The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair | Page 2

his family. Fanny had stowed the lunch basket away
under the seat and wearily laid her head against the back of the seat,
unconscious of the respectful admiration bestowed upon her from the
gentleman in conversation with her grandfather. Fanny was a very
pretty miss, just reaching womanhood, and unsullied in thought or
conduct by the usual desire for masculine attention. Her face was warm
and full, and her light wavy hair reached her shoulders and turned up at
the ends around her neck.
Johnny was too industrious in his varied investigations to notice much
that was occurring about him. His keen eyes just a little turned inward
gave him the appearance of shrewdness that well befitted him. He

always investigated what he did not understand and the World's Fair
opened a field directly in his line.
"As I was saying. I've brought along enough money to get everything
we want and to enjoy life for once. I guess we can go back home then
contented and have enough to talk about for the rest of our natural
lives."
Uncle's new-found friend was evidently a well-to-do commercial
traveler and there was something about him that won Uncle's heart at
once. It was not long till Uncle had relieved his mind of all that bore on
it about himself or his neighbors or his church. Uncle was a deacon and
he had many original ideas about the social and religious economics of
the world. The only pride he had was in his Jerseys and in Fanny, and
his only ambition was to be considered a kind of Socrates by his
neighbors.
The commercial traveler did not have much of a chance to talk, if he
had been so inclined, but he listened with very respectful attention to
the odd observations of Uncle Jeremiah. Uncle had not talked loud, but
across the aisle were two young men who seemed to be listening more
intently than befitted their opportunity to hear. They were faultlessly
attired, and frequently exchanged observations with each other in low
tones, covertly watching Uncle and his family as if they had become
very interesting personages. Presently one moved to a seat a little
nearer, and both apparently became absorbed in their own affairs.
"But maybe I should beg pardon, Mister. I've been talking to you all
this time without introducing myself. I know it isn't just the thing, but
I'm not used to sassiety. I'm Jeremiah Jones, and what is your name?"
"My name is Hezekiah Moses," said the traveling man, solemnly.
"Ah," remarked Uncle, warmly, "that sounds a right smart like a Jew
name, but you don't look like a Jew. I Judge your parents were very
good people."
"They were very pious people, and, of course, brought me up in the

way I should go. You have quite a charming family."
"There now, I knew you had good judgments and I am glad for you to
say so. Of course me and Sarah are too old to be charming and Johnny
is too bad, but I take no exceptions to Fanny."
Mr. Moses thoroughly agreed with Uncle on the latter observation.
"Johnny is all right but only last week he was training one of my Jersey
calves to walk a plank like he saw the lions In the circus and it fell off
and broke its neck and that was not a month after it had took the prize
at our county fair. And, after I had took him atween my knees and
talked to him about his responsibility to his Creator, he didn't wait two
days till he cut off the colt's tail so as to make it bobbed like the British
and it kicked and broke its leg on the cross bar. But I do believe he's
got the making of a man in him after all. I think he must be like his
father, though I never seed him. You see Mary she run off to marry
some man she fell in with when she went off to school, and I forbid her
letting him come to see her, for you see he might be some city fortune
hunter; but Mary said she knowed, and so one day when we went to
town somebody drove up to our house in a buggy and I never seed her
any more. I didn't think she ought to take that way to somebody I didn't
know. I must have been hard hearted them days, but somehow I
couldn't help it. Sarah she went to see them lots of times over in the big
town across in Ohio but I couldn't leave Indiana and when Johnny was
born Mary she died a senden good words to me but I couldn't help it."
The old man drew his sleeve across his