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At Sudleigh Fair
by
They loved her better at home, too, than at Sudleigh Fair. It was like a betrayal of their fireside secrets, to see her there in her accustomed garb; so slight a concession to propriety would have lain in her putting on a bonnet and shawl!
As they neared Sudleigh town, the road grew populous with carriages and farm-wagons, “step and step,” not all from Tiverton way, but gathered in from the roads converging here. Men were walking up and down the market street, crying their whips, their toy balloons, and a multitude of cheaper gimcracks.
“Forty miles from home! forty miles from home!” called one, more imaginative than the rest. “And no place to lay my head! That’s why I’m selling these little whips here to-day, a stranger in a strange land. Buy one! buy one! and the poor pilgrim’ll have a supper and a bed! Keep your money in your pocket, and he’s a wanderer on the face of the earth!”
Dilly, the fearless in her chosen wilds, took a fold of Molly’s dress, and held it tight.
“You s’pose that’s so?” she whispered. “Oh, dear! I ‘ain’t got a mite o’ money, on’y these six eggs. Oh, why didn’t he stay to home, if he’s so possessed to sleep under cover? What does anybody leave their home for, if they’ve got one?”
But Molly put up her head, and walked sturdily on.
“Don’t you worry,” she counselled, in an undertone. “It don’t mean any more ‘n it does when folks say they’re sellin’ at a sacrifice. I guess they expect to make enough, take it all together.”
Dilly walked on, quite bewildered. She had lost her fine, joyous carriage; her shoulders were bent, and her feet shuffled, in a discouraged fashion, over the unlovely bricks. Molly kept the lead, with unconscious superiority.
“Le’s go into the store now,” she said, “an’ swap off the eggs. You’ll be joggled in this crowd, an’ break ’em all to smash. Here, you le’ me have your handkerchief! I’ll see to it all.” She kept the handkerchief in her hand, after their slight “tradin'” had been accomplished; and Dilly, too dispirited to offer a word, walked meekly about after her.
The Fair was held, according to ancient custom, in the town-hall, of which the upper story had long been given over to Sudleigh Academy. Behind the hall lay an enormous field, roped in now, and provided with pens and stalls, where a great assemblage of live-stock lowed, and grunted, and patiently chewed the cud.
“Le’s go in there fust,” whispered Dilly. “I sha’n’t feel so strange there as I do with folks. I guess if the four-footed creatur’s can stan’ it, I can. Pretty darlin’!” she added, stopping before a heifer who had ceased eating and was looking about her with a mild and dignified gaze. Dilly eagerly sought out a stick, and began to scratch the delicate head. “Pretty creatur’! Smell o’ her breath, Molly! See her nose, all wet, like pastur’ grass afore day! Now, if I didn’t want to live by myself, I’d like to curl me up in a stall, ‘side o’ her.”
“‘Mandy, you an’ Kelup come here!” called Aunt Melissa Adams. She loomed very prosperous, over the way, in her new poplin and her lace-trimmed cape. “Jest look at these roosters! They’ve got spurs on their legs as long’s my darnin’-needle. What under the sun makes ’em grow so! An’ ain’t they the nippin’est little creatur’s you ever see?”
“They’re fightin’-cocks,” answered Caleb, tolerantly.
“Fightin’-cocks? You don’t mean to tell me they’re trained up for that?”
“Yes, I do!”
“Well, I never heard o’ such a thing in a Christian land! never! Whose be they? I’ll give him a piece o’ my mind, if I live another minute!”
“You better let other folks alone,” said Caleb, stolidly.
“‘Mandy,” returned Aunt Melissa, in a portentous undertone, “be you goin’ to stan’ by an’ see your own aunt spoke to as if she was the dirt under your feet?”