In the art gallery of the Woman’s Building the boys noticed only a few of the pictures; “Jean and Jacques,” by Marie Bashkirtseff, was one they particularly liked. It showed two little French boys going “unwillingly to school,” dressed in their black blouses. Another was a little girl playing hide-and-go-seek behind a low bush. She had a sweet little face and bewitching smile.
They also liked the “Ethnographical Department,” where they found all sorts of weapons and utensils from Africa, collected by Mrs. French-Sheldon, the explorer. Harry didn’t altogether like the idea of a woman’s showing that she explored, just as if she was a Sir Samuel Baker with a great beard, and he consoled himself with the reflection that even Mrs. French-Sheldon probably couldn’t whittle a stick.
In the gallery were drawings and paintings, among them some by Queen Victoria and other noble amateurs. Harry, owing to the fact that the crowd usually remains below stairs, was able to critically examine the Queen’s sketches. The hind legs of one of her dog-drawings particularly delighted him, since they proved beyond question that there is no royal road to animal-drawing. Harry himself had often found the same trouble in drawing the same points, and a warm artistic sympathy welled up in his heart for the great Empress of India in her struggles to conquer animal-drawing. When, in the same gallery, he saw some drawings by Mary Hallock Foote, an artist whose works he admired, he believed that he would rather be a plain American who could draw than a crowned queen who did very well considering how busy she was with state matters.
They glanced into the stately California room, upon the floor of which was a great grizzly-bear rug, and then made up their minds that it was time to be lunching if they intended to see the life-saving crew at work. But on their way out, they stopped long enough for Harry to have his name written by a woman card-writer, who used a pen set “skew-shaw” on its handle. She added his residence—the State only—and the date. It cost him five cents, but he felt that Philip was no longer one ahead of him.
Philip saw a machine marked “Music, Fortune, Weight,” with the usual request about dropping a nickel. He stood on the platform, and dropped the nickel. The machine played “The Sweet By and By,” and shoved out a ticket upon one side of which was stamped his weight, “95,” and upon the other was, “You will soon receive a fortune from across the sea.”
They walked between the State buildings over toward the lake, intending to take lunch somewhere nearer the shore. When in front of Ohio’s Building, with its projecting portico, they stopped to look at the great statue in front. A woman’s figure upon a lofty pedestal raises her arms proudly as if to call the attention of all the world. Around the pedestal, like a row of bad boys sent to stand against the wall for whispering, are a ring of Ohio’s great men, including Grant, Garfield, and Stanton. In prominent letters around the pedestal are the words, “These are my jewels.” While the boys were looking at this little piece of justifiable brag, two women came along, and paused beside them.
“‘These—are—my,’” then moving a little further,—“‘jewels.’ Hum! Yes; of course. Those are the words that Queen Isabella said to Columbus, you know, when she gave him her jewels to fit out his ships.” Both then walked away, enriched with the spoils of history.
Philip and Harry looked at each other, but made no remarks. Their minds were busy in replacing the State of Ohio, Queen Isabella, and the noble Cornelia in the niches from which they had been so rudely torn. In some ways, that was the most remarkable exhibit they met that day at the Fair.