Chapter 7

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_ CHAPTER VII

Aunt Tryphena come in to make up our room whilst we wuz argyin' about it. She come earlier than common, for she said she wuz goin' herself to the Fair that day and take Dotie, who hadn't been at all. I told her it would be a job to take care of a child in that big crowd.

But she said, "I'd rather take care of Miss Dotie than to eat any time. And as for the crowd it wuz nothin' to crowds she'd been in when she lived in Paris with Miss Louise and Prince Arthur. She had took him when he wuz a little boy to the Boy Bolony and the Champin Eliza when there wuz millions of folks there." She wuz always talking of Prince Arthur, which I fancied wuz a pet name for a child, and still given to the young man she wuz constantly talkin' about through her pride and love for him.

Aunt Tryphena wuz from slave parentage, but she had always lived in white families since a child, so she had little of the peculiar dialect of her race. But she wuz black as the Founder of Evil himself, tall and thin with a mighty head of wool white as snow, which she covered with a yellow turban about her work. She had abnormal powers of falsehood, not for profit or to make trouble, but jest simple lying for lie's sake. The most incredible stories she would string off, and nothing pleased Billy more than to git her to goin', as he called it.

He would call our attention silently and reach behind her when she wuz about her work and turn an imaginary crank in her back, and then in the same pantomime would jump back as if in fear of the fatal power he'd invoked, but would wickedly delight in the endless stream of talk let forth, occasionally asking a few questions, enough to keep her going. She would lean on top of her broom and tell of her former adventures thrilling enough and lengthy enough to fill a dozen lives. But everything had happened to her personally, very few noted people but she had seen and been on intimate terms with, very few far distant countries but what she had visited, "Santered through," as she termed it.

In a fine disregard for geography she would tell of stepping from Chicago over to the Phillippines, and so on to London and then to Europe. She detailed many adventures in Paris and described places that made us think that she had some time lived there. She said she went there with Miss Louise and her son, Prince Arthur, when he wuz little, as his nurse. And she described him as having all the virtues of his sex with none of its frailties. She said she had his picture which she would show us some day. She described his mother as a "proud piece," almost putting her down on a level with "poor white trash," which wuz the deepest depth her plummet of contumely could reach. And she described her as holding her son by her apron string, as she termed it.

She said he had been home this summer on bizness down South and had come to see her, which Billy said wuz true, a very handsome and elegant young gentleman having called twice to see his old nurse during the spring and summer.

She said he come to see her on his arrival at St. Louis on some bizness connected with the Fair, and then he santered off to Saratoga for a few weeks, and then on to ole Virginny and New Zealand, and then back to St. Louis to attend to his bizness agin about the Fair. She said he wuz pale and sad the last time she see him, and she mistrusted his ma had been cuttin' up. She sez:

"You know she _lacks_." That wuz Aunt Tryphena's greatest condemnation to say folks lacked. She never told what they lacked, but left it to the imagination of the hearer; from her expression you would imagine they lacked all the cardinal virtues and them that wuzn't cardinal. She said his ma wuz sick and kep' the Prince right under her feet, and he'd gone back now to be with her leaving St. Louis only a week or so before we come.

Bein' asked why she left Miss Louise she wuz more reticent, only remarking that after Prince Arthur went to college she wanted a change, so she had strolled over to South America, and from there to Asia and so on to Chicago where she wuz hired as nurse to Miss Dotie, and when her ma died and the child wuz taken by its great-aunt, Miss Huff, she had been willing to help the latter through the Exposition, for she wuz a nice woman and didn't lack.

But we could see that her real reason wuz to be with the child--faithful creeter she wuz, though queer, queer as they make. And to see the little creature's white snow and rose face resting lovingly and confidingly aginst the black cheeks, you knew that Aunt Tryphena had good in her. Little children are good detectives, like the sun that photographs hidden virtues and failings in the human face, so a child's intuition brought from the heaven they have so lately left, takes the best impressions of a person's real character. Children and animals live so near Nature's heart they can detect real diamonds from the false, no paste glitter can deceive 'em. Aunt Pheeny had qualities, or Dotie wouldn't have loved her so well, and I felt it a great compliment that she seemed to like me.

