第50章 THE COUNTY FAIR(6)

I didn't quite catch that last remark" expression. I don't know if it affected you in the same way that it did me, but after I had stood there for a time and watched those young men and women thus wasting the precious moments that dropped like priceless pearls into the ocean of Eternity, and were lost irrevocably, young, men and women giving themselves up to present enjoyment without one serious thought in their minds as to who was going to wash the supper dishes, or what would happen if the house took fire while they were away I say I do not know how the sight of such reckless frivolity affected you, but I know that after so long a time my face would get all cramped up from wearing a grin, and I'd have to go out and look at the reapers and binders to rest myself so Icould come back and look some. There are two things that you simply have to do at the County Fair, or you aren't right sure you've been. One is to drink a glass of sweet cider just from the press, (which, I may say in passing, is an over-rated luxury.

Cider has to be just the least bit "frisky" to be good. I don't mean hard, but" frisky." You know). And the other is to buy a whip, if it is only the, little toy, fifteen-cent kind. On the next soap-box to the old fellow that comes every year to sell pictorial Bibles and red, plush-covered albums, the old fellow in the green slippers that talks as if he were just ready to drop off to sleep - on the next soap-box to him is the man that sells the whips. You can buy one for a dollar, two for a dollar, or four for a dollar, but not one for fifty cents, or one for a quarter. Don't ask me why, for I don't know. I am just stating the facts. It can't be done, for I've seen it tried, and if you keep up the attempt too long, the whip-man will lose all patience with your unreasonableness, and tell you to go 'long about your business if you've got any, and not bother the life and soul out of him, because he won't sell anything but a dollar's worth of whips, and that's all there is about it.

He sells other things, handsaws, and pencils, and mouth-harps, and two knives for a quarter, of such pure steel that he whittles shavings off a wire nail with 'em, and is particular to hand you the very identical knife he did it with. He has jewelry, though Idon't suppose you could cut a wire nail with it. You might, at that.

To him approaches a boy.

"Got 'ny collar-buttons?"

"Well, now, I'll just look and see. Here's a beautiful rolled-plate gold watch-chain, with an elegant jewel charm. Lovely blue jewel."He dangles the chain and its rich glass pendant, and it certainly does look fine. "That'd cost you $2.50 at the store. How'd that strike you ?""Hpm. I want a collar-button."

"Well, now, you hold on a minute. Lemme look again. Ah, here's a package 'at orta have some in it. Yes, sir, here's four of 'em, enough to last you a lifetime; front, back, and both sleeves, the kind that flips and don't tear the buttonholes. Well, by ginger! Now, how'd that git in here, I want to know? That gold ring? Well, I don't care. It'll have to go with the collar-buttons.

Tell you what I'll do with you: I'll let you have this elegant solid gold rolled-plate watch-chain and jewel, this elegant, solid gold ring to git married with - Hay? How about it? - and these four collar-buttons for - for - twenty-five cents, or a quarter of a dollar."That boy never took that quarter out of his breeches pocket. It just jumped out of itself. But I see that you are getting the fidgets. You're hoping that I'll come to the horse-racing pretty soon. You want to have it all brought back to you, the big, big race-track which, as you remember it now, must have been about the next size smaller than the earth's orbit around the sun. You want me to tell about the old farmer with the bunch of timothy whiskers under his chin that gets his old jingling wagon on the track just before a heat is to be trotted, and all the people yell at him:

"Take him out!" You want me to tell how the trotters looked walking around in their dusters, with the eye-holes bound with red braid, and how the drivers of the sulkies sat with the tails of their horses tucked under one leg. Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind, and if you don't like it, you can go to the box-office and demand your money back. I hope you'll get it. First place, I don't know anything about racing, and consequently I don't believe it's a good thing for the country. All I know is, that some horses can go faster than others, but which are the fastest ones I can't tell by the looks, though I have tried several times . . . . I did not walk back. I bought a round-trip ticket. They will tell you that these events at the County Fair tend to improve the breed of horses. So they do - of fast horses. But the fast horses are no good. They can't any of them go as fast as a nickel trolley-car when it gets out where there aren't any houses. And they not only are no good; they're a positive harm. You know and I know that just as soon as a man gets cracked after fast horses, it's good-by John with him.

In the next place, I wouldn't mind it if it was only interesting to me. But it isn't. It bores me to death. You sit there and sit there trying to keep awake while the drivers jockey and jockey, scheming to get the advantage of the other fellow, and the bell rings so many times for them to come back after you think: "They're off this time, sure," that you get sick of hearing it. And when they do get away, why, who can tell which horse is in the lead? On the far side of the track they don't appear to do anything but poke along, and once in a while some fool horse will "break" and that's annoying. And then when they come into the stretch, the other folks that see you with the field-glasses, keep nudging you and asking:

"Who 's ahead, mister? Hay? Who's ahead?" And it's ruinous to the voice to yell: "Go it! Go it! Go IT, ye devil, you!" with your throat all clenched that way and your face as red as a turkey-gobbler's. And that second when they are going under the wire, and the horse you rather like is about a nose behind the other one that you despise - Oh, tedious, very tedious. Ho hum, Harry!