The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs

C. M. (Charles Mcclellan) Stevens

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• Publié par: muchag
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 40
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family
at the Great Fair, by Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair
Their Observations and Triumphs
Author: Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
Release Date: December 26, 2006 [EBook #20184]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE JEREMIAH ***
Produced by David Edwards, Verity White and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)
Transcriber's note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.[Pg 1]
THE PASTIME SERIES—Issued monthly. By subscription, $8.00 per annum. No. 108. June, 1893, Entered at
Chicago P. O. as second-class matter.
Chicago
LAIRD & LEE, Publishers
1893
[Pg 2]
"Apples, pears, bananas, sweet oranges."[Pg 3] The Adventures
OF
UNCLE JEREMIAH
AND FAMILY
AT THE
Great Fair
Their Observations and Triumphs
By "Quondam"
With Sixty Illustrations
Chicago
LAIRD & LEE. Publishers
1898
[Pg 4]
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY LAIRD & LEE
(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)[Pg 5] To
UNCLE JEREMIAH AND FAMILY
And to
All those Interested
in the
WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION
This Book
Is Respectfully Dedicated
[Pg 6] CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. On the Way 7
II. Now for the Fair 20
Around the World for Twenty
III. 33
Cents
IV. Escort and Body Guard 38
V. Columbia Avenue 51
VI. Dancers of the Great City 63
VII. On Board the "Illinois" 76
VIII. La Rabida 87
IX. The Plaisance Prophecy 102
X. Plaisance Society 113
XI. A Startling Mystery 128
XII. Beauty Show 137
XIII. Sunday and Conscience 148
XIV. Sight-seeing Galore 163
XV. A Terrible Experience 174
XVI. To Buy a Dog 183
XVII. Cairo Street 194
XVIII. Uncle in the Lock-up 205
XIX. The Lost Found 220[Pg 7]
UNCLE JEREMIAH AND
FAMILY
AT THE GREAT FAIR
CHAPTER I
ON THE WAY
"Apples, pears, bananas, sweet oranges, five cents apiece."
"Last call for dinner in the dining car."
"Ah! this is comfortable," soliloquised Uncle Jeremiah. "All the nations of the
earth contribute to our appetites, and millions are spent to transport us
comfortably. Going to the World's Fair with Mary's two children, me and Sarah.
Say, stranger, what time do you think we'll arrive?"
"In about two hours if we are on time, but so many people are crowding on, that
I doubt if we can get there before six o'clock."
Uncle Jeremiah had addressed his question to a good-natured appearing
young man just behind him who had been ostensibly reading a newspaper but
really covertly watching with admiring glances Uncle Jeremiah's grand-
daughter Fanny as she replaced the fragments of a lunch back into the basket.
Uncle was in a communicative mood for he had just disposed of his share of
one of Aunt Sarah's admirable lunches and squared himself round, as he
[Pg 8] called it, to talk with some one. Johnny was busy investigating a hole in the
seat cushion and Aunt Sarah had laid her head against the window frame and
was calmly viewing the flying scenery outside. The two seats turned together
were occupied by Uncle Jeremiah and his family and a number of bundles and
valises.
"Yes, this is a great country; and, as I have lived in it nigh onto sixty year and fit
for it without seeing much of it but what I tramped over with Sherman to the sea,
I concluded to take the whole world in at once by spending a month or so at the
Exposition. I told Sarah we'd take Mary's two children along, for I didn't like to
leave them so long with our hired help. Then they'd be company for us. Mary
was our girl, but she's dead now, and so Johnny and Fanny must take her
place. Me and Sarah has worked hard for many a year, and we're going to
enjoy this trip ef it takes more 'n a dozen of my best Jerseys to foot the bill.
We've got the best farm and Jersey herd in Park County, and I've made up my
mind that we can afford it."
The stranger laid down his paper and seemed much interested in the talking
farmer and 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 andturned 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.
[Pg 9] "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."
[Pg 10] "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 eyes and continued, "You see Mary's
man was all broke down, and he told Sarah to take the children and he'd go
wandering around the world for a year or two. Mary was the only child we had
living, and when she died I wanted to move away from where she used to play
[Pg 11] when she was a little girl, so in two years I got a good offer, and I sold o