Well, I found the park,” said our friend.

“Took the N. C. S. or W. S. cable, I suppose?” said the boy.

“I think so; the X. Y. Z. or Q. R. S. T. it might have been. I like that park; it is like the story that had no end. What are your very tallest houses here, my lad?”

“There’s the Ashland Block, sixteen stories high; this Auditorium, seventeen stories high; C. C. B., thirteen stories high; C. M. B., fourteen stories high; M. B., sixteen stories high; and the Masonic Building, twenty stories high.”

“There, there, that will do—twenty stories high!”

GREAT UNION STOCK-YARD.

“There are many others, sir; the U. B., sixteen stories high, and—”

RESIDENCE OF MR. KIMBALL.

“You needn’t go over the alphabet any more. Why, boy, it would make me crazy to live here. My house isn’t but two stories high; it is an A. B. C. D. house in the perpendicular style of architecture.”

The party went to the great pork-packing establishment. Here the poor pig has hardly a chance to squeal between his easy rural life and sausage meat. The name of Mr. P. D. Armour is associated with an industry, or business, such as the good New England farmer never dreamed of in his simple life, when two pigs, killed after an heroic struggle, were the supply for his frugal pork barrel. Corn, beef, and pork are supply cities by themselves.

HIGH BUILDINGS IN CHICAGO.

The railroad stations, too, would constitute a city. What wonder that the boys say C. B. Q. and I. C. and C. N. W. and C. S. M. W. D.!

The city stretches into suburbs, which themselves widen away and exhibit the outlines of new suburbs. The Hyde Park suburb, Pullman, and other towns that make a semi-circle, are in themselves famous. The Mississippi Valley, the old East, the great lake country of the North,—all seem to focus here. Chicago will be the City of the Twentieth Century.

A TEN-STORY HOUSE.

The eastern and the old world tourists come here, with narrow views and criticism, to which the true Chicagoan has neither the time nor the interest to so much as listen. When this type of man enters into the spirit of Chicago, and feels the new life, he often becomes wonderfully enthusiastic. He lives for the future, and under new horizons; his soul becomes prophetic; he feels that the age of humanity is at hand, and that the city by the great inland sea is to be the capital; and he merges himself in the multitude, and his private interest becomes the good of the whole. All of the enterprises are his; all of the builders are building for him. He has a part in every new structure, enterprise, and beautiful house. One cannot understand this spirit until he has felt it.

A PORK-PACKING ESTABLISHMENT.

MR. P. D. ARMOUR.

The men who lead, inspire him. Davis, Palmer, Pullman, Armour, the grain-merchants, the public officers, are self-made men. Invention and energy are here rewarded. The whole spirit of the place says “Advance;” progress proclaims “I will.” Force and Chicago are one.

A PIG KILLER.

Go to the Temple, the scene of the activities of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. It cost a million of dollars. It is the centre of the work of the largest organization of women in the world; of ten thousand moral reform societies in the country. All its directors are women.

Glance at the life of its President, Miss Frances Elizabeth Willard: of New England ancestry, educated at Oberlin, taking a front rank as an educator, living now on the platform, and wherever she goes carrying her pen in hand. She projected the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, is the leader of the White Cross work, and one of the leaders of the National Council of Women. She has set her New England character everywhere in the West. She represents what the true Chicago woman means to be to her age and generation. What does such an example say to girls? What to all aspirators towards a worthy life?

RESIDENCE OF MR. POTTER PALMER.

MR. PULLMAN.

Stand before the hospitable doors of the castle-like mansion where Mrs. Potter Palmer has been accustomed to receive all worthy workers in the cause of humanity and progress. One is proud to feel, in the atmosphere of such a place, that in America queens are born, and that their social thrones are won by nobility. That woman and her friends gave to the Exposition a soul, or made the White City voice what is spiritual. Such women put reform into stone and called it the Temple. They will one day begin a daily journalism that shall lead all that is best in the mind and heart of mankind.

RESIDENCE OF MR. PULLMAN.

Go to Pullman, some ten miles away. It has been called the model town of the working-men. What does such a suburb say to the American youth? Mr. George M. Pullman once rode on an old-fashioned sleeping-car. He found it a hard experience. He did not sleep. But out of that experience he invented. The Pullman Sleeping Car was the result. People now travel and sleep. “Invent what is needed,” so says Pullman.

Mr. Pullman began life as a clerk in a country store. He now owns a town and employs fifteen thousand people. “Answer the world’s needs,” says the spirit of the thrifty town, “and you shall be supplied in the supply.”

The builders of the expanding city by the Lake were poor boys. Invention, energy, honesty made their success. Like Dr. Livingston, when he graduated from Glasgow University, most of them can say,—“I never had a dollar that I did not earn!” They do not merely exist,—they live. When they have passed their generation they will have left behind them a new creation of life.

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BYZANTINE DOOR OF THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MARLOWES’ FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. THE MOST USEFUL THING AT THE FAIR.

AKING a Cottage Grove car, the Marlowes entered the Fair Grounds on one beautiful summer morning, by the long way of the Midway Plaisance, in search of the Funniest Thing, the Most Useful Thing, and the Grandest Thing.

The sky was as blue as the Lake, and the Lake as blue as the sky on this morning, and the sun filled the sky with living light, and under it shone the White City, the most beautiful city on which the sun ever shone,—the city of all the ideals of the past and the hopes of the future, the first city of the new order of the world.

They passed the turn-style, and looking round, saw the word exit.

“I will tell you a funny story which I heard at the boarding-house in regard to that word,” said young Ephraim. “There was an Illinois boy who had earned money enough to go to the Fair, and fifty cents to go in, and he planned to enter early and stay late, and so see all of the Fair in one day. He paid his fifty cents for a ticket, and passed through the turn-style, and looked up and read ‘E-x-i-t.’ ‘Does it cost anything to go in there?’ he asked of an officer. ‘Of course not,’ answered the officer. ‘Then I must see it,’ he said; ‘I want to see everything.’ And he saw it.”

A VIEW OF MIDWAY, LOOKING EAST.

“I do not regard that as a funny story,” said Mr. Marlowe. “I could hardly think of anything more pathetic. How that poor boy must have felt when he found himself on the outside. It would be like entering a gate of Paradise, and going back by some by-way into the world again. I shall not put that among the funny stories in my note-book.”

The long Plaisance, which was an avenue where lived nearly all of the nations of the world in harmony, swept before them, and over it gleamed the towers and domes of the White City.

If young Ephraim’s story was pathetic rather than funny, an incident occurred at their first journey up the Plaisance which was comical.

A street performer was taking gold crowns or sovereigns out of his nose.

The trio stopped to witness the wonderful feat. When the wonder-worker wanted a gold piece, he had only to tap his nose, and out it would come.

Old Ephraim, whose quiet Quaker life had not made him much acquainted with such tricks, looked on with curious surprise.