Well, as observed heretofore we had took a hefty job that day, and we proceeded first to the Educational Buildin'. It wuz a noble lookin' structure with a row of snowy pillows all 'round it; a good many think it is the handsomest buildin' on the Fair ground, and as I said to Josiah, it ort to be considerin' the greatness and importance of the work it displays, for our free schools, our educational advantages, are the pride and glory of our country.

"Yes, Samantha," sez he, "I hearn a man say yesterday education wuz the very bull work of our country, meanin' you know, Samantha, it wuz strong as a bull."

"Oh, you hain't got it jest right, Josiah, bulwark don't mean jest that, but you've got the sperit of it," I hastened to say, for he don't love to be corrected.

And here in this buildin' we see everything relating to schools from kindergarten to university, training schools, where children wuz to work, schools for the blind, deaf and dumb in operation; the work of labratories going on before you; departments in drawing, music, agricultural colleges; experiment stations, forestry, engineering schools and institutions, libraries, museums, education of the Indian and negro, evening industrial schools, business and commercial schools, people's institutes, and every way and manner of mind training. Photograph, charts, maps, and not only all our own educational exhibits, but England, France, Germany, Russia, China, and in short all the foreign countries.

We stayed a good while there and I would have loved to stay longer, but Josiah got worrisome and wanted to go on to Electricity Buildin' which wuz next in our programmy. And here I took more solid comfort than in any place I'd been, beholdin' the marvelous works wrought by the greatest discovery of the ages. That wonderful Force that has power to overcome space, save or slay. It is intelligent, can talk over the ocean and under it, talk with wires, and if a wire hain't handy it will take a beam of light and talk on that, and it can git along without either one, for here is the biggest wireless telegraph station ever built; visitors can talk on it from city and city, jest throwin' their words out into the air and this onseen agency carries 'em along to the one sent to and nobody else--wonderful hain't it? Wonderful to meditate on the great onseen forces all about us, mysterious viewless shapes, nigh to us, helpin' us, journeyin' on errents of mercy to and fro on paths we can't see, leadin' up and down from star to star from heaven to earth mebby.

And curious, hain't it, that the noble and ardent discoverers who have tried to git friendly with them Great Forces and introduce 'em to the world have been called ignorant and pagan, when if these scoffers knowed it there is no paganism or ignorance to be compared to that of bigotry and intolerance.

And we see there dynamos of all kinds, motors, storage batteries, all sorts of power machines. Electric railway equipments of every kind, telephone stations for talking with wires and without 'em, all kinds of electric lighting, arc lamps, electro-chemical displays. And in one place they show the way Niagara wuz made to yield up her resistless power to work for mankind. Labratories for all sorts of electrical exhibits and research work. Electricity purifying water, making it safe to drink, wuz one of its best exhibits.

There wuz everything there it wuz possible to show in electricity and magnetism, not only in our own country, but the work and discoveries of all the foreign countries in this most interestin' of fields.

There is another wireless telegraph and telephone station in the Model City that we visited another time. You walk into this room and you don't hear anything more than the ordinary noise the big crowd makes passin' to and fro. And the air about you don't seem any different from jest plain Jonesville air. Your human eyes and ears can't discover any difference.

But you jest take up a receiver and put it to your ear and lo, and behold the atmosphere all about you is full of voices, near and fur off, strains of music. It's a sight.

And I sez to Josiah, "Who knows but some happy soul some happy day may discover the secret of _seeing_? Who knows what divine visitors are this minute coming and going over these onseen routes connecting our souls with distant ones, connecting one land to another, one planet to another like as not."

And growin' some eloquent, I kep' on, "We don't hear the sound of their footsteps lighter and more noiseless than the down of a blossom, shod as they are with the softness of silence. We don't hear the rustle of their garments, woven of frabic [sic] lighter than air. We can't see their tender faces no more than we can see the sweet breath of the rose. If they lay their tender hands on our foreheads they rest there so light and tender we fancy it is only a breath of air touchin' our fevered brows bringing a sudden rest and comfort.

"If they speak to us when we're tired out and heartbroken we hear their voices only in our souls that are suddenly and strangely consoled. If their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. But sometime, somewhere, some happy soul may see and comprehend what we now faintly apprehend."

Josiah whispered, "Samantha Allen, do you realize what you're doin'? You're attractin' attention and makin' talk, come along! this is no time for eppisodin', if there ever _is_ a right time."

