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).
Round and round she whirled, her eyes shining ecstatically, and from time to time she reached out her right hand and met James’s left.
“We will have to keep a butler next winter,” said Ethel.
Suddenly Minerva saw us and she waved her hand to us and yelled something that we could not distinguish, but I knew it was an invitation to mount some strange animal and be happy.
We shook our heads. Happiness would not come to us in those questionable shapes. When I want to be sea-sick give me the ocean and a European port as the reward, not merely sickness for sickness’ sake. And Ethel is of the same mind only more so. She goes so far as to say, give her some American port and leave the sea and its sickness out altogether.
The music dwindled, the merry-go-round became less merry, and at last ceased to go round, and then Minerva, settling her ample skirts so as to cover the flanks of the giraffe, said,