Fair Weather by Richard Peck Read Free Book Online

veiled hat were stumpy raven’s wings. She was either the Angel of Death or Aunt Euterpe.
    We drew nearer her. She reached up and propped her veil back over her hat.
    “Adelaide,” she cried softly, reaching for Lottie. “Oh, Adelaide, you came after all.”
    Adelaide was Mama’s name. Dad called her Addy. Aunt Euterpe thought Lottie was Mama.
    “I’m Lottie,” Lottie squeaked.
    Aunt Euterpe’s hands flew to her long pale face. She was a wan woman, nothing like Mama. She wore spectacles on a chain, and her eyes were bewildered behind them.
    “I’m Rosie,” I said to help her out. “This here is Buster.”
    “Yes, it would be.” Aunt Euterpe spoke faintly. “But you’re all so . . . big.”
    “Granddad says we’re overgrown,” I told her.
    Aunt Euterpe started suddenly like a goose had walked over her grave. She stared past us, evidently seeing a ghost. I took that to be Granddad himself.
    When we turned, he had a surprise for us too. In his hands was a leash. Straining at the end of it was Tip.
    “Granddad!” Buster burst out. “You brought Tip!” Buster was tickled pink.
    “He pines and gets off his feed if I leave him behind.” Granddad dodged Aunt Euterpe’s stricken stare.
    “Papa,” she said, this sad greeting rising from her flat bosom.
    “Hello there, Terpie,” he croaked. “I rode your sister’s ticket up here to keep an eye on these children. Me and Tip.”
    “I see,” she said regretfully. Compressing her lips in martyrdom, she lowered her veil. We followed her out through a great stone arch to the teeming street.
    A polished black carriage stood tall in a line of hacks. Aunt Euterpe pointed us at the open door. Granddad gave Tip’s haunches a boost up. We milled around inside—hats and veils, elbows and paws, Granddad’s stick. While we settled, the driver tied our crates to the roof.
    “Land-a-Goshen, you’re spreadin’ your money around, girl,” Granddad said to Aunt Euterpe. He was impressedin spite of himself. You couldn’t hire a rig like this from the livery stable down home. The carriage had brass side lamps and leather straps to lower the windows. A cut-glass vase hung beside the buttoned seat with a single red rose in it.
    “I feel like a pallbearer at my own funeral,” said Granddad as Buster settled on his knee.
    “I could hardly get you all onto the streetcar with all your . . . luggage. Even before I knew about the . . . animal.” Aunt Euterpe spoke from behind her veil. I’d already forgotten what she looked like.
    We were in a procession of carriages and beer wagons. The street was laid in granite blocks, and we’d never ridden on paving before. We seemed to float. The city clattered and cried out around us. Granddad stuck his head out the window to see to the top of a building. Buster and Tip too.
    “It is the Masonic Temple,” Aunt Euterpe murmured, “the tallest building in the world.” So we were on State Street now.
    “How high is it?” Buster wondered.
    “Twenty-two stories,” Aunt Euterpe said.
    Granddad pulled his head back inside right quick like the building might fall on him.
    Bells rang when we came to an iron bridge swinging open to let a big boat through. You couldn’t see the river till you were right up on it for everything in the way. A peacock’s tail of scummy grease spread over the riverwater. The smell would have knocked you off your perch. I didn’t like to think what all those things floating in the stream might be. Mama had been right: Chicago was filthy as a hog wallow.
    We turned at a stone water tower, and by and by on our right was Lake Michigan sweeping flat and blue to the far edge of the world. On the other side of the road rose one palace after another.
    Granddad stared. “Is them houses?” They were big as towns, gated like graveyards.
    “Private residences,” Aunt Euterpe said. “We have just passed the Franklin McVeahs’. We are now approaching the Potter Palmers’. Mrs. Potter Palmer is