“Where do those gold pieces come from?” he asked.

“Out of my nose!” said the juggler. “Don’t you see?”

“It does look so, but thee can’t trust experience always, so Kant says. Let me see thee do that again.”

“Here you see the gold pieces in my hand. See! Now I will close my hand. See! Now the coins are in my nose. You can’t see. Now I will take them out again. See!”

He did.

“That is a very wonderful thing to do, my friend. I never saw the like of it before. Suppose now you put those gold pieces into my pocket here, and see if you can take them out again!”

GERMAN VILLAGE.

The man of wonders stared, and shook his head.

“Na, na. Where you come from? You be one Yankee. Goot day!”

The Plaisance was thronging with bright, happy faces. Orientals mingled with the people from all the States. Our trio stopped at the Indian Village, and thence went to the Dahomey Village. All the world seemed to be at home, and prosperous, happy, and hospitable. Here were Austrian houses; yonder Chinese pavilions, like golden air. Along one side of the avenue ran a sleighing track, where swift sleighs glided over a snow-scene under the burning sun. Here was the Roman Village; yonder the Tower of Babel loomed over the whole. Here was a Moorish palace, yonder Dutch settlements; here an ostrich farm, there Asian and African bazaars, and mid these neighboring families of the world, a glory of mosques and minarets.

FERRIS WHEEL.

CAPTIVE BALLOON.

The trio hurried on towards the gleaming minarets, the captive balloon, and the Ferris Wheel.

They stopped at the Ferris Wheel, and looked up into the air.

“That is the greatest merry-go-round in all the world,” said a clever-looking visitor.

“Let us go over,” said young Ephraim to his father.

“Had we better go over now, or had we better wait until another day?”

LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM THE FERRIS WHEEL.

“Now,” said young Ephraim.

“Now,” said his grandfather. “I always wanted to see the world, and I shall when I circle sky in those hanging cars.”

The trio entered one of the cars, and sat down in the chairs.

“It is just like a room,” said old Mr. Marlowe. “I do believe that we are moving up.”

Slowly the earth began, as it seemed, to descend, and they found themselves in the air. The horizon grew; the great blue lake, the White City in dazzling whiteness, moved into view, and then sank downward; the smoky city of Chicago rose, and fell into the shadows. Slowly, slowly the car moved up towards the sky.

ORIENTAL WEDDING PROCESSION.

HAGENBACK’S MUSEUM.

“We shall see the whole earth soon,” said Grandfather Marlowe.

But no—the car was descending, and Chicago, the White City, and the Lake and the merry Plaisance, all came back again. They went over a second time. The stranger was right,—it was the greatest merry-go-round in all the world.

As they passed the wheel the wonders grew. They stopped to see the Hagenback menageries, or animal shows. In the arena was a lion that drove a chariot and rode on horseback. Grandfather Marlowe said that he disapproved of all such “doin’s;” but his opinion grew out of sympathy for the horse.

IRISH VILLAGE,—DONEGAL CASTLE.

Near the Blarney Castle and Irish Village was an old-time New England cottage, where meals were served in colonial style; and across the way was a model working-men’s house, after which pattern 172,000 houses had been built in the suburbs of Philadelphia, by a wise and worthy building association. These houses cost about twenty-two hundred dollars, and were paid for out of small savings, through co-operative banks and like means. The purpose of the noble Philadelphia Society was to make good citizens by such homes. It requires character to save money; it forms prudent habits to lay aside money for a home in early life.

The trio visited this model house. It was the perfection of home-like beauty and convenience.

HORTICULTURAL BUILDING.

“I think,” said Mr. Marlowe, “that I have found in this house the most useful thing at the Fair. One would have to travel far to meet with anything more useful than that. The most useful thing on earth is a home. I think that I have found one thing to report to our Society, and I have not seen the Fair yet.

“Every city,” he added, “ought to do what Philadelphia has done, if it would make good citizens. Think of it, 172,000 houses for working-people, like that! The millennium must be near!”

“I think,” said Grandfather Marlowe, “that that is the most useful thing that we shall see. It is worth coming all the way here just to see that.”

“But,” said young Ephraim, “that is the most simple thing we have met.”

They went out of the house. The avenue seemed swarming.

“Pretty much all of the world must be here by this time,” said Grandfather Marlowe, “and there seems to be more coming. I declare it does beat all!”

The Ferris Wheel was turning in the bright air; the villages were filled with shouts and music.

Suddenly there was a great excitement among the crowds near. An Oriental wedding procession was coming out into the avenue from the “Street in Cairo.”

The trio stopped to gaze at the wonder. “Let us go into the Street of Cairo,” said young Ephraim.

“No, not to-day,” said Mr. Marlowe; “I have been reading about that street: we must take a whole day for that.” The trio passed under the long dark bridge. Slowly from the shadow they entered the White City.

Ephraim Marlowe the Quaker stopped and stamped three times on the ground as the dazzling splendor rose before him. He lifted his hand, and said, “Manton, Manton, for pity’s sake!”

They passed the Woman’s Building, and the Transportation Building with its dazzling entrance, which looked as though it were a sunrise of jewels, and came to the Administration Building, whose pale gold dome shone like a vision about to vanish into the air. They mounted the steps, turned, and looked down the Court of Honor, towards the Peristyle and Lake Michigan.

The three stood in silence. Mr. Marlowe laid his hand on his father’s shoulder, and shed tears. His son took him by the hand.

THE WHALEBACK PASSENGER STEAMER.

The white walls of the Court of Honor, with their heroic statues, and allegories in plaster, shone in the sun in blinding glory. Just below in the lagoon was the most beautiful fountain on earth. At the end of the lagoon rose the golden-hued Statue of Liberty, and beyond it the most beautiful and majestic structure in all the world, called the Peristyle, white as glistening marble, and surmounted by the Quadriga. Through the white arches of the Peristyle and its procession of heroic statues lay the Lake, blue as a June sky, and covered with boats, vessels, and steamers. Multiform and many-colored flags bloomed like flowers over and against all these colossal walls of white. Congresses of statued heroes were here and there assembled in the niches of immortality. Overhead rose the white allegories of the elements, controlled and uncontrolled. Bands played. Tens of thousands of people darkened the walks and avenues. There was happiness everywhere; continuance was all that was wanting. The trio stood there amazed, bewildered, and unable for a time to speak.

ATLAS.

Grandfather Marlowe was the first to break the silence.

“Let us go away, and find some little corner and die. That is how I feel.”

“Let us sit down on the steps,” said Mr. Marlowe, “and thank God that we are alive.”

“Let us go into the Liberal Arts Building,” said young Ephraim.

“I have no wish to see any exhibits to-day,” said Mr. Marlowe. “I shall never again behold a vision like this,—I could gaze for weeks upon it.”

“There is only one thing that is wanting,” said Grandfather Marlowe.

