3
Isaac Hanson took another headcount of his eighth-grade students, then handed out the tickets as they stood in line. It was Children’s Day at the exposition. He knew most of the class had been looking forward to this day all year. The expo was all anyone could talk about. There were rides and entertainments as well as the educational things that Isaac intended to show them.
“Everyone listen, please.” His group went silent, but everyone around them continued to talk. The students leaned in to better hear. “We will spend the first half of the day focused on learning. At noon we will have lunch near the bandstand, and after that, you will have two hours to do whatever you please. But you must stay with your assigned buddy, and you must meet back right here by the gates at three o’clock. Does everyone understand?”
The class of students nodded, although by now they were all bored with waiting. Isaac smiled. “Very well, let us go.”
The class was well behaved. After all, the principal had arranged for these summer forays, and they came with a warning: if anyone acted out of line, they would suffer asuspension when the new school year started. Given this class was about to pass into high school, they were on their best behavior.
They went first to the Natural Amphitheatre on the opposite side of the expo grounds, where seventeen hundred children from various schools sang patriotic songs while accompanied by the official expo band. After a time, the band duties were given over to the Japanese naval band and the children sang the Japanese national anthem in English. At the end of speeches given by school officials, the children who had been dressed in red, white, and blue formed a human flag and the American national anthem was sung.
After this, Isaac led the children to some of the exhibits. He had come the day before to get a feel of what would be most beneficial and studied up on what he might say to each of the groups he would escort in the weeks to come.
Just before noon they ended at Ezra Meeker’s house. “Who can tell me about Mr. Meeker’s contribution to our great state?”
No one seemed to want to be bothered, but finally one young man raised his hand.
“Yes, Thomas?” Isaac smiled. “What can you tell us?”
“Mr. Meeker is worried about the Oregon Trail disappearing. He wants to preserve it for future generations by retracing it and leaving markers.”
“Why does he feel so strongly about this?” Isaac asked the group. No one volunteered the information, so Isaac continued. “Ezra Meeker was an Oregon Trail immigrant who came to Washington determined to make his fortune, which he did and then lost it. He has been very supportive of Washington State, promoting it wherever and wheneverhe could. He even went to Alaska to search for gold, so he definitely deserves to be represented here at the expo.”
The children already had their minds on lunch, as well as the many attractions there on the South Pay Streak area of the expo.
“Does everyone have their lunch money?” Isaac asked.
They all seemed to be set, and Isaac decided that even though it was ten till twelve, he’d let them go early. “All right, everyone listen and listen well. You can get your food and come and sit as a group by the bandstand if you like. If you prefer to eat at one of the restaurants, that’s all right too.
“You know where the main gate is—the place where we entered the expo. And if you don’t know how to get back to it, ask any expo official and they’ll be able to point it out. Meet me there at exactly three o’clock. We’ll be catching our trolley right after that, and if you get left behind, you will suffer suspension.”
The students all appeared to comprehend the gravity of the situation and agreed to the arrangement. Isaac released them, and they disappeared so fast he wondered if they’d ever really been there. Even the girls were quick to get away, and almost always one or two lingered behind to ask him silly questions because they fancied themselves in love with him.
He wondered if he got the university teaching position if things would be any better. Girls could certainly be a silly bunch. He wondered why they couldn’t all be as stable and considerate as Addie Bryant had been.
Thinking of Addie always brought him both pleasure and pain. He had been in love with her since he was seventeen. They had promised each other they’d marry after he got hisdoctorate, but things hadn’t worked out the way Isaac had hoped.
He had only been in the Yukon because his father wanted to take up a large stock of store goods and set up a shop for a year. He felt they could cash in on the hard work of the miners and provide what they needed. Then after a year, they would return to the States richer and better able to send Isaac to Harvard, where he intended to study history and teaching. He wanted to one day teach at a university level. Teaching children was all right, but he wanted, even at the age of seventeen, to converse with students who could be taught to become real thinkers. The kind of students who would plumb the depths of human thoughts and deeds. It was something he had loved while learning at Harvard. He found it to be even better than he’d dreamed it would be.
However, it had been harder to leave the Yukon than he’d anticipated. He met fifteen-year-old Addie shortly after his arrival and lost his heart to her. At first, he thought it was just because her father and brothers were so cruel to her. He had tried to intercede for her on occasion and always ended up being threatened with death. Addie made him promise he’d stay out of it. They were killers, she told him, and they would think nothing of eliminating him. But Isaac couldn’t just let it be. He loved her and wanted to protect her.
“We’ll marry and be together always,” he had promised, and she’d agreed to wait for him.
But her family had other plans.
“Do you know where the Fairy Gorge is, Mr. Hanson?” one of his students asked with a large roast beef sandwich in hand.
Although he had earned his doctorate and was entitled to be called Dr. Hanson, Isaac never used the title with his young students. He pointed to the left. “I’ve been told it has quite the twists and turns and can actually induce vomiting. You might not want to eat first or else wait a good hour before going on the ride.”
The boy shrugged and took off in the direction of what Isaac had heard was fast becoming the fair’s most sought-after form of entertainment. Isaac gave a chuckle. He’d done similar outrageous deeds when he was young.
Walking along the avenue, Isaac noted the various entertainments. There were other rides besides the Fairy Gorge. There were plenty of places to buy food, of course. Isaac noted that at the far end he could see a horse trained by Prince Albert and then walk a little ways to see a scenic arrangement of the streets of Japan. Farther down, old-timers who had returned from the Yukon would teach you how to pan for gold.
Isaac couldn’t help thinking of Addie again. He’d promised to come back to her after his college studies. Undergraduate and graduate classes had only taken him seven years, less than most, but still a long time to be away from the woman he loved. He’d gone back for her after graduating from Harvard, but she was gone. Her brothers too. The brothers had gone to prison in late 1902 after having nearly killed a man while robbing his store, but no one seemed to know where she had gone, and Isaac felt most hopeless. Eventually, he remembered Addie’s friendship with a woman named Millie Stanford. Millie was hesitant to tell him much, but finally confessed that Addie had gone to Seattle.
She told him other things as well. Things that broke hisheart. Addie had gone through so much. Isaac was originally from Seattle, and his sister, Elizabeth, still lived here. So he had come to stay with her and her husband, Stuart, while he looked for Addie. They had two adorable little girls, Mina and Lena, who filled Isaac’s days with laughter. Elizabeth had insisted he live with them until he was able to secure a position, but even after he went to work teaching at a local school, Isaac remained. They were the only family he had, now that their father had passed on.
He told Elizabeth all about Addie and his desire to find her. At one point, Stuart suggested that he hire a Pinkerton to search for her, and Isaac did just that, but to no avail. The man told him it was akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. But Isaac didn’t care how difficult the task was, he had to find her.
