And then some one, with no sense of the fitness of things, rose and called on all to sing “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
The millennium is not as close as all that. We still have the question of the rights of labour and the wrongs of capital with us, and a better hymn might have been selected.
“Onward, Christian Soldiers,” would have been more in the spirit of the time.
We made our way out, and as I was leaving the hall I looked back and saw the orator of the day shaking hands with James. It gave me a choky feeling, so that perhaps I was still under the influence of his speech.
I will acknowledge that I set down the speech in this place in order to make fun of it, but after all it was sincere, and sincerity makes a poor butt for the shafts of ridicule.
During the afternoon we took a drive in James’s wagon, and saw something of the beauty of the surrounding country, going quite a distance on the road to Springfield. We returned to Egerton by the upper road, and I had all I could do to keep the horses under control, as that end of the town was given up to the small boy, and pistols, crackers and bombs were being exploded on every hand.
One of those hideous things that knock the romance out of any spot in which they are placed, a merry-go-round, was revolving to the sound of wheezy organ music, and the horses were of one mind with us as to its being a blot on civilization, and they proceeded to show their distaste for it to such an extent that I stopped them short and let Ethel get out. Then I forced them to stand still and watch the moving picture. They obeyed me for a few seconds and then they tore down the street. I controlled them very soon, however, and when I had stopped them I hitched them to a post on a quiet square and went back to get Ethel.
I found her by a tree, looking with amusement at the carrousel. My eyes followed hers, and the picture presented to them was eminently characteristic.
James was riding on the merry-go-round. He was astride of a small wooden pony that gave his legs a chance to look unduly long, while perched alongside of him sat Minerva astride of a giraffe. She was clinging to the neck of the beast, and for the time being she was in New York (for Coney Island is to all intents and purposes New York and your merry-go-round is the strawberry mark that identifies Coney Island).