“What is that?” asked Mr. Marlowe.

“A white-bordered flag!”

“They may raise one here some day,” said Mr. Marlowe.

“I hope that I may live to see that sight,” said the aged Quaker; “to me it would be a sign of the Second Coming. I could die content could I see the sight.”

They went to the Liberal Arts Building, and looked in upon its forty acres of floors. They then passed down to the long wharf, and sat down to rest on the seats of the movable Sidewalk; in which they might sit for hours for five cents each, and go around and around in the cool breezes of the Lake. Here they took the famous “whaleback” steamer for the City. They never had passed a day like that! No one ever passed such a day as one’s first day at the Exposition, and none ever will again.

The Past emptied itself there; the Future anticipated there her glory. The Fair! the Fair! It was all the world was, is, or ever could be.

“Father,” said young Ephraim, “across whose mind did the conception of the White City first pass?”

“I do not know.”

“We must ask Judge Bonney,” said Grandfather Marlowe.

When they asked this information, they were told that the White City was the product of the minds of an assembly of artists, each of whom promised to give up in his own work “anything that might interfere with the beauty of the whole.”

“What a lesson!” said the old Quaker. “If all people would do that, how beautiful all the world would be!”

“I think,” said Mr. Marlowe, “that I have found the most useful exhibit at the Fair.”

“You still think that it is the Quaker City house?” said Grandfather Marlowe.

“I do.”

“And if I could only see the white-bordered flag floating over the Court of Honor,” said the Quaker, “I could show you the grandest sight on earth.”

---

CHAPTER VII.
THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR.

HE next day the sun rose glorious on the blue Lake and White City. Our trio went in the morning to visit Lincoln Park, but returned at noon, and took the Cottage Grove car for the Fair. They entered the grounds again by the way of the long avenue of the Plaisance, and there they found all the world at home again.

WATER TOWER.

They went to the Street in Cairo.

As they passed in they noticed a young colored man and woman, who were talking so loudly as to attract attention. The young woman was gayly dressed indeed. Her hat was conspicuous even in the Street of Cairo. It was a kind of pyramid of feathers, flowers, and streamers. Her dress was as Oriental, and she evidently carried a very happy heart. The young man looked as happy; his face shone.

An Oriental wedding procession was moving through the street, and in it an Asiatic lady was riding on a camel.

How proud she looked, swaying to and fro, her body in graceful motion with that of the camel!

“Wot is that?” asked the young colored woman of one of the guards.

“That is the ship of the desert.”

“Does it make one sick to sail in dat dare ship?”

“No, no; don’t you see how she rides? That is a bridal party.”

“I am a bride; we is. That is wot we are,” said the young woman, happy hearted. The groom looked radiant.

LINCOLN PARK.

The flags were flying; the music was playing; the bazaars were all life and gayety.

The young colored woman looked enviously on the golden trappings of the procession, and said, with a shadow of despondency, “She outdoes me, she does. I’d like to ride on dat dare camel mysel’.”

“You can do so,” said a listener. “Many people make their wedding tour through the Street of Cairo on the camel.”

The young woman looked happy indeed.

PARADE OF ACTORS AND ORIENTAL BAND ON STREET OF CAIRO.

DAMASCAN SWORDSMEN.

The procession with its gay music and trappings broke up at last, and the tall camel came to a place near the gate and knelt down on a mat in obedience to his keeper.

“Who wants to make a wedding tour through the Street of Cairo?” shouted a manager.

“I—I—I!” answered the young colored woman, her hat bobbing. A crowd gathered around the scene, a comical grin on every face.

The camel lay meek, like a great bundle of bones on the mat. He stretched out his long neck and displayed a vicious-looking mouth.

The young woman mounted the saddle, which was easy.

“You follow me, Ben,” she said to her young husband, “I might need your obsistence.”

There could not have been a happier couple on earth.

The camel driver made a queer sound.

Some one shouted, “Now hold on, Miss Dinah, the camel is going to rise.”

The camel did rise indeed,—not on his fore legs, but he rose up behind, as if his back had been shot up out of the earth.

“Dinah” grasped the saddle, and fell forward, exclaiming, “Holy Moses!” A wild look came into her face. Then the front part of the camel rose up, and the sable bride found herself in the air.

“Here yo’ dar, yo’, let me get off! Stop! dis yere beast am all broke up. No lady can ride in dis yere way. Stop! Whoa!”

But the camel driver did not heed. The camel began his swaying motion, tossing Dinah, if we may so call her, up into the air in this way, and then in another. It was such a comical sight that the good-natured crowd stood laughing, each one looking at the other, to share the humor.

As the camel passed down the street, its upheaving motions increased.

“Whoa, dar!” shouted Dinah. “Stop yer wobblin’ dar! Driver, stop, dar, I’ll fall off! Dar, I’m goin’ right ober now! Whoa! If you don’t stop him I’ll hollar!”

The camel gave a sidling lurch, sending Dinah high up into the air with her ribbons and feathers flying. The crowd followed her, laughing.

Down the street she went, shouting, “Stop, dar! Stop, dar!” tossed this way and that, and once threatening the philosophical driver with—“If you don’t stop dat dare critter, I’ll cry ‘Perlice, murder!’” But the camel driver did not heed.

The camel stopped at length and turned back again, sawing the air. He stopped at length at the mat. Dinah’s face grew happy again, and she laughed with the crowd.

THE EGYPTIAN DONKEY BOYS, MOUNTED.

“Ben,” she said, “didn’t I ride like a queen?”

She added, “How am I ever to get down way up here in de air?”

Dinah surveyed the great crowd. There was an acre more or less of people, with mouths stretched from ear to ear. It was not a provoking merriment, not sarcastic, nor that mean mirth that ridicules weakness. It was all sympathetic, good hearted, and good natured.

The camel driver gave another queer sound, somewhat like that at the beginning of the ride.

Dinah’s question as to how she was to get down was suddenly answered, and without any ceremony.

The camel seemed in an instant to collapse, and fall down all in a heap.

When Dinah found the high-backed animal falling as it were all to pieces into a heap of bones, her eyes turned white. But she was landed safely. The camel lay under her as if dead. She stepped from the saddle. The crowd began to cheer. Poor Dinah at first did not know whether to be offended or delighted. She seized the arm of Ben, and looked around her. The crowd was laughing in such a generous-hearted way that she wisely thought it best to join in.

So she shook her head, bridal hat and all, and clapped her hands, and shouted “Giggers!”

Up and down the Street of Cairo ran the merriment and laughter, and the happiest-hearted of all were Dinah and Ben. Peal on peal of laughter rang out on the sunny air, Dinah leading the chorus.

Manton Marlowe looked down the avenue of laughing, friendly, kindly faces, and then turned to the beaming faces of Dinah and Ben.

“I never saw anything on earth so funny as that,” he said.

“No!” said Grandfather Marlowe, “and that is the funniest thing that you will see at the Fair.”

