Read Online The White City by John Claude Bemis - Free Book Online

his pocket and took out a dollar. “That’ll help, I hope,” he said, handing it to Redfeather.
    “Thank you, sir,” Redfeather said. He slid the bill in his pocket.
    “Nothing to it,” the farmer said, climbing back into the wagon’s bench and driving the mules out into the busy thoroughfare.
    A cable car rattled noisily past them. Conker looked around at the others. “Well, let’s go.”
    After about an hour of walking, they joined the crowd headed east on Fifty-Ninth Street. Signs everywhere announced rooms for rent and twenty-five-cent meals. Redfeather bartered with a stableman to get Atsila housed, and after casting a worrisome glance back at the stables, he came back to the others. Soon, with the noon sun beating down, they found themselves at the Midway’s entrance.
    “What are we looking for?” Conker asked as they waited in the long line to enter.
    “The building will have to be huge,” Redfeather said. “To house all that machinery they were building and all those workers.”
    “I just hope Gigi is all right,” Marisol whispered.
    “Fifty cents each,” the attendant said. Marisol handed over the coins, and they passed through the gates to the Midway.
    The long street leading down the Midway bustled with excited visitors. Jostled by laughing children and parasol-wielding ladies and neat-mustached gentlemen, the four walked with dumbfounded amazement.
    Their medicine show had been nothing compared to the entertainment offered here. One moment they were walking through a picturesque Bavarian village with beer gardens, brass bands, and a grand town hall, the next they were in Cairo with towering mosques, belly dancers, and shouting vendors. A ruined Irish castle sat beside a long slide inexplicably made ofsnow. Masked Javanese hunters in grass huts were between a great tiled swimming pool full of raucous bathers and a colorful Japanese market.
    Above the temples and coliseums and mock hamlets rose an enormous mechanical wheel, nearly three hundred feet tall. Conker kept his eyes cautiously on the monstrous wheel, fearing it would break off at any moment and roll down the Midway, crushing people in its wake.
    “Look.” Marisol pointed up. “There are people riding in that wheel!”
    “How big are those cabins?” Redfeather gasped.
    “Looks like railcars,” Conker said.
    A dapper young man in a white suit turned to them with amusement. “First time to the fair?” he asked.
    Si glared at him suspiciously, but Marisol nodded with a smile.
    “That’s Mister Ferris’s wheel,” the young man explained. “Built it to rival Eiffel’s tower in Paris. He’s done it and more, hasn’t he? A swell sight, don’t you think?”
    “It’s remarkable,” Marisol said. “Have you toured all the Expo?”
    The man laughed. “I don’t think anyone could see it all in a lifetime.”
    “There’s more than this?” Redfeather asked.
    “Sure there’s more,” he said. “This is just the Midway. Keep going and you’ll be in the White City.”
    “The White City?” Marisol asked.
    “That’s what they call it, on account of nearly all the buildings being white. You’ll think you’re in Athens or Rome or somewhere. There’s hundreds of buildings.”
    Conker felt his stomach sinking. Hundreds of buildings …
    “We’re looking for a friend of ours who works here,” Marisol explained.
    “Well, what exhibit does he work for?” the man asked, his eyes dancing over Marisol’s and Redfeather’s outfits and up to Conker and down to Si.
    “We’re not sure what it’s called,” Redfeather said. “But they built the display in a factory down in Kansas and loaded all this machinery for it on trains just a few weeks ago.”
    “Hmm …” The young man ran his finger thoughtfully along his sporting mustache. “I suppose it could be the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building. That’s the largest. You can’t miss it, all the way down on the lakefront. But there’s also the Palace of Mechanic