And bein' brung down to earth agin I found to my great surprise I wuz sayin' this out loud entirely unbeknown to myself. And I follered my pardner out of the buildin'.

But to resoom backwards. We thought we would go from the Palace of Electricity to that of Transportation, and I feelin' real tired thought I would take a chair a spell (eloquence is tuckerin' specially when you're walkin' afoot), and I proposed that we should all take chairs for a spell. But Josiah said he didn't want any chair, and Blandina of course follered suit and said she felt jest like Uncle Josiah, she wouldn't set down if she could.

But I sez, "Well, I think I will take one," and Josiah ruther onwillin'ly said he would git one for me, and sez he, "I'll see how much the man will throw off if I push the chair myself."

Sez I, "The man wouldn't trust a perfect stranger with a chair."

Then Josiah wondered if he couldn't borry the loan of a wheelbarru that would hold me up. He could trundle me along as well as not.

Sez I, "I shall not enter the Palace of Transportation, Josiah Allen, in a wheelbarrow."

"Well, I could probable git in Machinery Hall a pair of big castors and fix 'em onto your shoes, and Blandina and I could push you 'round like a buro. What do you think of that?" sez he anxiously.

"I shall not enter into any such operation!" sez I. "How it would look!"

"I d'no as it would look so dretful, you standin' up straight and easy, and Blandina and I pushin' you along, and 'tennyrate I guess it would look as well as bein' throwed onto the town! chairs cost like the old Harry."

Sez I, "Don't worry, I shall pay with my own butter money." And so I did, and rid to Transportation Buildin' with Josiah and Blandina walkin' by my side. We entered one of its sixty doors, and the first thing we sot our eyes on up in plain sight, but fur ahead wuz the wheels of a great locomotive weighin' more than two hundred thousand pounds, revolvin' 'round in dizzy speed. They said it went by compressed air, another wonder, jest common air that you could dip up in your hand and not think you had anything in it, and yet if managed right had power enough to turn all the machinery we see goin'. Around this monster engine wuz electric head-lights throwin' dazzlin' beams in every direction. The hull thing well named, the Spirit of the Twentieth Century. And all 'round it wuz grouped models showing the development of the inventor's dream from the first rough effort at an engine up to the most perfect specimen of to-day. All sorts of electrical railways, freight and work cars, tracks, switches, signals, carriages, ortomobiles, motor vehicles, naval architecture, models, boats, steamships, men-of-war, battleships of the line.

Exhibits of all sorts, illustrating inland transportation in India, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and every other foreign country. You could see to once that there wuz ways enough to travel, and if you stayed to home it wuz your own fault.

Well, we went from there to Machinery Buildin', that bein' writ down next on my pad. But as we walked along, I considerable riz up in my mind, owin' to what I'd seen, who should we come acrost but the widder Whisher of Loontown, a woman we knew well. She wuz settin' on a bench cryin' as if her heart would break, and I sez:

"Why, sister Whisher, what is the matter?" (She wuz sister in the meetin' house.)

She had a paper in her hand and held it out to us, "Jest see that! I found it in the pocket of my innocent boy!" pintin' to a coat layin' by her.

"Why," sez I, "that paper is took more than any other almost; I like it myself first-rate, its editorials are the brightest and smartest you'll find anywhere."

"Oh, but it is so sensational! so vulgar, so demoralizin' to the tender and innocent heart of youth. And to think that my spotless child that I have guarded so sedgously from every breath of evil should have it concealed in his pocket. I have always burnt every copy I've found." And agin she sobbed, and agin I sez:

"Sister Whisher, don't take it so to heart; he'll have to weather worst storms than this on the sea of life. And you can't expect to be with him always and stand to the hellum."

"Oh, but Reginald Heber is so innocent, so pure-hearted; almost an angel," sez she, "I have been so afraid that he wuz too perfect for this sinful world!" And her tears flowed afresh.

Well, I see I couldn't plug up this flowin' fountain of tears with sympathy or reason, so we mogged along. Widder Whisher wuz always kinder soft and she'd made a perfect idol of Reginald, who wuzn't any better than common children so fur as I could see.