“I think that you are right,” said Mr. Marlowe; “and there is a lesson too in all this light-hearted scene: people may so laugh as not to give offence. Look! Dinah is the happiest of all, and there is not a person here that would not be glad to do her a favor! How happy is everything here! The hearts of all people here beat as one.”

“This is a good world,” said the old Quaker.

A few days afterwards the trio saw a calf run away from a mock sacrifice. The priest ran after him, and a comical scene followed; but Mr. Marlowe did not change his mind in regard to the laughing crowd of the Street of Cairo. That was the funniest scene that he saw at the Fair.

FOLK-LORE STORY.
MIRACULOUS SUSAN OF QUAKER HILL.

Imprimis, the reader will ask why the woman in our title with the simple name of Susan was called “miraculous,” and, secundus, where is Quaker Hill. I will answer the last question first, and try to give the reader a view of the picturesque elevation where George Fox preached in the glorious old Rhode Island of Governor Coddington and of Roger Williams; and as for that said useful woman, who was indispensable to the old families of the once Indian country of Pokonoket in the trying days of dipping candles, picking live geese, and at “killing-time,” our story will seek to portray the one marvellous and mysterious event of her otherwise uneventful life.

I should say that the quaint, plain Quaker meeting-house on the historic elevation near Portsmouth, R. I., is the most interesting church in all America. It stands for the old Rhode Island principle of soul-liberty, as set forth in Roger Williams’s day—and what could stand for more? It is now very much what it was two hundred years ago, when a rich Rhode Islander proposed to offer George Fox a salary to remain on the Island as preacher,—which caused the good man to flee.

They do not do so now, to be sure, but times have a little changed, even among the hillside farmers on the Garden Island of the New World.

I recently attended a Friends’ meeting at the quaint, roomy church on Quaker Hill. The Narragansett Bay rolled in the distance as clear and blue as when George Fox himself must have beheld it in 1671, or more than two hundred years ago. The Hill is still the Mecca of the Societies of Friends, and may be found on the Old Colony Railroad near Portsmouth, R. I., some eight miles from Newport, and a few miles from the Barton-Prescott house, of historic fame.

CORNER OF MOSQUE, IN CAIRO STREET.

The island was Aquidneck when George Fox came there, “a voice crying in the wilderness of the world,” and when Bishop Berkeley became prophetic at Newport, and voiced his inspiration in the immortal line, “Westward the course of empire takes its way.”

There are few spots on the earth more serene and lovely than Quaker Hill. There is an ethereal beauty over the blue waterways and bountiful farms, a “Gulf Stream influence” it is called, that seems almost spiritual, and we do not wonder that the good old Quaker spirit should have found its sympathetic atmosphere here. After the long past, the Gospel of the Inner Light and universal Love is still preached on the self-same serene hill of Portsmouth looking over to Mount Hope,—the ancient burying-ground of the Indian race,—the Narragansett Bay, and the sinking sails of the far sea. It is worth a pilgrimage to spend a Sabbath on Quaker Hill.

The old-time Newport Quakers did not keep holidays, but Thanksgiving was always a benevolent day on the thrifty Quaker farms around the transfigured hill. The mention of the day recalls tables of luxuries that, unhappily, are no more seen. Those were the days of apple dumplings made of Rhode Island greenings, which Rhode Island mythology claims to have come from the original Garden of Eden; of pandowdy in comparison with which the modern apple pie merits little commendation; of No Cake, rightly named, for it consisted of parched corn so deftly cooked that it floated white on milk; of plum porridge, hot and cold; of hasty puddings with toothsome sauces; of bannocks; of whit-pot; of all kinds of game,—wild geese, teal, partridges, and quail; of pound-cake that induced pipes and fireside slumbers and dreams such as never haunted the self-denying soul of George Fox. The old Quakers of Portsmouth were good livers, but they shared all they had with every one.

Blessed are the graves with their mossy stones around the queer church on old Quaker Hill! The precisianers here lived quiet lives, but their principles of soul-liberty emancipated the world. The little square panes in the gray meeting-house windows, to a student of life, are more than all the rose hues of the lights of Cologne Cathedral. It is the soul of things that is great,—and great souls held their visions here.

I vividly recall the whortleberry and blackberry pastures of Portsmouth, where “Miraculous Susan” used to spend the greater part of her time in July and August, gathering berries for the Newport market. I can see the old woman now as she used to pass with her baskets and tin pails, and her bottle of cold coffee for lunch.

I used sometimes to go with her, and when she had filled her baskets with berries she would help me fill mine. “It is what we do for other folks that makes life pleasant,” she often said.

The children used to start back with awe into the roadside alders and witch-hazels as they saw her, and one of the school-group would be likely to say:

“That’s her,—the ’ooman over whose head the miracle-ring appeared, right in the church, hanging in the air on nothing. And some said it was made of silver, and some said it was made of gold, and some of pearls. But they found her out. She didn’t mean it. I’ll tell you what it was—won’t you never, never tell?”

The mystery of the simple history of Susan had been so often told in confidence that when one put one’s finger on one’s lip in speaking of it, it was a sign; there are some things that it is reverent not to tell publicly,—this was one of them.

There was a poem of some unknown author that she used to repeat to me when whortleberrying, which to my simple mind surpassed in lyric beauty anything that Wordsworth ever wrote. It began:

“Why, Phœbe, have you come so soon?

Where are your berries, child?”

The unfortunate Phœbe was to my eyes a never-failing source of tears. The earthquake of Lisbon never affected me like that.

I shall never forget the tempests that sometimes followed the long August days when we went whortleberrying. If we had an uneventful tour, we yet had eventful skies. The hot forenoon; the ospreys wheeling in the fiery meridian heaven; the fevered air; the pearl-white clouds that rose in the north like mountains, peak rising above peak as in the Alps or Andes; the universal singing of birds in joyous expectation of showers; the hurrying hay-wagons; the rapid motions of the rakes and forks; the scent of new-mown hay; the carrying of water to the haymakers by the farmers’ wives and daughters; the shadow of the cloud; the half-sun and half-shadow on the fields; the muttering of the thunder; the few terrific peals; the thunderbolt that smote some tall tree in the near woodland pasture; the deluge of rain; the dripping leaves; the breaking cloud; the rainbow; the broken sunset; the singing of birds again; the flying of night-hawks, and the cool, starry night that followed,—I can still see that country dog-day, as such a day was called. I still can feel in my imagination as I felt in the changing air from a fevered heat to refreshing cool, as we sheltered ourselves under the thick savin-trees, waiting for the shower to pass.

DETAIL OF THE GOLDEN DOOR.

Miraculous Susan, over whose head the silver ring appeared in the old Orthodox church on the Heights, lived in a small cottage near Quaker Hill. Across a narrow waterway was Tiverton Heights. The water is spanned by a stone bridge now; it was a ferry in Susan’s day.

