Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/215

Rh them to find a name for it with a beautiful sound.

"But it is something," Meg had said; "and it's a great huge thing whether we care for it or not. That it isn't the thing we care for doesn't make it any less. We should be fools if we thought that, of course. And you know we're not fools, Rob."

"No," Rob had said, standing gazing at rakes and harrows with his brows knit and his legs pretty wide apart. "And if there's one thing that shows human beings can do what they set their minds to, it's this place. Why, they used to thresh wheat with flails—two pieces of wood hooked together. They banged the wheat on the barn floor—with things like that! I'll tell you what—as soon as a man gets any sense he begins to make machines. He bangs at things with his brain, instead of with his arms and legs."

And in the end they had called it the Palace of the Genie of the Earth and the Seasons and the Sun. They walked manfully by John Holt through the place, Robin leading the way, until they came to the particular exhibit where he had caught sight of Aunt Matilda. Being a business-like and thorough person, she was still there, though she had left the steam-plough and directed her attention to a side-delivery