"You see the town folks was always gittin' up somethin' new for the
fair, and that year I'm talkin' about it was a t'u'nament. All the
Goshen folks that went to town the last County Court day before the
fair come back with the news that there was goin' to be a t'u'nament
the third day o' the fair. Everybody was sayin', 'What's that?' and
nobody could answer 'em till Sam Crawford went to town one Saturday
jest before the fair, and come back with the whole thing at his
tongue's end. Sam heard that they was practisin' for the t'u'nament
that evenin', and as he passed the fair grounds on his way home, he
made a p'int of goin' in and seein' what they was about. He said there
was twelve young men, and they was called knights; and they had a lot
o' iron rings hung from the posts of the amp'itheater, and they'd tear
around the ring like mad and try to stick a pole through every ring
and carry it off with 'em, and the one that got the most rings got the
blue ribbon. Sam said it took a good eye and a steady arm and a good
seat to manage the thing, and he enjoyed watchin' 'em. 'But,' says he,
'why they call the thing a t'u'nament is more'n I could make out. I
stayed there a plumb hour, and I couldn't hear nor see anything that
sounded or looked like a tune.'
"Well, the third day o' the fair come, and we was all on hand to see
the t'u'nament. It went off jest like Sam said. There was twelve
knights, all dressed in black velvet, with gold and silver spangles,
and they galloped around and tried to take off the rings on their long
poles. When they got through with that, the knights they rode up to
the judges with a wreath o' flowers on the ends o' their
poles--lances, they called 'em--and every knight called out the name
o' the lady that he thought the most of; and she come up to the stand,
and they put the wreath on her head, and there was twelve pretty
gyirls with flowers on their heads, and they was 'Queens of Love and
Beauty.' It was a mighty pretty sight, I tell you; and the band was
playin' 'Old Kentucky Home,' and everybody was hollerin' and throwin'
up their hats. Then the knights galloped around the ring once and went
out at the big gate, and come up and promenaded around the
amp'itheater with the gyirls they had crowned. The knight that got the
blue ribbon took off ten rings out o' the fifteen. He rode a mighty
fine horse, and Sam Amos, he says, 'I believe in my soul if I'd 'a'
been on that horse I could 'a' taken off every one o' them rings.' Sam
was a mighty good rider, and Milly used to say that the only thing
that'd make Sam enjoy ridin' more'n he did was for somebody to put up
lookin'-glasses so he could see himself all along the road.
"Well, the next thing on the program was the gentleman riders' ring.
The premium was five dollars in gold for the best gentleman rider. We
was waitin' for that to commence, when Uncle Jim Matthews come up, and
says he, 'Sam, there's only one entry in this ring, and it's about to
fall through.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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