A strange event had happened to Susan. We never knew of her telling the story but once, and that was at a husking at Tiverton, after her feelings had been a little touched by certain jokes about her that had fallen upon her ears at a husking-party.

“No,” she said, shaking her calash, “I fear sometimes that there’s no miracle ever happened in my poor life—I can’t say; but I’ve had a hard time. I never encouraged any man to marry me—how could I? only Malachi, he just took hold of one end of my apron-string one evening, and opened his mouth, and I said ‘Stop!’ and looked at him just like that. Malachi was a likely man, but I wouldn’t be a burden to him. The doctor said that Mother would be a cripple for life, and he had no sooner said that than my mind was made right up. I knew my duty. If a thing is right, it is right, and there need be nothing more said about it; and if a thing is wrong, it is wrong, and there need be nothing more said about that. I’ve had some blessin’s and a pretty even life, take it all in all,—only that miracle that happened to me in church, and nobody was to blame for that! I did think that the ‘angel of the Lord had come down,’ as the choir used to sing, but I fear I was mistaken.”

Miraculous Susan arose and bent over the corn-heap and pulled down a large husking of corn. It was a bright, clear, still November day, with a woody odor in the air that came from the falling leaves of the flaming maples and walnut-trees where the river made an ox-bow. There had been a gusty storm the night before, leaving leaf-wet woods. The crows were cawing in the far tree-tops, and the pilfering jays were swinging in the wild grape-vines. Hither and thither a nimble squirrel, called the “chipmunk,” might have been seen running along the gray stone walls.

The Parson sat next to Miraculous Susan by the husk-heap.

“You never gave Malachi any yarn to wind?” said he, good-naturedly, to lead up to the neighborhood story.

“No, I never encouraged him as much as that. I only treated him so well that he came a second time. La, Parson, if I’d only said the word I needn’t ha’ been huskin’ here for one bushel in ten. But my folks, they were all ought-to-be people, and I had to be just what I ought to be. It was born in me. I know that I got spiritually proud, and actually thought that the Lord had appeared to me and set a halo of glory around my head. Think of it, a poor lone woman like me! But the world has been good to me, and it will be a great deal better on the day that I go out of it than it was on the day when I came into it, and none the worse for my being in it—don’t you think so, Parson?”

“Yes, Sister Susan, that is just my own opinion.”

“I can make mince pies equal to Dorothy Hancock’s, though I can’t pull a string as that woman did on the French fleet one day, and have a whole frigate go bang, banging around me. There’s a difference between some folks and others.”

“You are right, Susan,—you can make mince pies.”

“And pandowdy!”

“Yes, I never ate any Thanksgiving pandowdy equal to yours.”

“That’s because I let the crust candy, and then breaks it all up, and kneads it into the apple.—This is a beautiful world!”

It surely was on that day and in that thrifty meadow. The sky was as blue as in April. The hills in their late autumn hues shimmered afar like dreamlands. The long meadows were restful and bright with cool green aftermath. Between the hills ran the way down to the cranberry meadows, the salt marshes, and the purple sea.

The farm lay upon a stretch of land now known as Tiverton Heights, which was already famous in Indian history, but is now also associated with stirring events of the Revolutionary War. There is no place in America that commands more romantic scenes and waterways. At a distance lay the town of Little Compton, the residence of Captain Benjamin Church the Indian-fighter, and the rich hunting-grounds of the Awasonks. In the lowlands at the sea-levels was the island of Rhode Island, where had lived Bishop Berkeley, of prophetic memory. In the town now called Middleton, near Newport, the Aquidians had met their fate; and the same town now is famous as the place where Barton captured General Prescott:—

“’Twas on that dark and stormy night,

The winds and waves did roar,

Bold Barton then with twenty men

Went down upon the shore.”

The old inhabitants still love to tell how Tuck Sisson on that memorable July night broke open the British General’s door by butting against it with his head.

To the west, where now the great stone bridge, costing a quarter of a million, connects the island of Newport the Beautiful with the mainland, was the pleasant ferry. And beyond lay the Narragansett, one of the beautiful inland seas of the world. Here also were the Highlands of the Pocassetts, and thence Queen Wetamoe and her warriors used to cross Mount Hope Bay to unite in the war-dances of King Philip at night. To-day every town on the Heights has its wonderful tales and romantic legends.

THE BOAT LANDING AND THE LAKE, FROM THE LIBERAL ARTS BUILDING.

The “husk-heap,” as the unharvested corn was called, was many hundred feet long, and covered on the top with thatch and swale meadow-hay. Behind it rose a number of “husk-stacks,” as the heaped husked cornstalks were termed, while in front were two huge ox-carts, with high sides, which were brimming with yellow Indian corn. Over the corn-heaps where the husking had already been done was a long row of pumpkins, “pig corn” and “smutty corn,” on the ground. The crickets were singing cheerily everywhere, as they always did on bright days about the corn-heaps.

The huskers were a merry company. In the middle of the long row of these busy people sat Deacon White, the owner of the seashore farm, and next to him Sally Bannocks, his widowed sister. At his other side sat Parson Brown, who had come over from the parsonage under the great elbowing elm-trees to “lend a hand;” and beside the good Parson sat Miraculous Susan, the woman-of-all-work of the town. An old Indian woman, named Maria, took a place apart from the others at the end of the heap. Miraculous Susan and Indian Maria husked for the Deacon on shares, receiving one bushel in ten of the corn that they basketed for their labor. A dozen or more boys and girls made up a happy party, such as could have been seen in November a hundred years ago on almost any large New England farm.

In these merry days of plenty the young people had a droll song that they used to sing. It was evidently written in derision of the unthrifty farmer, who had no such bounteous corn-heaps as these. It was sung in doleful minor, and the refrain words “Over there” had the most melancholy cadence of anything that I ever heard except the hymn-tune “Windham.” It ran as follows:—

O potatoes they grow small,

Over there.

O potatoes they grow small,

For they plants ’em in the fall,

And they eats ’em skins and all,

Over there!

O they had a clam pie,

Over there.

O they had a clam pie,

Over there.

O they had a clam pie,

And its crust was made of rye,

You must eat it or must die,

Over there!

The fiddling tune of “Old Rosin the Beau,” and the lively strains of “Money Musk,” the “Virginia Reel,” and “Fisher’s Hornpipe,” were often heard at the husking-parties, played by the village fiddlers, of whom every town had one. For more serious music, the huskers sang the old plaintive Scotch airs.

Miraculous Susan? She was the servant of everybody in distress; the good woman of the town. She heard the first wail of the infant, and stood last by the trembling widow when the sod fell hollow upon the coffin. Did a child have a bad case of measles or throat-ail, she was there; was there a case of typhus fever, her faithful hand fanned that brow. She did not shrink even from a case of smallpox. Did a farm-wife fall sick in haying-time, thither went Miraculous Susan. Did a woman with a great family of children need special help on washing-day, baking-day, or at “killing-time,” there she was found. She used to say that the Lord created her “fists full of days’ work for everybody,” and that that was her mission in life; and always added the reflection of doubtful comfort, “And I shall get through by and by.”

