You will see them jumping over the big beams, walking in Indian file along the narrow ends, or else crawling astride them; various games which generally terminate in blows and bellowings.

Sometimes, too, a dozen of them will sit, closely packed one against the other, on the thin end of a pole raised a few feet from the ground, and will see-saw there for hours together.

The Aire Saint-Mittre thus serves as a recreation ground, where for more than a quarter of a century all the little suburban ragamuffins have been in the habit of wearing out the seats of their breeches.
The strangeness of the place is increased by the circumstance that wandering gipsies, by a sort of traditional custom always select the vacant portions of it for their encampments.

Whenever any caravan arrives at Plassans it takes up its quarters on the Aire Saint-Mittre.
The place is consequently never empty.

There is always some strange band there, some troop of wild men and withered women, among whom groups of healthy-looking children roll about on the grass.