O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [36]
Zach excused himself and unhitched the horse and tied him in a reasonable stall, helped park the carriage, and spoke to the attendant, who held up his hands and scraped and bowed.
“Goodness, what did you tell him, Zach?” Amanda asked.
“I told him I’d better get the same horse back,” Zach answered.
Zach had never seen Amanda’s eyes so wide and sparkly. She squeezed his hand as they made their way down the midway.
Hawkers and balloons and cotton candy and windmills whirled on sticks and they tripped through the fun house and clung through the haunted house and then the house of mirrors. Amanda shrieked as she matched friends and family to the distortions.
“This one is Father!” she cried at the huge long head and stubby body.
Now a wiry, moose-jawed image. “Gunny Kunkle about to run us through ankle-deep mud!”
They skipped the freak show but were awed by fire-eaters and knife throwers and jugglers. The magician was awesome.
Zach wasted three nickels trying to knock down a pyramid of iron milk bottles with softballs. And another two nickels were blown to beat the man guessing their weight. They each sat in the weighing chair. The barker guessed them right on, as his little hidden foot pedal froze the chair at 170 for Zach and 119 for her.
“Too bad, Marine, better luck next time.”
“I’m really much lighter,” Zach whispered to her.
“So am I,” she said.
They rode the carousel, she on a unicorn and he on a fiery dragon. He collected a brass ring on the third ride, to win her a baby doll.
Any Marine would have to step up in manly fashion, doff his jacket, take the heavy, long-handled mallet, and try to pop a weight up the scale to hit the gong. After three “ughs,” Zach gave up.
“Ohhh,” moaned a gathered crowd.
“Little lady?”
Amanda whacked the treadle and the bell bonged. The man gave her a chirping toy canary on a stick.
“Rigged,” Zach grumbled.
On they went down the midway, blowing a dollar and thirty cents, a deep whack in a month’s pay, but Zach had come prepared to spend! When hunger overtook them they devoured mutton on a stick, licked their fingers clean, and settled for a moment to enjoy sarsaparilla-flavored ice cones, which dripped through the thin paper cup.
“Sure is messy!” Amanda said, her hair bouncing in concert with her mood. “How many girls have you brought here?”
“None.”
“Oh . . . boo!”
“Well, none here. There’s the Riverside Park in Washington. It’s kind of a hangout for the guys at the barracks.”
“And a place to pick up girls,” she prodded.
“Yes,” he agreed, “but never anyone like the one who is with me now.”
“Zach,” she cooed, and kissed his cheek.
“How many times have you been here?” he asked.
That quickly, Amanda’s mood turned somber. She shook her head no, took a breath, and said, “We pass this on the way to Father’s shipyard. I begged him to take me and he finally broke down. Unfortunately I was dressed like a princess going to a coronation. Chesapeake Park was much simpler then. A pleasure garden. As we passed and people passed us, the gaiety around us seemed to become subdued. I realized Father’s Pinkertons, detectives from the yard, were trailing us to guard us, and men began tipping their hats and saying ‘Evening, Mr. Kerr,’ and the women curtsied and everyone sort of moved away from us. Even the house of mirrors wasn’t funny.”
An evening breeze off the bay was blessedly warm and tender.
“And?” Zach asked.
“Despite it all, there was enough wonderment here to want to come back and I asked to bring Willow. Zach, I was only six or seven and had been completely shut off and sheltered from everyday people and public glances. It was my first lesson in the world of black and white.”
“I didn’t really mean to . . .”
“No, let me finish. Negro servants were such a part of what was normal in my life, it never occurred to me that I couldn’t bring Willow.
“After that,” she went on, “Father would hire a carnival or small traveling circus complete with a merry-go-round and bring it to Inverness.