"No; they might talk to you and take some of my time with you away from
me." Her eyes sparkled into his for the merest fraction of a second, and
she laughed half mockingly. Then she dropped his lapel and they proceeded.
She did not put the white rose in her belt, but carried it.
The Square was heaving with a jostling, goodnatured, happy, and constantly
increasing crowd that overflowed on Main Street in both directions; and
the good nature of this crowd was augmented in the ratio that its size
increased. The streets were a confusion of many colors, and eager faces
filled every window opening on Main Street or the Square. Since nine
o'clock all those of the courthouse had been occupied, and here most of
the damsels congregated to enjoy the spectacle of the parade, and their
swains attended, gallantly posting themselves at coignes of less vantage
behind the ladies. Some of the faces that peeped from the dark, old court-
house windows were pretty, and some of them were not pretty; but nearly
all of them were rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because of the
good cheer they showed. Some of the gallants affected the airy and easy,
entertaining the company with badinage and repartee; some were openly
bashful. Now and then one of the latter, after long deliberation,
constructed a laborious compliment for his inamorata, and, after advancing
and propounding half of it, again retired into himself, smit with a
blissful palsy. Nearly all of them conversed in tones that might have
indicated that they were separated from each other by an acre lot or two.
Here and there, along the sidewalk below, a father worked his way through
the throng, a licorice-bedaubed cherub on one arm, his coat (borne with
long enough) on the other; followed by a mother with the other children
hanging to her skirts and tagging exasperatingly behind, holding red and
blue toy balloons and delectable batons of spiral-striped peppermint in
tightly closed, sadly sticky fingers.
A thousand cries rent the air; the strolling mountebanks and gypsying
booth-merchants; the peanut vendors; the boys with palm-leaf fans for
sale; the candy sellers; the popcorn peddlers; the Italian with the toy
balloons that float like a cluster of colored bubbles above the heads of
the crowd, and the balloons that wail like a baby; the red-lemonade man,
shouting in the shrill voice that reaches everywhere and endures forever:
"Lemo! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo! Five cents, a nickel, a half-a-dime, the
twentiethpotofadollah! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo!"--all the vociferating
harbingers of the circus crying their wares. Timid youth, in shoes covered
with dust through which the morning polish but dimly shone, and
unalterably hooked by the arm to blushing maidens, bought recklessly of
peanuts, of candy, of popcorn, of all known sweetmeats, perchance; and
forced their way to the lemonade stands; and there, all shyly, silently
sipped the crimson-stained ambrosia. Everywhere the hawkers dinned, and
everywhere was heard the plaintive squawk of the toy balloon.