“Because the railroads needed time they could count on.” Ted couldn’t help feeling a bit proud that he knew something Emily didn’t. “It used to be that towns could have whatever time they wanted. Wisconsin had thirty-eight different times.”
“All for the same hour and minute?” Emily asked.
Ted nodded.
“That must have been confusing.”
“The railroads needed to be able to tell what time it was easily so the trains would arrive when people expected and to prevent accidents. But the whole country couldn’t have the same time.”
“Why?”
“Because the earth rotates. That means the sun rises earlier on the East Coast than on the West Coast. So the railroad people decided to have four different time zones in the United States to make travel easier. That was ten years ago.”
“What time will it be in Seattle when we reach Chicago tomorrow morning?” Emily asked.
“Four forty-five.”
Emily laughed. “That seems silly, but I guess it’s no sillier than having thirty-eight times in one state for the same minute!”
After a couple hours, Ted grew tired of watching the small towns go past. He pulled his leather bag down from the brass bars above the seat and dug out a book.
“That’s a good idea,” Emily said. “I brought a book, too. I’m reading David Copperfield. What are you reading?”
“Swiss Family Robinson.” It was an exciting story, but Ted found himself looking out the window every few minutes anyway. When twilight faded into night, he was amazed at how huge the sky looked and how bright the stars shone away from the city.
The conductor lighted lamps inside the car. It was time to get ready for bed. Porters pulled down sections of the walls and made them into beds. The children used a tiny room at the back of the car to wash their faces and slip into their bed clothes.
Ted crawled into the berth above Emily’s. He reached to shut the curtains that hid his bed from other people in the car.
“This is the most fun I ever had going to bed,” Emily whispered as she closed her own curtains.
Ted didn’t think he’d be able to sleep on the train, but he did. Soon, Aunt Marcia was waking him.
After using the small room to dress, wash, and comb his hair, he joined the others in the dining car for breakfast. Excitement spilled through him, though he tried not to show it. In just a couple hours, they’d be in Chicago!
CHAPTER 7
At the Fair
Wow! The fair is as big as a town!” Ted peered out the window of the cigar-shaped car. “This was a good idea you had, Ted,” his uncle Daniel said from the seat across the aisle. “This train is built high enough so we can see all the buildings. It goes around the entire fairground. We’ll be able to decide what to see first when we’re done.”
Ted grinned. “I wish Father could see this train. A train that travels on runners over water instead of on wheels over railroad tracks!”
Emily turned from the window. “Do you remember the Pledge of Allegiance, Ted?”
Ted nodded. Together they put their hands over their hearts and repeated: “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Aunt Marcia’s eyebrows met in curiosity. “What is that verse?”
“It’s the Pledge of Allegiance, Mother,” Emily told her eagerly. “Our teacher taught it to us. She said that the day the World’s Fair was dedicated last October, all the schoolchildren in the United States were going to say that pledge. That way, all of us had part in the World’s Fair, even those children who don’t get to come like we do.”
“Now we say it every day,” Ted told her.
The train started, and the children immediately forgot about the pledge. They were too busy pointing out all the wonders they saw from the window—including Lake Michigan.
“Are you certain it’s a lake?” Aunt Marcia teased. “It looks more like an ocean. I’ve never been to a lake where I couldn’t see the opposite shore!”
After the train had been around the entire fair, Ted said, “Let’s go to the Transportation Building first. I promised Father I’d go. It’s right by one of the train stations, so we wouldn’t have to walk far.”
Everyone agreed. “Though I don’t know what could be displayed in the Transportation Building that could be more exciting or newer than this water train,” Uncle Daniel told Ted.
Richard was studying a large paper. “This says the building covers eighteen acres.”
“Oh, my!” Anna looked down at her shoes with their pointed toes and groaned. “We’re just starting, and my feet are already tired at the thought of all that walking.”
Inside the huge building, the group went from exhibit to exhibit. One showed how railroad steam engines had been invented in the early 1800s and had changed over the years.
“Look at this train,” Emily called to the others. “The cars look like stagecoaches!”
Richard pointed to the engine. “The engineer is standing at the back of the engine, and there isn’t any cab. Your father wouldn’t like that during a snowstorm, Ted!”
“He sure wouldn’t,” Ted agreed. He read a sign by the display. “‘This is a replica of the first railroad train in America, 1831, on Hudson and Mohawk line from Albany, New York, to Utica, New York.’ Wow!”
“Wow!” Ted said again a few exhibits further. “New York Central’s Engine No. 999!”
Emily gave a puzzled frown. “What’s so special about it?”
Ted gaped at her. “What’s so special? It only goes one hundred miles an hour!”
“Nothing goes one hundred miles an hour, Theodore Kerr!”
“This does,” her father said, reading the signs beside the huge engine.
Ted leaned against the brass railing that kept the engine and visitors apart. “I wish I could touch it. Look at all that polished steel. It sure looks modern.”
Emily tipped her head to one side, her brown curls spilling over her shoulder. “I like the colorful, painted engines like we see in Minneapolis better.”
“Not me.” Ted shook his head. “I think it’s exciting to see things that are new.”
