he terraced lawn before the
house--that is number one; the second thing they will advise the
traveller to see is Mary Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm
trees, most tastefully laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay
home; and the third thing that will be pointed out to the traveller is
the Schnitzler fountain, in the cemetery gateway, done by St. Gaudens;
it represents a soldier pouring water from his canteen into his hand,
as he bathes the brow of a dying comrade.

These things, of course,--the house, the park, and the
fountain,--represent John Barclay and his money. The town is proud of
them, but the reader is advised not to expect too much of them. One of
the two things really worth seeing at the Ridge is the view over the
wheat fields of the Sycamore Valley from the veranda of the Culpepper
home on the hill. There one may see the great fields lying in three
townships whereon John Barclay founded his fortune. The second thing
worth seeing may be found in the hallway of the public library
building, just at the turn of the marble stairway, where the morning
light strikes it. Take the night train out of Chicago and get to the
Ridge in the morning, to get the light on that picture.

It is a portrait of John Barclay, done when he was forty years old and
painted by a Russian during the summer when the Barclays were called
home from Europe before their journey was half completed, to
straighten out an obstreperous congressman, one Tom Wharton by name,
who was threatening to put wheat and flour on the free list in a
tariff bill, unless--but that is immaterial, except that Wharton was
on Barclay's mind more or less while the painter was at work, and the
portrait reflects what Barclay thought of a number of things. It shows
a small gray-clad man, with a pearl pin in a black tie, sitting rather
on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, so that the head is thrown
into the light. The eyes are well opened, and the jaw comes out, a
hard mean jaw; but the work of the artist, the real work that reveals
the soul of the sitter, is shown in three features, if we except the
pugnacious shoulders. In the face are two of these features: the
mouth, a hard, coarse, furtive mouth,--the mouth of the liar who is
not polished,--the peasant liar who has been caught and has brazened
it out; the mouth and the forehead, full almost to bulging, so clean
and white and naked that it seems shameful to expose it, a poet's
forehead, noble