And after goin' a few steps, Josiah and I in advance, Blandina a little in our rears, who should we see comin' directly towards us but Reginald Heber himself. He evidently didn't notice who we wuz, but wuz merely takin' note of a new victim, for after takin' fair aim at my stomach he bent his head down and went, "Choo, choo!--choo, choo!" like a engine and run towards me at full speed, and bunted his round shingled head right into my stomach with almost the force of an arrer shot out of a catamount, yellin' all the while like a demon.

"Git out of the way, you old four-eyed devil you!"

Makin' light of my spectacles, I spoze, though truly I wuz too weak to reason. After doublin' me up in agony he sought safety in flight. But my indignant pardner ketched him by his little short-tailed coat and dragged him back to his ma, hollerin' at her:

"I'll give you a specimen of your innocent boy! He's jest the kind of an innocent angel I'd love to take a hemlock shingle to, and would, if it wuzn't for makin' talk." And he told the hull thing before I could interfere.

She wept afresh, but sez she, lookin' at the whimperin' and strugglin' Reginald H., "How soon the demoralizin' effects of that paper shows----"

But Josiah continued on in that same loud axent, his liniment red as blood with anger, "If I had your darling to deal with a spell, there would be a change in him, or a funeral appinted, and the body would be ready at the time sot, I can tell you that!"

Josiah wuz fearful excited and by the side of himself. Such voylent language is almost a perfect stranger to him, but he feared for my bones. But I found after walkin' 'round a spell that they wuz intact, but the pain in my stomach hung about me all day, and that night, no matter how high my standin' wuz in the W.C.T.U., I had to take a peppermint sling.

But to resoom backward. Machinery Buildin' wuz an immense beautiful palace. And when I tell you its contents are valued at eight millions you won't expect me to disscribe the hull on 'em, no, it hain't reasonable. When we entered we see the first thing a engine of over fifty thousand horse-power.

Now, jest think on't, a one horse-power hain't to be despised. Why, I've thought our old mair power when she wuz hitched onto a bob sled wuz powerful. But jest think of fifty thousand horse-power. Why, if they wuz hitched in front of each other with lines about the usual length, the line would reach more than a hundred miles. Why, the very idee is staggerin' to the intellect.

But, there it was right there before our eyes grindin' out power to run this monster Exposition, and not complainin' or needin' the whip as the fifty thousand horses would, only jest knucklin' down stiddy to the work, groanin' considerable loud, and who blames it. And you could see everything in the line of engines from the little half horse-power gas engine, about half the mair's strength, about cow power, mebby, and from this up to a steam turbin of eight thousand horse-power, a rotary steam engine. And in the Belgian exhibit wuz a gas engine of three thousand horse-power, a common sized horse can be driv through its cylinders, it takes about thirty tons of coal a day to run it. And there wuz a big French steam engine turnin' three hundred and thirty times a minute. And there wuz a great hydraulic press from Germany that exerts the terrific pressure of ninety thousand pounds to the square inch--what would it be to the yard? My brain hain't powerful enough to tackle the idee.

Well, there wuz every kind of machinery in the world from all the foreign countries as well as ours, and the methods of making and running them. And we stayed there till my head seemed to turn 'round and 'round, and I told my pardner I must git out into the open air or I should begin to turn 'round and revolve in spite of me. I spoze I did look bad, and Josiah said we would go and have lunch. He said there wuz a caff right 'round the corner, as he pronounced cafe it sounded like a young cow. But the idee wuz good, and after we eat quite a good meal and rested a little we started to tackle Agricultural Buildin' which wuz writ next on my pad.

It wuz quite a journey there, in fact, as I've said before, you have to walk a long distance to git anywhere, but jest before we got there we see sunthin' that made us forgit for the moment our achin' limbs. On the side of a slopin' hill at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, that lead up to the north entrance of Agricultural Hall is the most wonderful clock that wuz ever seen on this globe, and I don't believe they've got anything to beat it in Mars or Saturn.

I can't give you much idee of it by writin', nobody can, but I can probably describe it so you can see it goes ahead of your own clock on the kitchen wall or mantelry piece. To begin with how long do you spoze the minute hand is? The minute hand on our clock is about three inches long, and the minute hand to this is fifty feet long, and its face is about three hundred feet 'round and all made of the most beautiful posies.

