Dorothy's Tour Part 25

The clerk just handed me your letter as I came into the hotel, for we just arrived in Chicago. I was very glad to hear from you.

Most of all, I want to thank you so very much for those flowers. They were just beautiful, and it pleased me so, to think of your remembering that we were to have the concert, and then sending those flowers to me by telegraph.

The President was at the concert, and in the intermission we went to his box, spoke to him, and shook hands with him. I carried your flowers with me all the time.

I am going to rest for a while after I write this letter, as we give a concert here to-night at the Auditorium.

The members of the company that joined us at Was.h.i.+ngton are very fine. There is a trio, and their singing is exquisite; also a Miss Winters, who is a wonderful dancer. She fairly floats about the stage, and makes a very pretty picture.

The whole company is very good, indeed, and I guess we are doing very well, judging from the applause we earn. Mr.

Ludlow seems pleased with the finances. You know Mr.

Dauntrey takes care of those and helps Mr. Ludlow in general. Although the latter is very considerate and helpful, I don't know just why it is, but there is something I don't quite like about him. He is so very handsome that most girls, including Ruth, are raving about him.

We have a few busy days. A concert every night and train by day. We go from here to St. Louis, and then to the Coast. I am anxious to get to San Francisco. I want to look up that old house there on the bluff that we had that year we took Aunt Betty there for her health when Monty Sharp was with us. Do you remember, Jim?

I am so sorry about that locket, but I know that you will find it, and then we can clear up the whole affair.

And so you think that perhaps Mr. Van Zandt will find out all about poor little Lem's parents just from that sampler that Alfy found in the attic? I do so hope so.

Aunt Betty and Alfy, I know, would wish to be remembered, if they knew I was writing, so I will send their love anyway.

Now, isn't this a nice, long, newsy letter?

I have to practice a little now, so I will stop.

I am yours, as ever,

DOROTHY.

She read the letter she had just written over again, and then sealed it. She then opened the door, stepped into the hall and dropped it into the mail box chute near the elevator. Then she returned to the room to dress and rest before the concert.

In a little while Alfy entered and found her dressing.

"See what I have been doing," she said, gayly, holding up the dresses she had just finished pressing so that Dorothy could see and admire them.

"You dear girl," commented Dorothy, going over and kissing her. "You are always doing something for me. Thank you, dear, for pressing my dress. Doesn't it look nice now?--like new again."

"Is there anything else that you would like to have pressed, now that I am working?" Alfy inquired.

"Why, there is that blue waist that I have been wearing in the train.

It is very mussy," added Dorothy, "but if you are in a hurry, don't bother with it; I really can get along without it."

"Give it to me," responded Alfy. "I just love ironing, and will have it done in no time. I might as well press mine while I am about it, too." And taking Dorothy's waist from her, she quickly found her own, and started off with them.

The girls were soon ready, and then went down the stair with Mrs.

Calvert.

Mr. Ludlow called for Dorothy at seven o'clock that evening, and they started for the Auditorium.

The stage, this time, was decorated with huge bunches of chrysanthemums, and large green palms that hung their great, fan-like leaves in a regular bower effect over the stage, making a very effective background for the performance. The programs here were, of course, inside much like the Was.h.i.+ngton ones, but this time the cover was of heavy, dark brown manila paper, embossed into a large dull gold chrysanthemum, and tied with a yellow ribbon bow at the top end. They were very pretty and effective.

The committee of ladies that had charge of selling the seats here in Chicago had arranged to have the programs sold. They had selected ten very pretty and charming debutantes, and had provided them with pretty little dainty satin bags, with yellow chrysanthemums handpainted on them. These bags were hung over their shoulders by yellow ribbons. The whole effect was very pretty and artistic. The girls were to charge twenty-five cents for the programs, and the money they slipped into a little pocket in the bag which held them.

During the intermission, most of the people retired to the cosy little tea-room in front of the place, where cool and refres.h.i.+ng drinks as well as ice creams and ices were served at a moderately low fee.

