The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair | Page 9

daily landscape of stubble-field, orchard
and straight country roads. His experience had taught him that a red
two-story hay press was a big building. To him the huddle of huckster
stands at the county fair made a pretty lively spectacle. Then he was
rushed into Chicago. With the roar of wheels still in his ears and the

points of the compass hopelessly mixed, he found himself being fed
into the Exposition gate with a lot of strange people. The magnitude of
the great enterprise was more than any intellect could fully grasp. His
mind perceived so much that was strange and new that he became as
that one who saw men as trees walking. His eyes were opened to a new
world. He was now a living part of the intellectual vision and prophecy
of the "Dream City."

CHAPTER III
AROUND THE WORLD FOR TWENTY CENTS
The next day, when the "Alley L" road let them off at the station next
to the electric road, they decided to ride around and view the "White
City" from that elevated position. The intramural road is about three
miles around, and makes the trip in seventeen minutes. It was like
going around the world in that time, so much was to be seen on either
side.
The four made a fine picture of age and youth gathering mental breadth
from this great exhibition of human wisdom and achievement. They
passed around the west end of Machinery hall and along the south side
of it, then between the Agricultural annex and the stock pavilion. Here
they emerged into what seemed to be the waste yard of the Exposition,
debris of all kinds, beer houses, lunch rooms, hundreds of windmills
flying in the breeze and heavily loaded cars, back of which could be
seen bonfires of waste materials, these making a striking contrast to the
white beauty and massive art on the opposite side of the car.
The queer looking Forestry building flew by, the leather exhibit was
passed, and the train ran around a station not far from the Krupp gun
works. They had not yet made the grand tour of the grounds, but
another investment in tickets sent them back again, the way they had
come, on the parallel track. When they reached the west side they
looked away from the massive buildings across Stony Island avenue at
the amusing medley of hotels, booths for lunches, and tents for blue

snakes, sea monsters, and fat women strung along the front. Little
merry-go-rounds buzzed like tops in cramped corners between pine
lemonade stands and cheap shooting-galleries. Looking eastward, the
eye rests with satisfaction upon the gilded satin of the Administration
dome, and then it may take an observation to the westward of a
flaunting placard:
|-------------------------| | Four Tintypes | | for Twenty-five Cents |
|-------------------------|
Back of the sandwich counters and fortune-telling booths are stored the
World's Fair hotels, looking like overgrown store boxes, with holes
punched in them.
The train flew on, and uncle saw little of the outside because of his
interest in the strange machinery that was propelling them forward. The
engineer pulled a lever and then there was a buzz and a whirr; another
lever was turned, and the car would come to a standstill at some station.
It was amazing to see such simple movements by one man control such
unseen energy. From the farm to the Exposition grounds was as
marvelous a change as from one world to another, and to the simple
genius of rural work it was like going from the peaceful valley to the
mysteries beyond the clouds.
Past the Esquimau village, the richly varied city of state and foreign
buildings came into view. All the varieties of architectural genius from
the different countries of the world appeared one after another and it
was easy to imagine a flight of incredible speed all over the earth. The
terminal station at the northeast was reached and uncle wanted to ride
back again. In this way the panorama of the great Fair was quite well
fixed in their minds when they descended from the southeast station at
the entrance of Agricultural hall. For once Uncle felt at home when he
walked into that paradise of grass and grain.
[Illustration: "HE STOOD CHEWING A WISP OF HAY."]
"Every body but me and Sarah can scatter and we'll all meet at the far
end of this house, or if not there at the south side of the Sixty-third

street gate at six o'clock." Fanny and Johnny took Uncle at his word
and were soon strolling among the booths, but they were more intent
upon watching the maneuvers of the various types of people than of
observing what the earth is able to produce out of its soil. They heard a