By midmorning the lawn had grown a tiny queue. Shells waited in a polite crescent around a carousel no taller than a watering can, each snail taking one wooden seat as if it had always belonged there.
We asked at the kiosk. "They do not hurry the music," said a woman with a paper bag of pears. "It turns once, then everyone rests on the grass." Another visitor left a pencil note: "The painted horses are patient. They waited while my passenger found the stirrup."
The park keeper pinned a courteous notice to the fence: daytime rides only, the tune is hummed, and petal tickets go back to the flowerbed after the circle. The marigolds, he added, prefer to be asked before they lend another ticket.