As the hot air filled the great bag, it was the
task of these helpers to shake out the wrinkles and to hold it down.
Older and wiser ones forbade their young ones to go near it.
Supposing it should explode; what then? But we have always wanted
to fly away up into the air, and what did we come to the Fair for,
if not for excitement? The balloon swells out amazingly fast, and
when the guy-ropes are loosened and drop to the ground, the
elephantine bag clumsily lunges this way and that, causing shrill
squeals from those who fear to be whelmed in it. The man in the
singlet tosses kerosene into the furnace from a tin cup, and you
can see the tall flames leap upward from the flue into the balloon.
It grows tight as a drum.
"Watch your horses!" he calls out. There is a pause . . . . "Let
go all!" The mighty shape shoots up twenty feet or so, and the man
in the singlet darts to the corner to cut a lone detaining rope. As
he runs he sheds his fringy trousers.
"Good-by, everybody!" he cries out, and the sinister possibilities
in that phrase are overlooked in the wonder at seeing him lurch
upward through the air, all glorious in black tights and yellow
breech-clout. Up and up he soars above the tree-tops, and the
wind gently wafts him along, a pendant to a dusky globe hanging
in the sky.
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