Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/400

 368 A yail Adventure.

A JAIL ADVENTURE.

By William O. C lough.

Tt was towards the close of a beau- number of minutes they must spend

tiful day in the latter part of Sep- in waiting for the train, lighted fresh

teniber. The great multitude of cigars, and relapsed into silence and

happy people who had tlironged the a review of their note-books,

county fair-grounds during the day At the end of half an hour they

had quietly dispersed to their homes began to get restless. One member

in the villages and upon the hillsides, of the party complained of the poor

The last loiterer outside the enclosure, accommodations; another, of the

the itinerant traders, the men with folly of elaborating reports of such

air-guns and lifting machines, the un- events; still another, of machine

principled speculators who trap the work ; and well, the ice was bro-

unwary by methods of questionable ken, hail fellowship came with relax- character, the horse jockey who ation, their tongues were loosened, roamed at large in search of a cus- and mirth prevailed, tomer for "a perfect animal," and the They chatted about the exhibition, dealer in gingerbread, had vanished and magnified the events of the day ; like the recollections of a dream, and they criticised the people whom they all that remained were the temporary had met ; they laughed about the occupants of tents and booths, and belles and beaux, the sights and a party of newspaper men who had scenes they had witnessed, and em- been compelled to tarry for the pur- bellished some of the incidents which pose of copying premium lists. they had noted by quotations grave

The members of this party. Knights and gay. They also debated at some of the Pencil, — Thomas McVeaigh, length and earnestly the ins and outs John Thomas Bragg, Richard Calling- of farming, and made wise and un- ton, Samuel Robinson, and William wise observations concerning things Henry Hamilton, — were covered with they knew nothing about, dust and hungry for food, but for all Following a pause, during which that they neither made offensive re- they were informed by the station marks nor exhibited impatience. In agent that the train was more than fact, they sauntered along the high- an hour late, the conversation drifted way towards the railroad station in to the busy world in which each had the most indifferent manner possible, an interest and played a conspicuous and, upon reaching the depot, seated part. They discussed the latest themselves upon baggage trucks, novels and fashions ; they criticised trunks, and boxes. They then, in the society plays and the actors wiio per- most mechanical manner, did just formed them ; and they dissected in what any similarly situated party of an unfavorable light every prominent gentlemen would have done under the profession but their own. They ex- same circumstances, viz., compared pressed their disgust of picnics, the time by their watches, computed the national game, parlor skating rinks,

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