The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky ArticlesAllen, James Lane
General
The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky Articles
Allen, James Lane
Kentucky -- Description and travel; Kentucky -- Social life and customs
In another part of the amphitheatre nothing but men, red-faced, excited,
standing up on the seats, shouting, applauding, as the rival horses rush
round the ring before them. It is not difficult to know who these are.
The money streams through their fingers. Did you hear the crack of that
pistol? How the crowd swarms angrily. Stand back! A man has been shot.
He insulted a gentleman. He called him a liar. Be careful. There are a
great many pistols on the fair grounds.
In all the United States where else is there to be seen any such holiday
assemblage of people--any such expression of the national life impressed
with local peculiarities? Where else is there to be seen anything that,
while it falls far behind, approaches so near the spirit of uproarious
merriment, of reckless fun, which used to intoxicate and madden the
English populace when given over to the sports of a ruder age?
[Illustration: THE JUDGE'S STAND--THE FINISH.]
These are the descendants of the sad pioneers--of those early cavalcades
which we glanced at in the primeval forests a few minutes ago. These
have subdued the land, and are reclining on its tranquil autumn fulness.
Time enough to play now--more time than there ever was before; more than
there will ever be again. They have established their great fair here on
the very spot where their forefathers were massacred or put to torture.
So, at old Smithfield, the tumblers, the jesters, the buffoons, and the
dancers shouldered each other in joyful riot over the ashes of the
earlier heroes and martyrs.
It is past high noon, and the thousands break away from the amphitheatre
and move towards a soft green woodland in another part of the grounds,
shaded by forest trees. Here are the private dinner-tables--hundreds of
them, covered with snowy linen, glittering with glass and silver. You
have heard of Kentucky hospitality; here you will see one of the
peaceful battle-fields where reputation for that virtue is fought for
and won. Is there a stranger among these thousands that has not been
hunted up and provided for? And such dinners! Old Pepys should be
here--immortal eater--so that he could go home and set down in his
diary, along with other gastronomic adventures, garrulous notes of what
he saw eaten and ate himself at the Kentucky fair. You will never see
the Kentuckians making a better show than at this moment. What courtesy,
what good-will, what warm and gracious manners! Tie a blue ribbon on
them. In a competitive exhibition of this kind the premium will stay at
home.
But make the most of it--make the most of this harmony. For did you see
that? A father and a son met each other, turned their heads quickly and
angrily away, and passed without speaking.
[Illustration: A DINNER-PARTY.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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