Her name—“Miraculous Susan”—how did she come by that?

Therein is our story, as we have intimated. Other people told it many times; it was a wonder-tale of the old farms. I never knew her to tell the story but once, and that was on this particular day, at the corn-heap.

“Parson Brown,” said she, pulling down a large armful of cornstalks and corn, “do you really think that there are such persons as ghost-seers, or that all such things are only just like the ‘House that Jack built,’ just one thing leadin’ into another?”

“Susan,” said the good Parson, “I haven’t believed much in those things since what happened to you, according to Elder Almy’s view of the matter. Don’t be offended, Susan. There are mostly mysterious causes for mysterious things. You are an honest woman, Susan, and it is much good that you have done in the world. As for that miracle, Susan, that was a very peculiar case. It’s husking-time, and we are all your friends; just tell us your side of that story which makes the people—the Lord forgive ’em!—all call you Miraculous Susan.”

Susan drew her Rob-Roy shawl around her, and gave the Parson the same kind of a look that she had given Malachi when he just took hold of her apron-string to get courage to ask the question. Then her face relaxed, and there came into it a kindly look, and she said, “Parson Brown, I will. You have all been proper good to me, and have always meant well, if you do say ‘Ichabod’ to me now; you mean well.”

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.

Susan pulled down a large heap of corn to husk while telling her story, and shook out of it the dry corn-cockles, saying, “First the blade, and then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear,” and adding, “Every cornstalk is a Thanksgiving sermon.” The children drew near to hear, and with them one girl, Susanna, whose eyes grew with the story.

“Tell all you know,” said Deacon White; “and it is mighty interesting to hear a person tell a little more than he knows. I always like people that can see just a little beyond the horizon—what is the imagination for?”

“I shall tell you only the plain truth,” said Susan. “So let me begin with the planting-time, when the bluebirds came with the sky on their wings, and the children dropped the first corn into the ground. I was dreadful poor that year. Mother had just died and left me alone and lonesome, and I began then to be hands and feet for everybody, so as to heal up the great lump in my heart. I had a Rob-Roy shawl that I had worn for years to church, summer and winter, and one June day, as I was coming down the steps of the church, Deacon White here, says he, says he to me, ‘Susan, you ought to have some better things to wear; and if we have a prosperous year, and my ship comes in prosperous-like, I mean to get the folks together in the fall, and to have them make you a present of a real camlet cloak.’

“Could I believe my ears? It was only grand folks that wore camlet cloaks! The wives of people who traded at sea!

“I attended church at Quaker Hill for the most part, because, to tell the truth, I had to dress plain, and my simple clothes did not make me look so poor among the gray Quaker folk as they did among the silk gowns and camlet cloaks at Tiverton. And then, at the hands-shaking after the Quaker meetings, I used often to find something in my hands besides emptiness, and I always felt friendly to the Quaker folk who were led by the Spirit, and who believed their words were Spirit when they preached and exhorted. They are good people, and I wish that the world were full of such, which I say though I am Orthodox.

“Well, I looked at the Deacon. His first wife had a camlet cloak, brought over from the East Indies or some foreign parts where the camels grow.

“But what the Deacon said did touch my heart in a tender place. He was the first person in all the community that had ever seemed to think that I would like to be thought of. My lip trembled, and I pulled down my calash to hide my weakness, because my eyelids began to twitch, and I couldn’t help it. I walked down the steps firmly, and then I took the wood-path home, and sat down on the pine-needles all alone on the way and had a good cry. I didn’t know that I had any such feelings before. It wasn’t the thought of a camlet cloak that made me break up so,—it was that the Deacon had seen that I had had a hard time, and felt for me.

“Well, the corn came up, and the blades waved in the long fields in the June air, and the robins sang everywhere. I was spry that summer, and everywhere I went there arose before me a vision of that camlet cloak. Not that I wanted such a cloak, but I wanted the people to have some regard for me, and what the Deacon said stood for that. Everybody likes to be thought something of sometime.

“The blades of corn turned at last into silk and tassels, and then it was September, and every kernel that had been planted under the April skies had produced an ear, and some two. The green fields turned yellow and rustled, and the crickets piped and the birds sang their last song and flew away. Then came Indian summer, and the Thanksgiving days were near at hand. It had been a prosperous year, and the Deacon’s ship had come in with its gun booming.

“One day the stage came lumbering up the Heights, and the driver drew up the reins before my door, and looked under the great leather boot where the mail-bags were, and brought out a large box, and called,—

“‘Susan, here—I’ve got something for ye, from Newport.’

“‘That’s passing strange,’ said I, throwing my apron over my head. ‘I haven’t any near of kin in Newport.’

“‘Friends,’ said he.

“‘Friends?’ said I. ‘I haven’t many of them anywhere, as for that matter; they’re as scarce as hen’s teeth in this world where there’s so much selfishness. But I hadn’t ought to complain; we all of us get treated better than we deserve. The Lord forgive me for saying such things as those! This is a good world.’

“He handed down a package.

“‘Guess it came from foreign parts,’ said he. ‘Do the best you can, Susan, so that when this bothersome life is all over you will—you will—Go lang;’ and he was out of sight in quick time, the wheels rattling over the stony hill.

“I took the package into the house, and opened it, all alone. Could I believe my eyes? It was a camlet cloak, all made of silk and camel’s hair, and grand enough to have bedecked a queen, and large enough to cover my whole body.

“I first thought that I would just sink right down on my knees and pray. Then my vanity got the better of me, and I held up the cloak before the looking-glass; my cap-border rose when I thought how fine I would look going up the steps of the old church with that garment covering me, like a picture of Queen Vashti in the Bible.

“While I was standing there, grand as a drum-major at a general training, who should come in but old Elder Almy, of Portsmouth Farms.

“‘What has thee got there, Susan?’ said he, looking up queerly from under the broad brim of his hat.

“‘A royal garment fit for a queen,’ said I. ‘Look there, Elder Almy—a camlet cloak!’

“‘I see, I see,’ said he. ‘I heard that the Tiverton folks were about to make thee a present,’ said he, ‘and I hoped it would be such an one as would make thy heart better. It is only the present that makes the heart better that the Lord desires thee to have, Sister Susan.’

“‘Elder Almy,’ said I, ‘I am a plain-spoken woman, and I am going to ask you one question, if you are a Quaker. Why should not a poor woman like me have a camlet cloak?’

“‘Thee shouldst, if it would make thee better, Susan. What hast thou to go with thy camlet cloak? Look at thy shoes, Susan. How is thy meal-chest, Susan? How wouldst thee look in thy green calash and thy camlet cloak, Susan?’

