Assuring him that I would come back promptly, I went out and walked along the foot-board on the side of the boiler, watching the magnificent machine rushing through the landscapes as if glorying in its strength like a living creature.  While seated on the cow-catcher platform, I seemed to be fairly flying, and the wonderful display of power and motion was enchanting.  This was the first time I had ever been on a train, much less a locomotive, since I had left Scotland.  When I got to Madison, I thanked the kind conductor and engineer for my glorious ride, inquired the way to the Fair, shouldered my inventions, and walked to the Fair Ground.

When I applied for an admission ticket at a window by the gate I told the agent that I had something to exhibit.

“What is it?” he inquired.

“Well, here it is.  Look at it.”

When he craned his neck through the window and got a glimpse of my bundle, he cried excitedly, “Oh! you don’t need a ticket,—­come right in.”

When I inquired of the agent where such things as mine should be exhibited, he said, “You see that building up on the hill with a big flag on it?  That’s the Fine Arts Hall, and it’s just the place for your wonderful invention.”

So I went up to the Fine Arts Hall and looked in, wondering if they would allow wooden things in so fine a place.

I was met at the door by a dignified gentleman, who greeted me kindly and said, “Young man, what have we got here?”

“Two clocks and a thermometer,” I replied.

“Did you make these?  They look wonderfully beautiful and novel and must, I think, prove the most interesting feature of the fair.”

“Where shall I place them?” I inquired.

“Just look around, young man, and choose the place you like best, whether it is occupied or not.  You can have your pick of all the building, and a carpenter to make the necessary shelving and assist you every way possible!”

So I quickly had a shelf made large enough for all of them, went out on the hill and picked up some glacial boulders of the right size for weights, and in fifteen or twenty minutes the clocks were running.  They seemed to attract more attention than anything else in the hall I got lots of praise from the crowd and the newspaper-reporters.  The local press reports were copied into the Eastern papers.  It was considered wonderful that a boy on a farm had been able to invent and make such things, and almost every spectator foretold good fortune.  But I had been so lectured by my father above all things to avoid praise that I was afraid to read those kind newspaper notices, and never clipped out or preserved any of them, just glanced at them and turned away my eyes from beholding vanity.  They gave me a prize of ten or fifteen dollars and a diploma for wonderful things not down in the list of exhibits.