breeze was fanning their faces: this breeze was laden with some strangely sweet perfume both soothing and stimulating to the senses. The air all about them seemed to vibrate with the distant melody of some angelic music, now sinking, now swelling in perfect harmony; so soft, so clear, so bright, so inspiring in its wealth of tone and joyous movement.
"Ah! Miss Fenwick," said Fillmore Flagg, "my senses are all entranced! Your wonderful fairies in this grotto of magic are at this moment thrilling my being with sensations of the most intense delight! How can the Fairy Queen explain? What has she been doing with her magical wand to produce such delicious perfume; such entrancing music?"
Fern's merry laugh rang out musically clear, and her eyes sparkled roguishly as she replied: "I assure you Mr. Flagg, that in this instance the fairies are not responsible. The explanation is quite simple but rather long. Therefore let us move forward while I give you the details: As we were stepping down on this graveled walk, I turned the switch and started the ventilating fans, at the same time connecting the electric current with a series of melophones located near the top of the arches. Along the ventilating tubes, in a series of small compartments, are sponges saturated with different kinds of perfume. These sponges can be exposed to the air current or withdrawn at will, yielding a single perfume or a blending of as many kinds as one may wish. The wonderful variety of these choice blendings, which can be so easily produced, affords a constant succession of sweet surprises. The melophones which you hear, represent the highest achievement of art in the production of automatic musical instruments. This set is the most complete and the most expensive one in existence. In construction and final completion they cost the inventor and maker three years of constant thought and labor. The result is truly marvellous. The perfection of harmony and purity of tone are convincing testimonials of their excellence. In operation these instruments are placed in a very large double tube made from a peculiar kind of metallic alloy recently discovered, which affords the most perfect conditions for the conservation and conductivity of all musical vibrations. They are capable of producing an almost endless variety of choice music. The selection which we hear at this time, is one which I have re-named 'The Carol of the Ferns.' Pardon me, Mr. Flagg, if in my enthusiasm over the beauties of what you have so poetically termed my 'magical temple of ferns,' some of my statements should sound like boasting; I assure you they are not so intended. I trust that now I have cleared up the mystery to your perfect satisfaction."
"Charmingly," said Fillmore Flagg, "Nevertheless my fairyland illusions still abide with me; I confess I am still under the spell of the great happiness they have given to me—I shall never forget it. The truth in this case proves even stranger than fiction; I quite agree with you that in all the wide world there is nothing like this! It seems to me that those extraordinary melophones yield the finest music I have ever heard. In sweetness and purity of tone, softness and wealth of harmony, which is pervaded by some electric quality of inspiration, so stirring, so thrilling that every nerve and every cell in the body responds. They stand unrivaled as the very acme of musical art. I now understand why your lovely home here should be named 'Fairy Fern Cottage.' I fully appreciate the significance of the title. This royal temple of ferns makes the name most fittingly appropriate, and easily ranks this cottage as the eighth wonder of the world! The fame of its rare beauty should be known in every land. You ought to be very proud of it. I assure you, Miss Fenwick, that you are abundantly justified in praising it enthusiastically at all times, without fear of being considered egotistical. But tell me, if I may be permitted to ask, who was the wonderful genius who first conceived and planned the building of this imposing line of arches? So useful, so ornamental, so unique, yet so perfectly adapted as a summer and a winter home for your ferns and flowers and, withal, offering such a perfect title to your unrivaled cottage home."
"Thank you, Mr. Flagg, for that question. In my reply I am eager to pay a deserved tribute to the dearest and noblest of men—my father. Inspired by his love for me, his brilliant mind conceived the entire plan and purpose of this curiously novel structure. He succeeded in completing it and also in filling it with the original collection of ferns, without my knowledge. On the morning of my fifteenth birthday, he brought me here to bestow upon me this priceless gift. The surprise was a perfect one. When he made me understand that he gave with it a deed to the cottage and grounds, the surprise became so intense that it fairly took my breath away. I was so overjoyed that by turns I laughed, and cried, and hugged papa, until I came very near to having a genuine fit of hysteria! At that time we changed the name of the house to Fairy Fern Cottage. This is why I am so proud and so fond of my cottage home. This is why I appreciate your praise of it so much—why I am so thankful for it. I feel sure that you will now appreciate my sincerity when I repeat that money could not buy it!"
CHAPTER IX.
THE PROBLEM VS. A GOOD MAN WHO IS AS RICH AS HE IS NOBLE.
After supper Fern Fenwick and Fillmore Flagg returned to the tower room for the continuation of the story. She began by saying:
"Let us return to my father's mining operations in Alaska. In 1892, Dewitt C. Dunbar assumed the active management of the Martina mine. A large proportion of my father's surplus capital from the mine had been invested, through trusty agents, in the cities of San Francisco, Saint Paul, Chicago, Washington and New York. We at once planned a tour of travel that would give him the opportunity to personally inspect these investments, and at the same time give me a chance to see the world, and to mingle in society, or so much of it as a continuous hotel life might offer.
"For my mother and myself this delightful tour was one long holiday. We enjoyed it so much. To me especially, it proved exceedingly profitable; geographically speaking, my ideas of the largeness of the world, and the vast number of its people, were wonderfully expanded. In December, 1893, father completed his investments by the purchase of a winter home in the city of Washington, and this summer home here. This cottage was built in the year 1900.
"During the summer of 1894 we visited the brothers and sisters of my father, who were at that time living with their families on farms in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. As was generally the rule, with a large class of farmers in those states at that time, we found them, with but few exceptions, poor, in debt, and very much discouraged by the menacing outlook for the future. Farm interests everywhere were in a desperate condition. A succession of twenty years of falling prices for all farm products, accompanied by frequent calamities, such as hail storms, hurricanes, hot, blighting winds, drouth and armies of grasshoppers, had so multiplied and magnified the farm debts, and so reduced the value of farm, stock, and product, that even the interest on the indebtedness could no longer be kept up; ruin and beggary threatened the entire community of farmers. Under the severe pressure of these conditions, great numbers of the more unfortunate abandoned their farms in despair and sought employment elsewhere, mostly in manufacturing centres and the large eastern cities. Much of the money and wealth of the land had flown to those points, thither logically, they followed, to enter the ranks of that vast army of competitors for the crumbs that might fall from the table of an already glutted labor mart; to learn by bitter experience how cruelly the system of competition in all kinds of business can grind the helpless poor; to learn, through years of suffering, the real meaning of competition, that so long as it rules over commercial and industrial systems, the rich must grow richer and fewer in number, while the poor must grow poorer, and more and more numerous; to apprehend, slowly and painfully, that by coming from farm to city they had still farther congested the already overstocked labor market, thereby adding fierceness to the competition, insuring an increase in the purchasing power of the dollars of those who held the labor market, while they correspondingly decreased the possibilities for earning the dollars they must have in order to live; to perceive dimly in their desperation, that congestion of the labor market speedily affected all markets; that an