There the girls met many charming Chicago people, and the committee of ladies made it very pleasant for them by introducing them to almost everyone. A most informal and successful evening, they all agreed they had spent.

The next day was Sunday, and as a few of their number were visiting friends in Chicago, the rest of them decided to spend the day sight-seeing.

The trio, for so they were always called by the rest, all had gone to visit relatives, and little Miss Winter had promised to visit a friend who lived in a suburb of the city. So the rest of the company felt quite lost, and thought the best way to amuse themselves in this large, strange city was to go sight-seeing and become acquainted with it.

"Did you know," said Mr. Ludlow as the little party started out on a tour of the city, "that Chicago is especially famous for its highly developed and extensive boulevard systems and parks? The public parks cover an area of over four thousand acres and are being added to every year."

"Yes," responded Mrs. Calvert, "and the great boulevards of the city encircle the metropolis and connect parks and squares. These great roads, splendidly paved and shaded by trees, and lined with ornamental lamp posts, are throughout the year favorite highways for the automobilists."

About ten minutes' walk from the hotel brought them to Grant Park on the lake front. There the Art Inst.i.tute attracted their attention, and they found the building open.

"The center of art interests in Chicago is located here," said Mr.

Ludlow. "This building contains the Museum of Fine Arts and the School of Design. Its collections and the building and its work are entirely conducted on voluntary subscriptions."

"I have heard that the Art School here is the largest one in America,"

said Mrs. Calvert.

They visited the various rooms in the museum, including the Hall collection of casts of ancient and modern sculpture, and the Higinbotham collection of Naples bronzes, the rooms containing French sculpture and musical instruments, scarabaeae, Egyptian antiques, Greek vases of gla.s.s and terra-cotta, and found all very interesting.

They then visited Blackstone Hall, containing the great Blackstone collection of architectural casts chiefly from French subjects. Then the paintings of George Inness. These canvases are so diverse and representative that it is highly improbable that another equally significant group of works by Inness will ever come into market again.

From the north side of Grant Park and extending south to Garfield boulevard near Was.h.i.+ngton Park is Michigan Boulevard. This historic drive, part of which was once an Indian trail, is a main artery of automobile travel from the lake front hotel districts to the south parks.

The party then took a surface car to Jackson Park, which was a short distance. It was the site of the world's Columbian Exposition.

"The Field Museum of Natural History was the Fine Arts Building in the Exposition of 1893," said Mr. Ludlow. "Let's visit that part first."

This museum was established soon after the close of the world's Columbian Exposition, and occupies one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the whole exposition group covering two acres.

The building is cla.s.sic Greek in style, constructed with brick and steel, covered with ornamental stucco, in imitation of marble.

Marshall Field, whose name the inst.i.tution perpetuates, was the person who made the building possible by his generosity. He gave about one and a half million dollars. Then at his death in 1906, he left the inst.i.tution eight million dollars, one-half for endowment, and the other half for a magnificent permanent building, worthy of the unrivaled scientific collections which it contains.

The nucleus of the material now on view was gathered by gift and purchase from exhibitions at the World's Columbian Exposition.

From here they walked to the Wooded Island, an interesting feature of which is the Cahokia Court House, reputed to be the oldest public building in the whole Mississippi valley.

It was built, it is said, about the year 1716, at Cahokia, Illinois, and has served in various public capacities. At different periods it was employed for both civil and military purposes, and is recognized as the oldest county seat building (Saint Clair County, Illinois) in the original Northwest Territory.

The building is constructed of squared walnut logs, set on end in the early French manner of stockade construction, the logs being held together with wooden pins. Three flags, French, English and American, float from the flagstaff of the Old Cahokia Court House, daily.

Within the building are a number of photographs of the original doc.u.ments which pertain to its interesting history.

The j.a.panese buildings, representing three periods of j.a.panese history, remain in their original site at the north end of Wooded Island, and near them is a tiny garden in formal j.a.panese style.