He is just a speck now swaying to and fro. The globe
plunges upward; the pendant drops like a shot. There is a rustling
sound. It is the intake of the breath of horror from ten thousand
pairs of lungs. Look! Look! The edges of the parachute ruffle,
and then it blossoms out like an opening flower. It bounces on the
air a little, and rocking gently sinks like thistle-down behind the
woods.
It is all over. The Fair is over. Let's go home. Isn't it wonderful
though, what men can do? You'll see; they'll be flying like birds,
one of these days. That's what we little boys think, but we
overhear old Nate Wells say to Tom Slaymaker, as we pass them: "Well,
I d' know. I d' know 's these here b'loon ascensions is worth the
money they cost the 'Sociation. I seen so many of 'em, they don't
interest me nummore. 'Less, o' course, sumpun should happen to the
feller."
CHRISTMAS BACK HOME
It was the time of year when the store windows are mighty
interesting. Plotner's bakery, that away, 'way back in the
summer-time, was an ice-cream saloon, showed a plaster man in
the window, with long, white whiskers, in top boots and a brown
coat and peaked hat, all trimmed with fur, and carrying a little
pinetree with arsenical foliage. Over his head dangled a thicket
of canes hanging by their crooks from a twine string stretched
across.
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