Why, the figures that mark the hours are fifteen feet long, most three times as long as my pardner, if he lay flat as a pan-cake to be measured by a pole, jest think of that and these figgers are all made of bright colored foliage plants. The ornaments 'round the face of the clock is a border of twenty-five different plants, each one fifteen feet wide. Some different from the ornamental wreath 'round our clock face, that hain't more'n half an inch wide, if it is that. Our clock has a picture underneath of old Time with his scythe a mowin' down the hours and minutes as his nater his. And I told Josiah how beautiful and symbolical it wuz to think old Time had laid down his scythe for a spell, and wuz measurin' off the hours here in this Fairy Land with beautiful posies.

And Josiah said, "The hours ort to be marked here with canes and crutches," he said his legs ached like the toothache.

The distances are awful and I couldn't deny it, and you do git tuckered out, but then, as I told Josiah, jest think what you're tuckered for.

And he said, "When you're as dead as a door-nail he didn't know what good some steeples and flags wuz goin' to do you, or floral clocks." I mistrusted he'd walked too fur lately, and had strained the cords of his legs, and his patience too much, though the last-named wuz easy hurt and always wuz.

But Josiah took out his watch and looked at it and said he'd promised to meet a man on important bizness, and he'd meet us at a certain spot in Agricultural Hall in jest one hour.

I asked him what bizness it wuz, and he hesitated a little and said as he hurried away that it wuz "Bizness connected with the meetin' house," and I asked him "What meetin' house?" and he didn't answer me, he wuz walkin' off so fast--_mebby_ he didn't hear me.

Well, Blandina and I stayed lookin' at this wonderful clock for some time, and she said that the man that invented this clock wuz a powerful genius and how she did wish she could meet him. She said such a man needed a kind and lovin' companion to take every care offen him and pet him and make of him.

The machinery of this clock, what makes it go, is up above a little ways on the hill in a small pavilion. There are glass doors, and you can look in and see the works of the clock. A great bell there strikes off the hours and quarter hours, and there is a big hour-glass there too. One thousand electric lights light it up at night so folks can see day or night jest how time is passin' away.

Agricultural Building is the largest on the ground. The two palaces of Agriculture and Horticulture stand up on a beautiful hill surrounded by orchards, gardens, vineyards, shrubs, vines of all sorts. This outside exhibit covers fifty acres. There are beautiful lakes full of the rarest aquatic plants, from the great Egyptian lotus, whose leaves are large and strong enough to hold up a good-sized child, and all kinds of smaller plants, but jest as beautiful; indeed, there is everything rare and lovely in that display that ever grew in water or on land, and they make it one of the most beautiful places of the hull Exposition.

The enormous display outside and inside covers seventy acres, and every inch on 'em beautiful and instructive. The twenty acres covered by Agricultural Hall contains everything relating to the soil and its cultivation, everything that Mother Earth gives to man, all the tools, implements of every kind used in agriculture, ploughs, reapers, mowers, threshers, etc., run by horse-power, steam or electricity.

Among the ploughs we see a small old-fashioned one made of wood, used by Daniel Webster when he wuz a poor farmer boy. Workin' hard at his humble work but his boyish mind, most probable, sot on sunthin' fur above, lookin' at the hard soil ahead on him that he must break up, with them wonderful, sad, eloquent eyes of hisen, and seein' visions, no doubt, and dreamin' dreams. Callin' out to his oxen or horses, "gee," or "whoa" as the case might be, and they not sensin' the fact that this voice wuz goin' to give utterance to silver-tongued, heart thrillin' eloquence in the highest places of Europe and his native land.

As I looked at it pensively I pictured the tired boy holdin' the onhandy handles of the plow and trudgin' along behind his team through the long sultry days, and thought to myself, what hopes and dreams and ambitions wuz turned over by that old plow as well as green-sward.

Right by that little plow wuz a big powerful one that went by electricity. A sight that would probable looked as strange to Daniel, could it have appeared to him then, as any of his wildest day-dreams materilized.

And there wuz all the methods of irrigation, draining, engines, wind-mills, pumps, farm wagons, all kinds of fruit, sugar canes, vegetable sugar, candy stores, confectionery displays, vegetables of all kinds that wuz ever hearn on, some on 'em of such monster size that you never dremp on 'em, unless it wuz in a night-mair. _

Read next: Chapter 8

Read previous: Chapter 6

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