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MYSTERY ON THE MIDWAY The Midway Plaisance is an enormous grassy strip, several blocks long, just across from the new University of Chicago. I had played lots of games on the Midway-baseball, tag, and fox and geese (the kind that you play in the snow, not the indoors game). One day, while it was still very cold, some workers roped off a very large area and began to work. First, they dug very deep. But the ice was so thick that it was hard to break. Worse than the ice was a layer of sand underneath. We usually think of sand as something nice and squishy between our toes at the beach. Not so for the workers-they were in danger! Because the sand was 20 feet deep, wet, and could shift, vibrating equipment could turn it into quicksand, sucking the workers into the ground. The workers had to work carefully in order to avoid being swallowed! But finally they made the ground stable. We watched as tall poles were fitted in
the ground. My dad said that they must be 120 feet high. I wasn't
sure what that meant but they were tall! Each day that we came,
we saw some new strange gizmo. (That's one of those funny words
that I got from my dad). One day, Dad exclaimed, "That looks
like an axle." After weeks more of waiting, the workers hauled the most tremendous, stupendous, gargantuan (That's a word, isn't it?) wheel that I had ever seen to the Midway. It was June 9th, more than a month after the fair had opened, and we were there, as usual, watching them build on the Midway. My father gasped and clutched my shoulders. We held our breath as they lifted this gigantic wheel to hang it from the giant poles. A huge crowd from the fair gathered. Everyone started shouting and pointing. No one had ever seen a wheel that big. Or just about anything that big. One man said that the only thing bigger was the 'Eye Full' Tower. (My dad told me that it's actually spelled 'Eiffel' and is named after the man who designed it.) After a lot of effort, the wheel was up. But the workers were not done. Something else needed to happen. I watched as one of the worker's waved
his arm. My dad said that it was a signal, telling someone to
do something. And then, it happened. The wheel moved. "It's
rotating!", my dad cried. The wheel turned and turned. All
of the workers began to cheer and the crowd chimed in. I turned
to my dad and shouted, "Now we know what they were building-they're
done!" I was burning to know. What were they going to do to finish the wheel? I asked myself over and over. I thought about the wheel itself. What else did wheels do besides roll? But they couldn't let this monstrous wheel roll because it would crush anyone in its path! Was the wheel going to fall and sink into the earth? After all, the wheel was very, very heavy. One of the workers told me that it weighed over 2 million pounds! I used to think my Aunt Gretel weighed that much. But although Dad agreed that Aunt Gretel weighed about as much as a house, he said that 2 million pounds was equal to hundreds and hundreds of Aunt Gretels. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the Giant Wheel. Before I had pulled out all my hair, in a couple of weeks, I had my answer. Let's skip ahead those couple of weeks and get right to the exciting part. Now, there are several almost train-sized wooden cars hanging from the wheel and I'm standing right in front of one, waiting for the most dangerous ride of my life. |
