t."

CHAPTER XXIX.

MARY, RALPH, JAKE AND SIBYLLA VISIT THE ALLENTOWN FAIR.

Late in September Jake and Sibylla drove to the Allentown Fair. It was
"Big Thursday" of Fair week. They started quite early, long before
Ralph Jackson, who had come from the city the day previous, to take
Mary to the Fair, had arisen.

[Illustration: SECOND CHURCH BUILDING

Sheltered Liberty Bell, 1777-78. Photographed from the print of an old
wood cut used in a German newspaper in the year 1840]

Mary, while appreciating Sibylla's good qualities, never failed to be
amused at her broad "Pennsylvania German" dialect.

The morning of the "Fair," Mary arose earlier than usual to allow
Sibylla and Jake to get an early start, as it was quite a distance
from the farm to the Fair grounds. As they were about to drive away,
Sibylla, alighting from the carriage, said, "I forgot my
'Schnupftuch.'" Returning with it in her hand, she called, as she
climbed into Jake's buggy, "Gut-by, Mary, it looks fer rain."

"Yes" said Jake, "I think it gives rain before we get back yet. The
cornfodder in the barn this morning was damp like it had water on it."

And said Mary, "The fragrance of the flowers was particularly
noticeable early this morning." Jake, as it happened, was no false
prophet. It did rain before evening.

Later in the day, Mary and Ralph drove to a near-by town, leaving
horse and carriage at the hotel until their return in the evening, and
boarded a train for Allentown. On arriving there, they decided to walk
up Hamilton Street, and later take a car out to the Fair grounds. As
they sauntered slowly up the main street, Mary noticed a small church
built between two large department stores and stopped to read a tablet
on the church, which informed the passerby that "this is to
commemorate the concealment of the Liberty Bell during the
Revolutionary War. This tablet was erected by the Liberty Bell Chapter
of the Daughters of the Revolution."

The First Zion's Reformed Church was founded in 1762. In front of the
Church a rough block of granite, erected to the memory of John Jacob
Mickley, contained the following inscription: "In commemoration of the
saving of the Liberty Bell from the British in 1777. Under cover of
darkness and with his farm team, he, John Mickley, hauled the Liberty
Bell from Independence Hall, Philadelphia, through the British lines,
to Bethlehem, where the wagon broke down. The Bell was transferred to
another wag