第53章

Late in August Uncle Eb and I took our Black Hawk stallion to the fair in HilIsborough and showed him for a prize. He was fit for the eye of a king when we had finished grooming him, that morning, and led him out, rearing in play, his eyes flashing from under his broad plume, so that all might have a last look at him. His arched neck and slim barrel glowed like satin as the sunlight fell upon him. His black mane flew, he shook the ground with his hoofs playing at the halter's end. He hated a harness and once in it lost half his conceit. But he was vainest of all things in Faraway when we drove off with him that morning.

All roads led to HilIsborough fair time. Up and down the long hills we went on a stiff jog passing lumber wagons with generations enough in them to make a respectable genealogy, the old people in chairs; light wagons that carried young men and their sweethearts, baclswoodsmen coming out in ancient vehicles upon reeling, creaking wheels to get food for a year's reflection - all thickening the haze of the late summer with the dust of the roads. And Hillsborough itself was black with people. The shouts of excited men, the neighing of horses, the bellowing of cattle, the wailing of infants, the howling of vendors, the pressing crowd, had begun to sow the seed of misery in the minds of those accustomed only to the peaceflil quietude of the farm. The staring eye, the palpitating heart, the aching head, were successive stages in the doom of many. The fair had its floral hall carpeted with sawdust and redolent of cedar, its dairy house, its mechanics' hall sacred to fiuming implements, its long sheds ftill of sheep and cattle, its dining-hall, its temporary booths of rough lumber, its half-mile track and grandstand. Here voices of beast and vendor mingied in a chorus of cupidity and distress. In Floral Hall Sol Rollin was on exhibition. He gave me a cold nod, his lips set for a tune as yet inaudible. He was surveying sundry examples of rustic art that hung on the circular railing of the gallery and tryingto preserve a calm breast. He was looking at Susan Baker's painted cow that hung near us.

'Very descriptive,' he said when I pressed him for his notion of it.

'Rod Baker's sister Susan made thet cow. Gits tew dollars an' fifty cents every fair time - wish I was dewin 's well.'

'That's one of the most profitable cows in this country,' I said.

'Looks a good deal like a new breed.'

'Yes,' he answered soberly, then he set his lips, threw a sweeping glance into the gallery, and passed on.

Susan Baker's cow was one of the permanent features of the county fair, and was indeed a curiosity not less remarkable than the sacred ox of Mr Bamum.

Here also I met a group of the pretty girls who had been my schoolmates. They surrounded me, chattering like magpies.

'There's going to be a dance at our house tonight,' said one of them, 'and you must come.'

'I cannot, I must go home,' I said.

'Of course!' said a red-cheeked saucy miss. 'The stuck-up thing! He wouldn't go anywhere unless he could have his sister with him.'

Then they went away laughing.

I found Ab Thomas at the rifle range. He was whittling as he considered a challenge from Tip Taylor to shoot a match. He turned and 'hefted' the rifle, silently, and then he squinted over the barrel two or three times.

'Dunno but what I'll try ye once,' he said presently, 'jes t' see.'

Once started they grew red in their faces and shot themselves weary in a reckless contest of skiIl and endurance. A great hulking fellow, half drunk and a bit quarrelsome, came up, presently, and endeavoured to help Ab hold his rifle. The latter brushed him away and said nothing for a moment. But every time he tried to take aim the man jostled him.