The Elmbrook fair ground was a long field, with a big, barn-like building at one end. Gilbert had often passed the place before, and found it silent and grass-grown; but now it was thronged with people, and resounding with a joyous bedlam of all the noises that all the farms in Oro, joined together, could produce. Horses neighed, cattle bawled, sheep bleated, hens cackled, babies cried and boys shouted. A merry-go-round, that charged only five cents for a horseback ride, was whirling giddily to the tune of "The Maple Leaf Forever." As the doctor guided his horse carefully through the thronged gateway Joey spied the twins, already mounted astride the largest team, and spinning around with joyous shrieks. A man with a wheel of fortune was shouting to the passers-by to come and take a turn, and make money enough to buy a farm. A row of tents, each with its roaring proprietor in front, held all sorts of wonderful spectacles, from a three-headed pig to a panorama of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. In front of a large tent, set off in one corner, a solemn, stout man, wrapped in a white winding-sheet, was marching to and fro, ringing a funereal bell, and calling out in melancholy tones that this was the last chance for dinner. But above all the various clamor one sound arose, penetrating, triumphant, the sound that was the true voice of the Elmbrook fair, and without which it would surely have died away in silence--the high, thrilling skirl of the bagpipes. The piper, splendid in kilt and plaid and bare knees, was marching magnificently from the hall to the racing track. Lesser beings had to push and jostle through the throng, but he had a long lane sacred to his own footsteps, and no matter what new attraction appeared, he always had his following of gaping admirers. Young ladies, with their attendant swains, in holiday attire, wandered about arm in arm, eating peanuts. Some lovers, of the old-fashioned type, who plainly knew very little of the requirements of fashion, went about hand in hand, and were the object of many witty remarks on the part of those who followed the more up-to-date method. Farmers with long beards, their backs bent with honest toil, collected around the show horses, or sat in the high buggies, round-shouldered and content, and smoked and chewed and spat, and were, withal, supremely happy. Whole family circles, the young father proudly carrying the baby, the mother holding as many as possible by the hand, revolved in an aimless but joyous orbit. Old women in plaid shawls gathered in groups near the piper's avenue, and talked a continuous stream of Gaelic.