Trains filled most of the Transportation Building—old trains and new ones. Ted and the Allertons saw most of them, and it took most of their morning to do so.
After the last train, Anna sat down on a step and rubbed her ankle. “I wish we could ride one of these trains through the building!”
Ted thought the last exhibit was the strangest. “An automobile. It only carries a couple people. Why would anyone need one of these when they could hire a carriage?”
Uncle Daniel shook his head. “I think this will be nothing but a toy for rich people.”
Ted nodded solemnly.
“Let’s visit the Agricultural Building next,” Uncle Daniel suggested as they left the Transportation Building.
Emily groaned. “Must we, Father? Farming exhibits don’t sound like much fun.”
“Farming is important in Minnesota,” her father said. “We need to see what Minnesota is telling the world about it.”
“First, let’s find something to eat,” Aunt Marcia said, “or we won’t have strength to see any more exhibits.”
There was a restaurant right on the way to the Agricultural Building. Ted had never been so glad to see food!
When he was done eating, Richard studied his map of the fair. “The Agricultural Building is built on the Grand Basin. The view of the basin is supposed to be beautiful.” He was right. When the basin came into view, they all stopped dead in their tracks.
“The White City,” Aunt Marcia said in a low voice filled with wonder.
Emily seemed to be trying to see everything at once. “Did they really build all these buildings just for the fair?” “Yes,” Richard told her, “and all the fair buildings that aren’t on the basin, too.”
The basin was about a third of a mile long. The buildings along it
were covered with fake white rock and marble. The noon sunshine glistened off the buildings, making them shine.
Huge white pillars stretched across the opposite end of the basin. In the middle of them was an opening where small boats could float out into the harbor of Lake Michigan.
But right in front of them was Ted’s favorite place on the basin: the Columbian Fountain, the largest fountain he’d ever seen. In the middle was a barge with four oarsmen on each side and a man operating a rudder in the rear. In the front was an angel-like creature with a trumpet. All around them were smaller statues of people and horses.
Ted leaned close to Emily and whispered, “I’d sure like to wade out in that fountain and climb up on one of those horses!”
Emily’s face lit up with mischief. “Wouldn’t that be fun? It would feel good, too. The sun is hot.”
They didn’t stay in the sunshine long. The Agricultural Building faced the basin and was almost as long as the basin itself. Soon they were inside.
Threshers, mowing machines, and other important farm machinery filled the bottom floor. Ted and Emily soon tired of them and went upstairs.
“I wish we could see something more exciting than this old ag building,” Ted grumbled.
Emily yanked on his sleeve and pointed. “Look! It’s the big flour mill from Minneapolis!”
Sure enough, there was a complete model of the Washburn-Crosby flour mill. Small flour barrels formed a barrier between visitors and the model. Ted and Emily went right up to the barrels so they could see as much as possible.
“It’s just like the real thing.” Emily’s voice was filled with excitement. “All the company’s mills and elevators are here.”
“And their warehouses,” Ted added, “and even the railroad tracks that run by the mills to carry grain to them and flour away when the grain is milled.”
“Just think. Everyone who comes to the fair from everywhere else in the country—from all over the world, even—will see a piece of our own city.”
Ted lifted his nose and sniffed. “It smells like fresh baked bread.”
They followed their noses to the next exhibit. A mill made flour while visitors watched. Beside it, women in dresses covered with neat white aprons made bread. Ted’s mouth watered at the golden loaves they pulled from the ovens. When visitors were offered samples, he and Emily eagerly accepted. It seemed hours since they’d had lunch.
A boy about their age with curly blond hair and a round chin stood beside Ted. He helped himself to a sample, too. Ted noticed the boy carried his threadbare jacket over his arm.
Ted and Emily ambled along the aisle. A man passed them wearing a jacket heavy with braid and a tiny hat with a strap under his chin.
“He looks like he’s wearing a band uniform,” Emily said with a laugh.
“He’s one of the Columbian Guard,” Ted explained. “That’s what they call the fair police.” “Hey, lemme go!”
At the yell, they whirled around. The boy they’d seen a couple minutes ago was yelling. The policeman had one of the boy’s arms in a tight grip. In the other, the policeman held a camera.
“No pictures allowed,” the policeman said firmly. “That’s the rule.”
“Lemme go!” the boy yelled again. The policeman dragged him, kicking and screaming, down the aisle past Ted and Emily. “I ain’t hurtin’ nothin’!”
Why is the boy being arrested? Ted wondered. He’d only tried to take a picture of the miniature mill. Ted tried to forget the incident as he and Emily continued down the aisle.
A young woman at another exhibit was handing out samples. “Would you like to try our cereal?” she asked the cousins.
Ted frowned. “I thought cereal was oatmeal.”
“This is a new kind of cereal,” the woman told him. “It’s called Shredded Wheat.”
Emily looked into the small bowl the woman held out to them and made a face. “It looks like straw.”
“Taste it,” the woman urged.
Emily shook her head back and forth so quickly her curls flew beneath her straw sailor hat.
“You aren’t going to be a chicken, are you?” asked a tall young man beside them.
