Martha Finley - Elsie's Journey on Inland Waters

After her return from the trip across the lake with the bridal party, the Dolphin lay at anchor near the White City for a week or more; there were so many interesting and beautiful exhibits at the Fair still unseen by them that Captain Raymond, his family, and guests scarce knew how to tear themselves away.

At the breakfast table on the morning after their arrival, they, as usual, considered together the question where the day should be spent. It was soon evident that they were not all of one mind, some preferring a visit to one building, some to another.

"I should like nothing better than to spend some hours in the Art Palace, examining paintings and statuary," said Violet, "and I have an idea that mamma would enjoy doing the same," looking enquiringly at her mother as she finished her sentence.

"In which you are quite right," responded Grandma Elsie. "There is nothing I enjoy more than pictures and statuary such as may be found there."

"And I am sure your father and I can echo that sentiment," remarked Mrs. Dinsmore, with a smiling glance at her husband.

"Very true, my dear," he said.

"Then that is where we shall go," said the captain.

"That includes your four children, I suppose, papa?" remarked Lucilla, half enquiringly, half in assertion.

"Unless one or more of them should prefer to remain at home – here on the yacht," he replied. "How about that, Neddie, my boy?"

"Oh, papa, I don't want to stay here! Please let me go with you and mamma," exclaimed the little fellow, with a look of mingled alarm and entreaty.

"You certainly shall, if you want to, my son," returned his father. "I am happy to say that my little boy has been very good and given no unnecessary trouble in visiting the Fair thus far. And I can say the same of my little Elsie and her older sisters also," he added, with an affectionate look from one to another.

"Thank you, papa," said Lucilla and Grace, the latter adding, "I think it would be strange indeed should we ever intentionally and willingly give trouble to such a father as ours."

"I don't intend ever to do that," said little Elsie earnestly, and with a loving upward look into her father's face.

"I am glad to hear it, dear child," he returned, with an appreciative smile.

"I, too," said her mother. "Well, we will make quite a party, even if all the rest choose to go elsewhere."

The Art Palace was a very beautiful building of brick and steel; its style of architecture Ionic of the most classic and refined type. It was very large: 320 feet wide by 500 feet in length, with an eastern and western annex, a grand nave and transept 160 feet wide and 70 feet high intersecting it, and that surmounted by a dome very high and wide, and having upon its apex a winged figure of Victory.

From this dome the central section was flooded with light, and here was a grand collection of sculpture and paintings, in which every civilized nation was represented, the number of pieces shown being nearly twenty-five thousand. It was the largest art exhibition ever made in the history of the world.

It was not strange, therefore, that though our friends had been in the building more than once before, they still found an abundance of fine works of art which were well worth attentive study, and as entirely new to them as though they had been but just placed there.

Little Elsie was particularly attracted, and her curiosity was excited by an oil painting among the French exhibits of Joan of Arc listening to the voices.

"Is there a story to it?" she asked of her grandma, who stood nearest to her at the moment.

"Yes, dear; and if you want to hear it, I shall tell it to you when we go back to the Dolphin ," was the kindly rejoinder, and the child, knowing that Grandma Elsie's promises were sure to be kept, said no more at the moment, but waited patiently until the appointed time.

As usual, she and Neddie were ready for a rest sooner than the older people, and were taken back to the yacht by their father, Grandma Elsie and Grace accompanying them, saying that they, too, were weary enough to enjoy sitting down with the little folks for an hour or so.

"Oh, I'm glad grandma's going too!" cried Ned, and Elsie added, with a joyous look, "So am I, grandma, but I'm very sorry you are tired."

"Do not let that trouble you, dearest," returned Mrs. Travilla, with a loving smile. "You know if I were not tired I should miss the enjoyment of resting."

"And there is enjoyment in that," remarked the captain; "yet I regret, mother, that your strength is not sufficient to enable you to see and enjoy all the beautiful sights here, which we may never again have an opportunity to behold."

"Well, captain, one cannot have everything in this world," returned Grandma Elsie, with a contented little laugh, "and it is a real enjoyment to me to sit on the deck of the Dolphin with my dear little grandchildren about me, and entertain them with such stories as will both interest and instruct them."

"Oh, are you going to tell us the story of that picture I asked you about, grandma?" queried little Elsie, with a look of delight.

"What picture was that?" asked her father, who had not heard what passed between the lady and the child while gazing together upon Maillart's painting.

Mrs. Travilla explained, adding, "I suppose you have no objection to my redeeming my promise?"

"Oh, no! not at all; it is a historical story, and I do not see that it can do them any harm to hear it, sadly as it ends."

They had reached the yacht while talking, and presently were on board and comfortably seated underneath the awning on the deck. Then the captain left them, and Grandma Elsie, noting the look of eager expectancy on little Elsie's face, at once began the coveted tale.

"The story I am about to tell you," she said, "is of things done and suffered more than four hundred years ago. At that time there was war between the English and French. The King of England, not satisfied with his own dominions, wanted France also and claimed it because his mother was the daughter of a former French king; so he sent an army across the Channel into France to force the French to take him for their king, instead of their own monarch."

"Didn't the French people want to have the English king to be theirs too, grandma?" asked Elsie.

"No, indeed! and so a long, long war followed, and a great many of both the French and English were killed.

"At that time there was a young peasant girl named Joan, a modest, industrious, pious girl, who loved her country and was distressed over the dreadful war going on in it. She longed to help to drive the English away; but it did not seem as if she – a girl of fifteen, who could neither read nor write, though she could sew and spin and work out in the fields and gardens – could do anything to help to rid her dear land of the invaders. But she thought a great deal about it and at length imagined that she heard heavenly voices calling to her to go and fight for her king."

"And that was the picture that we saw to-day, grandma?" asked Elsie. "But it wasn't really true?"

"No, dear; probably Joan of Arc, as she is called, really imagined she heard them, and the painter has imagined how they might have looked."

"Then it isn't real," remarked the little girl, in a tone of disappointment.

"No, not what the picture represents; but the story of what poor Joan of Arc, or the Maid of Orleans, as she is often called, thought and did is true. When she told her story of the voices speaking to her no one believed it; they thought she was crazy. But she was not discouraged. She went to her king, or rather the dauphin, for he had not been crowned, and told her story to him and his council – that God had revealed to her that the French troops would succeed in driving the enemy away from the city of Orleans, which they were besieging at that time.