"
Fred didn't answer, and Esther moved away, wondering where she should find
Sarah.
XXXIII
The crowd shouted. She looked where the others looked, but saw only the
burning blue with the white stand marked upon it. It was crowded like the
deck of a sinking vessel, and Esther wondered at the excitement, the cause
of which was hidden from her. She wandered to the edge of the crowd until
she came to a chalk road where horses and mules were tethered. A little
higher up she entered the crowd again, and came suddenly upon a switchback
railway. Full of laughing and screaming girls, it bumped over a middle
hill, and then rose slowly till it reached the last summit. It was shot
back again into the midst of its fictitious perils, and this mock voyaging
was accomplished to the sound of music from a puppet orchestra. Bells and
drums, a fife and a triangle, cymbals clashed mechanically, and a little
soldier beat the time. Further on, under a striped awning, were the wooden
horses. They were arranged so well that they rocked to and fro, imitating
as nearly as possible the action of real horses. Esther watched the
riders. A blue skirt looked like a riding habit, and a girl in salmon pink
leaned back in her saddle just as if she had been taught how to ride. A
girl in a grey jacket encouraged a girl in white who rode a grey horse.
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