“‘But I’m goin’ to get a whole lot of new things to wear with my camlet cloak,’ said I.

“‘How about thy purse, Susan? Hast thou means to live after the pattern of thy royal garment? And would it be good for thy heart if thou hadst? Simple living is a duty, Susan. I dress as simply as my work-folks, Susan. If I did otherwise, I would encourage extravagance in them. Thy camlet cloak begetteth pride, Susan, and pride resisteth the Spirit, Susan. It is better for thee, Susan, far better, to be poor in spirit.’

“Then I up and fell from grace, the Lord forgive me!

“‘Elder Almy,’ said I, ‘I am just as good as any of the people that wear camlet cloaks. There was no different blood in the veins of Queen Anne than that in my own. Small people make small presents. The Governor has sent forth his proclamation for all people to assemble in the churches on the 20th day of the 11th month, and I am going to assemble.’

“‘All of you, Susan?’

“‘Yes, all of me, and the camlet cloak. It doesn’t make one feel happy to be given pewter spoons. There!’

“‘Nor a gold crown, Susan?’

“I was sorry afterwards that I said these things, for Elder Almy and all the Quakers were the most feeling and generous people, and as for Mrs. Almy, why, she would have given away her bonnet off her own head.

“I had some money that I had hidden away in an old Spanish money-jar, against sickness. I resolved to take that and go to Newport and buy me some silk for a hood, an alpaca dress, and a string of beads, which Elder Almy would have classed among the vanities. I went to Newport, and I found there that I needed so many things to go with the camlet cloak that I spent all the money that I had. ‘The Lord who sent the camlet cloak will provide,’ said I.

“I shall never forget that bright Thanksgiving morning that I was to set out from Quaker Hill, and for Tiverton, in my silk hood and camlet cloak. It was a cold morning, but clear. I could hear the surf roaring at Newport, and the bells ringing.

“As I was getting ready to go, I chanced to open the old saddle-room door, and what should I see there but the very foot-stove that my mother used to carry to church, before they had one stove for all the people. A thought struck me. My pew was in a cold part of the church; I would fill the iron cup inside of the foot-stove with coals, and take the stove along with me under my camlet cloak. No one would ever see it, and it would keep me comfortable all the day.

“My mother was better off than I, and her foot-stove was not one of the ordinary kind. It was made of block tin, was perforated in stars, had a mahogany frame, and a brass pan for the coals. It was always a mystery to me how coals in that little hand-stove would hold fire for so long a time. She used to use hard-wood coal, and mostly walnut. I had some good coals of apple-tree wood in the stove that morning, and I put them into the pan, and closed the stove door, and took the stove in my left hand under my cloak like a basket of eggs. Nobody ever carries a foot-stove now, though there can be found one still in the saddle-rooms and eaves-holes of nearly all the old houses, along with the brass warming-pans, candle-moulds, and shovels and tongs and fenders.

“How bright the water looked at the ferry! How the old ferryman stared when he saw me! How an old crow on a dead tree peered down at me and cried out in the keen air, ‘Haw, haw, haw!’

“I met Elder Almy on the way.

“‘Goin’ to Thanksgiving?’ said he.

“‘How do I look now, Elder?’ said I.

“‘Just like a rag-bag,—a travelling vanity on the road to Vanity Fair. You’ll get there, Susan. Did you hear that crow? What was he talking about, Susan?’

EGYPTIAN JUGGLER.

“‘Pewter spoons, I guess,’ said I. And I just gave him that look that I had given Malachi.

“The churchyard was full of people, the dead and alive; for that matter, the dead are always there. The bell was ringing, and carriages were coming from all the neighboring farms. All eyes were bent upon me as I passed through the crowd and went up the church steps. I took my seat in the back pew where I usually sat, and put my feet on the warm foot-stove and spread over it the camlet cloak like a tent, and looked up to the tall pulpit, the red curtains, and sounding-board, and hour-glass.

“Elder Holmes alluded to me in the opening prayer, as one whom ‘celestial charity delighted to honor.’ After the prayer I looked up again and around, and I saw that all the eyes in the church were turned towards me.

“‘The Lord keep me humble!’ prayed I.

“That prayer was answered. Surely it was.

“The text was a curious one—‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Elder Holmes, he gave a Bible history of visions, and of the times when the Lord spake to Israel in visions, and the times when there were no visions, and then he went over history to show that when people lost their prophetic sense the nation declined. It was a wonderful discourse. But while he was giving a picture of the woful Middle Ages, when the people lost their visions in bloody wars, the church suddenly grew still; you could have heard a pin drop. The foot-stove had made such a warmth under my cloak that I had almost gone to sleep. I was glad that the Middle Ages were gone, and was thinking that things in this world must be above all right now, when the stillness of the church awoke me. I started up and looked around wild like, and my heart gave a thump as I saw Elder Holmes standing in the pulpit, silent, with uplifted hands,—and the great silk sleeves of his robe did make his arms appear awful. The Elder was looking straight at me.

“I turned my head. Every eye in the gallery was fixed upon me. I looked towards the deacons’ pew. The four deacons all set, bent forward like, staring straight at me. What had happened?

“I might well ask that. Every one seemed looking at something over my head. I looked up, and there, right over my head, hung a vision. The heavens had come down, or so thought all the people, and so thought I. How shall I describe it as it appeared to me? I seem to see it now.

“Over my head hung a ring, bright as silver and pearls, and full of golden light. A miraculous ring! From the ring there were floating away little silver rings, which I took to be wings of angels, and which melted away as they went up. The sunlight shone through the silver ring as I sat between the windows, and the vision seemed at times like a circle of glass filled with glimmering gold. I never can describe how I felt at that hour. I thought of the hymn—Heaven forgive my vanity!—

“‘The Lord descended from above,

And bowed the heavens most high,

And underneath his feet he cast

The garments of the sky.’

“I lifted up my eyes to the choir. The singers were all looking down upon me as though they were just rising to sing. Even the bass-viol seemed to be looking. Then I dropped my eyes to the pew where the deacons’ wives sat, and Deacon Coon’s wife, she looked just as though her eyes would shoot out of her head, and Deacon Bradford’s wife, she sat looking just like this, with a snuff-box in her hands—so—and her neck as long as a sea loon’s flying—so.

“It was a curious sight. I shall never forget it to the longest day of my life: the choir, all eyes looking down; the deacons on one side of the high pulpit, looking out of their pew; the deacons’ wives on the other side of the pulpit, looking out of their pew, and the parson in his high curtained pulpit under the sounding-board, with his arms in his robe, uplifted—this way.

“‘Signs and wonders!’ said Parson Holmes. ‘Let us gaze on in silence!’ They did. The silence was awful.

