An Afternoon at the Exposition Oct. 1893

         Vividly I remember that afternoon in Jackson Park. I strolled quietly along, glancing over the exhibits at the Columbian Exposition. Now late in October, the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893  had been open to public view  for five months. I slowed to pass time till my rendezvous in Hyde Park near the University. At two of the afternoon  my married love and I would meet at a café,  and spend the afternoon in reminiscences and hopeful plans until  time came for his return to the family homestead.

         Between exhibition buildings I pulled my leghorn hat lower over my brow to protect my gracious complexion, and to conceal my face should Barry’s children be lurking around with their nanny, Priscilla. Midway across the exhibition Mall I spotted the children- all four, but the Nanny was not their guide.  Rather, they gamboled in the company of their mother, the notorious Lelah Stanhope Ramsbottom herself: the enigma of my nightmares, the bete noir of my daydream hopes.

         I rushed around the corner of the nearest exhibition hall,  till on the far side I stopped to catch my breath and realised I had raced away for naught. Lelah would not have recognised me, nor would the children.  A few moments of cautious breaths and the opportunity to ponder indicated that I might have been more obvious by my sudden flight; so I turned back in the direction from which I had just fled, and approached the building on the opposite side of the Mall.

         Music issued forth, introductory notes, and as I paused again to listen, I heard children singing:

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

         Oh! It was the commemmoration of the two schoolteachers from Louisville, who had penned this song for their kindergarten to sing each morning. The cold, clear children’s voices raised in song aroused speculation in my own heart; would there ever be children of my own to sing-the product of Barry and I? If only—

         Tears swiped at my eyelashes as I turned from the Hall and faced away, lest I encounter once again those four products of Barry’s current life, the reasons he claimed to hold back the flood of his utmost love for me. Quickly I made for Hyde Park and the Loomis Café, where my lover would await me with that special glow and that shine in his beloved eyes when I appeared in sight.

*

         Barry indeed awaited me at the café, in our favourite table near the corner bay. But his customary glow and shine were absent; instead, he bore a frown and a downturned glance when I entered the café. What could be wrong? Oh, surely I had not been spotted-but no, Lelah did not know of my existence. But something was amiss; my love could not even match my gaze.

“Abagale! We’re finished. My wife-“
“Lelah is expecting. And so, too, is Priscilla.”