Ted reached out slowly and took a small piece. “How is it?” Emily asked. “Not bad. It’s crunchy.”
“With milk, it turns soft,” the woman told them. “And sugar makes it sweeter, just as it does oatmeal. This cereal will save housewives time because it doesn’t need to be cooked.”
Emily grinned. “But it’s not warm like oatmeal. I like warm cereal on a cold Minnesota morning.”
“Then you would like our other new cereal, Cream of Wheat,” the woman said. She spooned some into a small bowl from a pot on the stove behind her, added a little sugar, and handed it to Emily along with a spoon.
Emily hesitated.
“Chicken?” Ted asked, teasing.
Emily’s chin shot up. “I guess if you could try something, I can, too.” She spooned a tiny bit of the creamy white mixture and blew on the spoon to cool it. Taking a deep breath, she popped the spoonful into her mouth and swallowed it quickly.
“Why, it’s good!”
Ted and the woman laughed at her surprise.
But their favorite new food was a few exhibits away: a new sweet called Juicy Fruit Gum.
“Too bad we can’t have this for breakfast!” Ted said to Emily as they walked away, chewing it.
A minute later, Emily’s family joined them. Ted and Emily told them about the boy who had been arrested.
“There are only a couple men who can take pictures at the fair,” Uncle Daniel explained. “They paid a fee for the right. If people want pictures, they have to buy them from those men. Even newspapers and magazines can’t take pictures. That’s why the boy was arrested.”
“I guess I understand,” Ted said slowly, “but it doesn’t seem fair.
The boy was only our age.”
“We’ve seen enough for one day,” Uncle Daniel said.
“It’s almost dinnertime. Let’s catch a beach cart back to the hotel.”
Disappointment swamped Ted. There was still so much to see!
But when they walked out onto the boardwalk that separated the fair from Lake Michigan, he forgot to be disappointed. Here was a magnificent lake that put the ten thousand lakes of Minnesota to shame. The cool breeze off the lake felt good after the hot summer sun that had beaten down on the concrete walks.
In an inlet, three wooden ships bobbed. They looked very old, but small. “What are those ships?” Emily asked.
Richard knew the answer. “They are copies of the three ships Columbus brought over in 1492: the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta. They were built in Spain.”
“I wouldn’t want to cross the ocean in these ships,” Ted said. “They’re small!”
Ted remembered that the real name of this World’s Fair was “The Columbian Exhibition.” The fair had been dedicated in the fall of 1892, even though the buildings didn’t open until the next spring. It was named after Columbus, who had reached America four hundred years earlier.
“I guess that boy should have taken pictures of Lake Michigan instead of the mill,” Emily said to Ted in a sad voice.
Ted nodded.
CHAPTER 8
Mr. Edison Arrives
Be sure to act like a young lady today,” Mother admonished Emily the next morning as they entered the fairgrounds. Emily rolled her eyes. “No one here knows us, so I don’t see why it matters how I act.”
“Many important people from all over the world are visiting the fair,” Father reminded her. “You never know when one of them might be standing beside you.” “Yes, Father,” Emily said quietly.
He’s right, Ted thought, remembering some of the important fair visitors they’d read about in the newspapers. Even a princess from Spain had come.
“Electricity Hall is the first place we’ll visit today,” Uncle Daniel said.
“Hurrah!” Ted grinned. “There’s lots of things I want to
see there.”
Electricity Hall was much lighter than the buildings they’d visited the day before. The electric lights at the exhibits, along with the huge windows and skylights, made the building bright.
In the middle of the downstairs display area, General Electric had built the Tower of Light, designed by Thomas Edison. Pillars taller than people surrounded the tower’s base. The tower was covered with five thousand lightbulbs blinking on and off. On top of the tower was an eight-foot model lightbulb made of tiny prisms that reflected the light and made the light seem even brighter than it was.
“Have you ever seen so many lightbulbs?” Aunt Marcia asked, staring up at the tower, which reached almost to the ceiling.
“Mercy!” Anna shielded her eyes. “It’s so bright I can barely look at it!”
“The tower is seventy feet high,” Richard said. It seemed to Ted that Richard knew more facts about the fair than the rest of them put together.
“Oh!” Emily pointed past the nearby exhibits. “Look, Ted! That must be the Egyptian Temple!” She darted up the wide aisle toward the temple.
“Emily Marie Allerton!” Mother’s voice was sharp with anger but not loud enough for Emily to hear. Emily was already halfway to the temple.
Ted knew Aunt Marcia was too much of a lady to yell at Emily in public. It wasn’t considered proper.
“I’ll catch her, Aunt Marcia,” he said, “and remind her not to run.” He walked as fast as he could.
Emily was standing in the doorway, looking at the strange hieroglyphics that bordered the doorway. Of course, it wasn’t a real temple, but it was interesting.
Ted liked the pillars inside the temple. They glowed with green light. The only other light came from the window displays.
Emily shivered. “Those lights make the room look strange—kind of … eerie.”
Ted thought so, too, but he still liked them.
When the rest of their group joined them, Aunt Marcia and
Anna weren’t nearly as impressed. “I think it’s creepy,” Anna said and walked away.
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