CHAPTER XIX
The Fourth, of July had never before been kept in the like manner in Chicago. There was a row or two at Grand Crossing between the strikers and the railroad officials, several derailed cars and spiked switches, a row at Blue Island, and a bonfire in the stock yards. People were not travelling on this holiday, and the main streets were strangely silent and dull.
Sommers had found no one at the office in the Athenian Building. Lindsay had not been in since the strike began. Probably he would not appear until the disorderly city had settled down. Sommers had taken the clinic yesterday; to-day there was nothing for him to do except exercise his horse by a long ride in the blazing sunshine. Before he left the office a telegram came from Lake Forest, announcing that a postponed meeting of the board of managers of the summer sanitarium for poor babies would be put off indefinitely. Sommers knew what that meant—no appropriation for carrying on the work. At the last meeting the board of managers, who were women for the most part, had disagreed about the advisability of undertaking the work this season, when every one was feeling poor. Some women had been especially violent against supporting the charity in those districts where the strikers lived.
Miss Hitchcock, who was the secretary, and Sommers had got the heated members of the board to suppress their prejudices for the present, and vote a temporary subsidy. The telegram meant that under the present circumstances it would be hopeless to try to extract money from the usual sources. The sanitarium and creche would have to close within a week, and Sommers was left to arrange matters. After he had taken the necessary measures, he started on his ride. He had in mind to ride out of the city along the lines of railroad to the southwest to see whether the newspaper reports of the strike were justified or, as he suspected, grossly exaggerated. The newspapers, at first inclined to side with the Pullman men in their demand for arbitration, had suddenly turned about and were denouncing the strikers as anarchists. They were spreading broadcast throughout the country violent reports of incendiarism and riot.
Outside of the stations and the adjacent yards Sommers found little to see. A great stagnation had settled over the city this hot July day. Somewhat disappointed in his search for excitement he came back at nightfall to the cool stretches of the South Parks. He turned into the desolate Midway, where the unsightly wheel hung an inert, abortive mass in the violet dusk. His way home lay in the other direction, and his horse trotted languidly. He had determined to turn back, when suddenly a tongue of flame shot up a mile away toward the lake. This first long tongue ran out, followed by another and another, and yet others that raced north and south and up into the night.
"The Fair Buildings!" a man on a bicycle shouted, and sped away.
The broad flames now illuminated the dome of the Administration Building and the facades of the Court of Honor. Sommers spurred his horse, while the loungers suddenly, with one cry, poured from the park along the rough paths of the Midway, streaming out across the prairie toward the fire. He plunged into the cool gulf under the Illinois Central tracks, then out into a glare of full day, before the wild, licking flames. The Court of Honor with its empty lagoon and broken bridges was more beautiful in the savage glow of the ravaging fire than ever on the gala nights of the exposition. The fantastic fury of the scene fascinated man and beast. The streaming lines of people raced on, and the horse snorted and plunged into the mass. Now the crackling as of paper burning in a brisk wind could be heard. There was a shout from the crowd. The flames had gained the Peristyle—that noble fantasy plucked from another, distant life and planted here above the barbaric glow of the lake in the lustrous atmosphere of Chicago. The horseman holding his restive steeds drove in a sea of flame. Through the empty arches the dark waters of the lake caught the reflection and sombrely relighted the scene.
Sommers almost knocked over a woman who was gazing in speechless absorption at the panorama of flame. In the light of the fire he could see that it was Mrs. Preston. She seemed entranced, fascinated like an animal by the savagery of the fierce fire.
"It is grand, beautiful," she murmured to Sommers, who had dismounted. Her large frame trembled with suppressed excitement, and her face glowed.
"Beauty eating beauty," Sommers replied sadly.