The call came from Mr. Smithers who had been his school teacher and who now was also the President of the local Board of Trade. Barry leaned over the platform and Mr. Smithers, making his way through the throng, handed the boy a bulky manilla envelope fastened with rubber bands.
"Give this to Congressman Carlton as soon as you arrive in Washington," he said.
"All right," replied Barry.
"Be careful with it," continued the man; "it contains a matter of vital importance to the people of Cleverly."
"You can depend on me," was the confident response.
The conductor gave the final warning, the bell began to clang, and the train steamed out of the station with Barry standing on the platform waving good-bye to his faithful friends. His eyes were so dimmed with tears that could not be suppressed that he scarcely recognized the upturned faces that were shedding their good will upon him in such generous measure. One exception to this was his mother. She seemed to stand out from the crowd, fluttering a little lace handkerchief until the station at Cleverly became a mere speck in the distance.
The journey in itself was uneventful, although it furnished constant interest and amusement for the boy who was about to get his first large view of the world. Thoughtful ones at home had provided him with a dainty box of lunch, and before long he was attacked with the pangs of hunger and devoured every last scrap of the cake and fruit and sandwiches.
Finally, after a ride of nine or ten hours the city of Washington began to come in view. The outlying section was not very inviting, but as the train came near to its destination the view improved. A sudden turning of the train brought the magnificent dome of the Capitol into the range of his vision. Barry gasped with wonder and delight. It was as though some magician had waved his wand over vacant space and suddenly brought the wonderful creation into being. In all of the time he was in Washington Barry never lost his sense of delight at each recurring sight of that noble specimen of architecture. To him the solidity and beauty of the Capitol seemed symbolic of the strength and splendor of the Republic.
As the train came nearer and nearer to the new Union Station the boy was enabled to get a closer view of the great structure which stood outlined on the horizon in all of its majestic proportions. He had an instinctive sense of the beautiful and the symmetrical pile of marble filled him with an unexplainable joy. The main building, with its two finely designed wings, more than realized Barry's anticipations. But it was the dome rather than the Capitol itself, which kept him under its magic spell. He felt for the first time the full force of the poet's words, that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." The vaulted roof of the rotunda, with its gradual swelling sprang into the air so gracefully that one could hardly look upon it as a thing of iron and steel and marble. And overtopping it all was the colossal statue of Freedom, typifying everything for which the Republic was founded and maintained.