“My heart beat so violently that I felt that I must get up and go out into the yard. I rose slowly, and went down the aisle, where all the people were sitting like statues. As soon as I got up, there was a great uplifting of what seemed to be pearly angels’ wings around my head—little silvery wings—and then the vision vanished.

“I never felt so proud in all my life as when I went back to Quaker Hill that day, a camlet cloak on my back, and a vision of angels, for aught I could say, hovering over my new silk hood. I imagined I was one of the old patriarchs. What would Quaker Almy say now? Wa’n’t I as good as anybody?

“The news of what had happened spread everywhere. In a day or two Deacon Almy came to see me.

“‘Signs and wonders!’ said I.

“‘Pins and needles!’ said he: ‘The Lord don’t appear in visions to people in camlet cloaks, that talk sassy when reproved. I have a theory about that vision. We are commanded to try the spirit, Susan,’ said he, looking at me with a searching eye. ‘What didst thee carry that day with thee under thy camlet cloak?’

“‘Nothing but my mother’s foot-stove,’ said I.

“‘Did it smoke?’ said he.

“‘A little bit,’ said I.

“‘And where did the smoke go to?’ asked he.

“‘I smothered it under my camlet cloak,’ said I. ‘A little of it might have gone out between my shoulders,’ said I, after stopping to think. ‘I sat bent over, and I couldn’t see my back. How could I?’ The word ‘smoke’ made me feel very uncertain.

“‘And a light smoke always forms a circle before it ascends, and in a ray of sunlight the circle would look like gold,’ said he, ‘and then it would all break apart feathery like,’ said he, ‘and’—I couldn’t endure any more.

“I arose and seized the broom.

“‘You unbelieving Philistine!’ said I.

“‘You may spare that carnal weapon,’ said he. ‘Susan, you are a good woman in the main, but you haven’t the kind of spirit that sees visions. I’m sorry for ye.’

“Well, would you believe it? I began to doubt the vision myself, and Elder Almy, he gave out his suspicions among the people, and some thought one thing and some another.

“But right after Thanksgiving there came an awful snowstorm, and though I had a silk hood and a camlet cloak, I hadn’t no meal, nor hardly anything to eat or burn. Then Elder Almy and some of the brethren came over from the Quaker Hill farms, and brought me two cords of wood, and some bags of meal, and a quarter of beef, and a whole sage cheese, and some stout flannel, and Sister Almy, she put five pistareens in my hand, and gave me a braided husk mat and a quilted bed-coverlet, and they all talked to me about the Inner Light, and humility, and loving others better than self, and then they held a meeting in my kitchen as still as the wings of death; and when they were gone I hung up my camlet cloak in the cupboard for good and all, and resolved to love henceforth and forever just such poor creatures as myself, and to serve ’em as best I could; and I never felt so thankful in all my life. Deacon White here, he and the church all meant well, but, as Elder Almy says, ‘Always make presents that will do people good.’ Good presents, of course, make people feel better than poor ones,—but beautiful things may be serviceable, too.

“This is a good world, Deacon, and I will always love you for the camlet cloak; but then, you know, Deacon, and you know, Elder, that—There, the horn is blowing for dinner, and I’ve husked this morning five baskets of corn.”

“Was it a miracle, Susan?” asked one of the huskers,—the girl with large eyes.

“Well, some say it was, like Elder Holmes, and some, like Elder Almy, say it was only smoke; I can’t be sure. It seems to me like the battle of Sheriff Muir, that my old grandfather, who was a Scotchman, used to tell about:

“‘Some say that they ran,

Some say that we ran,

And some say that nane ran

At a’, man.’

“‘But of one thing I’m sure,

A battle there was at Sheriff Muir,

Which I saw, man,

And we ran, and they ran,

And they ran, and we ran,

Awa’, man.’”

Susan, like ordinary mortals, obeyed the lively dinner-horn, followed by the merry Rhode Islanders.

The Miracle? It is a mystery still. Susan is dead, and the flat gray wall-stone that marked her grave is sinking, moss-covered, into the grass where the sparrows nest, among the many graves that lie on the sunset slope of Quaker Hill.

---

FISHERIES BUILDING.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL.

T was July 4th, 1893. The lake breezes in the early morning floated over the White City. Flags filled the air; eight hundred acres of flags? Yes, more: in fact, Chicago was a sky of flags; and so was the State of Illinois.

Hundreds of thousands of people were pouring, like a multitude of tides, toward the scene of enchantment. The avenues of the Exposition were thronged early in the day, and the crowds grew. The Lake was here white with craft and there shadowed with steamers. There was music everywhere.

The flags of all nations mingled; the national airs of all nations mingled; people of all nations mingled. The White City was the festival of the World.

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING.

Guns boomed, the wonder grew, and high noon was a scene of glory.

Our trio were early on the grounds.

“What is wanting here?” asked Mr. Marlowe, as they stood in front of the Administration Building, and looked down the Court of Honor toward the Peristyle and Lake.

“Only a White-Bordered Flag,” said Grandfather Marlowe, looking up to the allegorical figures of the elements controlled and uncontrolled,—“only a Peace Flag to lead the future, and stand for the brotherhood of all mankind.”

While he was speaking, from his Quaker view, as it were, out of the Inner Light, there was a gathering of people, and it was led by a woman, with a new flag. It presently shot into the air and unrolled, amid the allegories of the uncontrolled and the controlled world. Its border was white. It was hailed with cheering.

The old Quaker looked up, and saw it. It was like a vision to him. He had dreamed of it through all his life: the fact had been within prophetic sight, but he had never expected it in a vision so glorious.

Could it be true? The flags of all nations filling the air, the sea, the prairie; hundreds of thousands of bright, happy faces passing, their eyes filled with scenes of marvellous beauty, and their ears with the patriotic musical inspirations of struggles for liberty and progress for the ages; and with the crown of the great throne of the Administration Building, the White-Bordered Flag of Peace, floating in the shining sky, radiant, glorious—could it be true!

“Manton,” said the old Quaker, “that is the grandest sight that you will see at the Fair; you need look no further. That is the grandest sight that has appeared since angels sang over the Plains of Bethlehem. I can go home now content, and die in peace. The world is destined to follow that flag!”

“I expect to see no grander sight than that,” said Mr. Marlowe. “I have almost made up my mind that the sympathetic, good-humored laughter in the Street of Cairo is the funniest thing we have seen; the Philadelphia Working-Man’s house, the most useful thing; and I am sure that the White-Bordered Flag in the Court of Honor on this Independence Day, will be the prophetic glory of the Fair. I have now to study the most noble lesson of the Fair.”

The reader may like to know something of the history of the inspired, unselfish, and most earnest woman, Mary Frost Ormsby, whose influence caused the White-Bordered Flag to be raised over the Court of Honor on this thrilling day.

That patriotic magazine “Home and Country” for February, 1893, has an article from Mrs. Ormsby’s pen, in which that lady gives an account of how she carried the White Flag to Rome. We quote a part of the article:—