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Updated: May 2, 2025
Like children they watched and smiled and laughed, and always, like the flood of the dream, their numbers seemed to increase and increase.... The noise was deafening, but always above the merry-go-rounds and the cheap-jacks and the shrill screams of the Japanese and the cries of the pedlars I heard the chant of the "Marseillaise" carried on high through the brown leafless park.
There were also some shabby merry-go-rounds with wheezy organs driven by machinery, and booths in which hard-featured show women were frying waffles in evil smelling grease. After buying some of these for the children who stood about with watering mouths, we left the "Kermesse" and wandered away down a silent street towards a smaller tower rising from a belt of dark trees.
At high noon Chaudiere was filled to overflowing. There were booths and tents everywhere all sorts of cheap-jacks vaunted their wares, merry-go-rounds and swings and shooting-galleries filled the usual spaces in the perspective. The Cure, M. Rossignol the Seigneur, and the Notary stood on the church steps viewing the scene and awaiting the approach of the soldier-citizens.
There were some who with bandaged eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand of the arena. There were many more, and then still more. And they all grazed eternally in the great plain of divine tranquillity.
Delighted youths, of both sexes, mount wooden horses in the merry-go-rounds and enjoy their ride at a cost of a couple of cents. Lofty aerial cars, upon huge revolving wheels, afford as much delight and more risk to other youths. Punch and Judy, and the man with the air-gun and conspicuous mark, are also present. A performing monkey divides the honors and pennies with the rest of the entertainers.
"Thank you, you are very complimentary," said Mrs. Rushton; and then she laughed carelessly: "After all, the merry-go-rounds, as you put it, are much better fun than sitting in a nursery or a school-room. But I assure you I am not so frivolous as you think; I have been going out distributing tracts lately with Mrs. Sourby."
There was an amateur Richardson's show, a magician's tent, Cheap John's merry-go-rounds, and all sorts of amusements to be had by paying for them; and, above all, there was the bazaar, presided over by the ladies of Talbot, who succeeded in selling a large quantity of useless things at the usual exorbitant prices.
"But you'll find nothing doing in the park," Emmet said presently, with an abrupt change of subject. "The season has just closed, and there is n't a person on the place." "So much the better," Leigh answered. "I 'm not in the mood for merry-go-rounds and picnickers."
Here already was gathered much goodly company; above their heads hung a thick white wavering cloud of dust. Swing-boats and merry-go-rounds are from of old the chief features of these rural festivities; they soared and dipped and circled to the joyous music of organs which played the same tune automatically for any number of hours, whilst raucous voices invited all and sundry to take their turn.
Convenient spaces in the wood were filled with merry-go-rounds, swings, and other locomotive machinery, of precisely the same description as those exhibited in England, and which I had seen in Hyde Park at the fair held there, in honour of Queen Victoria.
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