They had barely saved the potatoes. That very night the ground froze.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” Mother said, but Father shook his head.
“Too close to suit me,” he said. “Next thing will be snow. We’ll have to hustle to get the beans and corn under cover.”
He put the hay-rack on the wagon, and Royal and Almanzo helped him haul the beans. They pulled up the bean-stakes and laid them in the wagon, beans and all. They worked carefully, for a jar would shake the beans out of the dry pods and waste them.
When they had piled all the beans on the South-Barn Floor, they hauled in the shocks of corn. The crops had been so good that even Father’s great barn-roofs would not shelter all the harvest. Several loads of corn-shocks had to be put in the barnyard, and Father made a fence around them to keep them safe from the young cattle.
All the harvest was in, now. Cellar and attic and the barns were stuffed to bursting. Plenty of food, and plenty of feed for all the stock, was stored away for the winter.
Everyone could stop working for a while, and have a good time at the County Fair.
Chapter 21
County Fair
Early in the frosty morning they all set out for the Fair. All of them were dressed up in their Sunday clothes except Mother.
She wore her second-best and took an apron, for she was going to help with the church dinner.
Under the back buggy-seat was the box of jellies and pickles and preserves that Eliza Jane and Alice had made to show at the Fair. Alice was taking her woolwork embroidery, too. But Almanzo’s milk-fed pumpkin had gone the day before.
It was too big to go in the buggy. Almanzo had polished it carefully, Father had lifted it into the wagon and rolled it onto a soft pile of hay, and they had taken it to the Fair Grounds and given it to Mr. Paddock. Mr. Paddock was in charge of such things.
This morning the roads were lively with people driving to the Fair, and in Malone the crowds were thicker than they had been on Independence Day. All around the Fair Grounds were acres of wagons and buggies, and people were clustered like flies. Flags were flying and the band was playing.
Mother and Royal and the girls got out of the buggy at the Fair Grounds, but Almanzo rode on with Father to the church sheds, and helped unhitch the horses. The sheds were full, and all along the sidewalks streams of people in their best clothes were walking to the Fair, while buggies dashed up and down the streets in clouds of dust.
“Well, son,” Father asked him, “what shall we do first?”
“I want to see the horses,” Almanzo said. So Father said they would look at the horses first.
The sun was high now, and the day was clear and pleasantly warm. Streams of people were pouring into the Fair Grounds, with a great noise of talking and walking, and the band was playing gaily. Buggies were coming and going; men stopped to speak to Father, and boys were everywhere. Frank went by with some of the town boys, and Almanzo saw Miles Lewis and Aaron Webb. But he stayed with Father.
They went slowly past the tall back of the grand-stand, and past the low, long church building. This was not the church, but a church kitchen and dining-room at the Fair Grounds. A noise of dishes and rattling pans and a chatter of women’s voices came out of it. Mother and the girls were inside it somewhere.
Beyond it was a row of stands, and booths, and tents, all gay with flags and colored pictures, and men shouting:
“Step this way, step this way, only ten cents, one dime, the tenth part of a dollar!” “Oranges, oranges, sweet Florida oranges!” “Cures all ills of man and beast!” “Prizes for all! Prizes for all!” “Last call, boys, put down your money! Step back, don’t crowd!”
One stand was a forest of striped black-and-white canes. If you could throw a ring over a cane, the man would give it to you. There were piles of oranges, and trays of gingerbread, and tubs of pink lemonade. There was a man in a tail coat and a tall shining hat, who put a pea under a shell and then paid money to any man who would tell him where the pea was.
“I know where it is, Father!” Almanzo said.
“Be you sure?” Father asked.
“Yes,” said Almanzo, pointing. “Under that one.”
“Well, son, we’ll wait and see,” Father said.
Just then a man pushed through the crowd and laid down a five-dollar bill beside the shells. There were three shells. The man pointed to the same shell that Almanzo had pointed at.
The man in the tall hat picked up the shell. There was no pea under it. The next instant the five-dollar bill was in his tail-coat pocket, and he was showing the pea again and putting it under another shell.
Almanzo couldn’t under
stand it. He had seen the pea under that shell, and then it wasn’t there. He asked Father how the man had done it.