The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair | Page 8

believe I'll go
over and offer them my old barlow knife. It's a score of years old but
it'll bore a hole for a hame string all right yet."
They came to the place where they were making watches with the
complex, automatic machinery that defies the eye to detect its
movements, then there was the sewing machine with a man riding it
like a bicycle and sewing carpet in strips a hundred feet long. There
were knitting machines and clothing machines, and carving and
molding machines, and type-setting machines, till the day was spent
and they had seen only how much there was to see.
"It takes taste to paint pictures, and art to make sculpture, and mind to
write books, and genius to carry on war, but I tell you, my girl," said

Uncle, "that it takes brains to make machinery."
Passing through a south door they went on around Machinery hall.
Some working men were passing by singly or in twos and threes. One
had a wrench in one hand and a queer looking bottle in the other. The
ludicrous side of the exposition now began to appear. Nothing can
become so great that amusing things will not occur. They are the
relaxations of mental life. One of the guards saw the man and his
bottle.
"Hi, there," he shouted. The workman came to a stop, the bottle being
ostensibly concealed behind his apron. "What are you bringing beer
into machinery hall for?"
"I ain't got any beer," replied the workman.
"Don't tell me any such stuff. You've got a bottle under your apron."
[Illustration: "The Guard was determined to do his duty."]
"No I haven't," and the culprit as if by accident let a portion of the
bottle drop into sight. The guard made a grab for it and held it up
before the seemingly confused workman.
"I'll just take you to the station-house," declared the officer. "What did
you mean by telling me you had no beer?"
"It ain't beer. It's--it's--ginger ale."
The prisoner was lying. That was evident to the guard. At the same
time he did not want to be placed in the position of disobeying orders
against making trivial arrests. He knew by the color of the liquid it was
not ginger ale. A brilliant thought came to him. He would test the beer
and thus have the evidence. But here a difficulty was encountered.
While the rule prohibiting employees from bringing intoxicants into the
grounds is a strict one, there is a much severer regulation against guards
tasting the stuff while on duty. What if his sergeant should see him with
a bottle of beer to his lips! To meet this obstacle the guard led his

prisoner to a secluded place behind a big packing case, and after
looking fearfully around hastily uncorked the bottle and sent a huge
swallow of the contents down his throat.
The result was unexpected so far as the blue coat was concerned. With
a howl of anguish he dropped the bottle. Both eyes started from his
head and his face turned to ashen paleness as he danced about the floor
shrieking "I am poisoned." Finally he sank down with a moan and the
men attracted by his cries carried him to a bench and laid him down.
On the edge of the human circle about him the guard beheld the face of
his prisoner. Beckoning him to his side the guard feebly said, "What
was that stuff in the bottle?"
"Lard oil and naphtha," replied the workman.
The guard was removed to the hospital, while the workmen were
laughing their heartiest. In an hour the stricken officer was back at his
post.
That afternoon, as the family climbed the stairs to the station on their
way back to the hotel, Uncle Jeremiah was a study to the student of
human nature. The size of the Exposition had dazed and awed him. He
wore a neat paper collar with an old-fashioned ready-made necktie
pushed under the points. The slouch hat was down over his ears, as a
heavy wind was tearing across the high landing. His manner was that of
one oppressed by a great sorrow. He looked at the turrets and domes
and the hundreds of dancing flags and shook his head solemnly. When
the people around him gabbled and pointed their fingers and piled up
the same old adjectives he glanced around at them timidly and then
stepped softly away where he could gaze without being interrupted.
After boarding the car he stood up between the seats and held on to the
railing. At each curve of the track, as new visions swung into view, he
shook his head again and again, but said nothing. He had been for a
good many years taking in a