“The birds fly about over these forty acres,” said young Ephraim Marlowe, “and do not know that they are not out of doors.”
“The building is a prairie covered with glass, so it seems to me,” said Mr. Marlowe. “How bright and beautiful! Listen!”
As he spoke there fell upon the acres of industrial art the music of the chimes.
Our trio in their journeys often rested in the Building of Public Comfort, and at times on the wide, cool porticos and verandas of the Woman’s Building. They sometimes went for coffee to the Brazilian Garden, or to the Cafés of Costa Rica and Venezuela.
CLOCK TOWER IN THE
MANUFACTURES BUILDING.
The Children’s Building was always a charm. A house to be delightful must have a generous and sympathetic soul, and this the Children’s Building had in Mrs. Clara Doty Bates, to whom this department largely owed its successful evolution. Mrs. Bates’ own room was filled with portraits of children’s authors, and the best books for the young.
The Folk-Lore Societies held their meetings in the Art Palace, in the city, where the Auxiliary Congresses met. There were many private meetings among these amiable story-tellers. In one of the twenty-eight or more halls devoted to such meetings, Mr. Marlowe related the story of “Waban,” and recited a legend associated with the arrival of the “Viking.”
During the visits of the Marlowes at the Fair, there occurred one day a very tragic scene. The Cold Storage Warehouse took fire, and some firemen were sent up to the top of the high tower. While they were there, the flames burst out around the tower below, and they saw that they were doomed.
One of these, seeing his fate, seemed to glory in the thought that his life was to end in sacrifice for others. He put his hand to his lips, threw a kiss to the awestruck multitude, and thus parting with the world leaped into the flames. A man never knows how noble he may be till his worth is put to the test. Mr. Marlowe, the Quaker, thought that this man’s death was the noblest scene that he saw at the great Fair.