A Peep Behind the Scenes

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

'Well, if you wouldn't mind going by yourself, Miss Rosie, I'll keep guard here.'

Rosalie looked rather fearfully at the dense crowd beneath her; she had never wandered about the fair, but had kept quietly in the caravan, as her mother had wished her to do so; she knew very little of what was going on in other parts of the ground.

'Where is it, Toby?' she asked.

'Right away at the other end of the field, Miss Rosie. Do you hear that clanging noise?'

'Yes,' said Rosalie, 'very well; it sounds as if all the tin trays in the town were being thrown one upon another!'

'That's the Giant's Cave, Miss Rosie, where that noise is, and the Dwarf Show is close by. Keep that noise in your ears, and you will be sure to find it.'

So Rosalie left Toby in the caravan, and went down into the pushing crowd. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and the fair was full of people. They were going in different directions, and it was hard work for Rosalie to get through them. It was only by very slow degrees that she could make her way through the fair.

It was a curious scene. A long row of bright gilded shows was on one side of her, and at the door of each stood a man addressing the crowd, and setting forth the special merits and attractions of his show. First, there were the Waxworks, with a row of specimen figures outside, and their champion proclaiming—

'Ladies and gentlemen, here is the most select show in the fair! Here is amusement and instruction combined! Here is nothing to offend the moral and artistic taste! You may see here Abraham offering up Aaron, and Henry IV. in prison; Cain and Abel in the Garden of Eden, and William the Conqueror driving out the ancient Britons!'

Then, as Rosalie pressed on through the crowd, she was jostled in front of the show of the Giant Boy and Girl. Here there was a great concourse of people, gazing at the huge picture of an enormously fat Highlander, which was hung over the door. There was a curious band in front of this show, consisting of a man beating a drum with his right hand and turning a barrel organ with his left, and another man blowing vociferously through a trumpet. In spite of all this noise, a third man was standing on a raised platform, addressing the crowds beneath.