“Yes, I do,” he said. “Come along, and let’s go and find her.” And he strode out towards the Agricultural Building as if he were going towards something interesting.
It is true that the Agricultural Building had been too nearly connected with Aunt Matilda’s world to hold the greatest attractions for the little Pilgrims. It had, indeed, gone rather hard with them to find a name for it with a beautiful sound.
“But it is something,” Meg had said, “and it’s a great, huge thing, whether we care for it or not. That it isn’t the thing we care for doesn’t make it any less. We should be fools if we thought that, of course. And you know we’re not fools, Rob.”
“No,” Rob had said, standing gazing at rakes and harrows with his brows knit and his legs pretty wide apart. “And if there’s one thing that shows human beings can do what they set their minds to, it’s this place. Why, they used to thresh wheat with flails—two pieces of wood hooked together. They banged the wheat on the barn floor with things like that! I’ll tell you what, as soon as a man gets any sense, he begins to make machines. He bangs at things with his brain, instead of with his arms and legs.”
And in the end they had called it the Palace of the Genius of the Earth, and the Seasons, and the Sun. They walked manfully by John Holt through the place, Robin leading the way, until they came to the particular exhibit where he had caught sight of Aunt Matilda. Being a business-like and thorough person, she was still there, though she had left the steam plough and directed her attention to a side-delivery hay rake, which she seemed to find very well worth study.
If the children and John Holt had not walked up and planted themselves immediately in her path, she would not have seen them. It gave Meg a little shudder to see how like her world she looked, with her hard, strong-featured face, her straight skirt, and her square shoulders. They waited until she moved, and then she looked up and saw them. She did not start or look nervous in the least. She stared at them.
“Well,” she said. “So this was the place you came to.”
“Yes, Aunt Matilda,” said Robin. “We couldn’t let it go by us—and we took our own money.”
“And we knew you wouldn’t be anxious about us,” said Meg, looking up at her with a shade of curiosity.
Aunt Matilda gave a dry laugh.