E.And the don't like for big folks to stand and watch them, because they
always make fun so.
In other towns they have Boys' Companies organized strictly for
Tournament purposes.There was talk of having one here.Mat.
King, the assistant chief, was all for having one so that we could
compete in what he calls "the juveline contests," but it fell
through somehow.
Along about sun-up you hear the big farm-wagons clattering into
town, chairs in the wagon bed, and Paw, and Maw, and Mary
Elizabeth, and Martin Luther, and all the family, clean down to
Teedy, the baby.He's named after Theodore Roosevelt, and they
have the letter home now, framed and hanging up over the organ.
But for all the wagon is so full, there is room for a big basket
covered with a red-ended towel.(Seems to me I smell fried chicken,
don't you?)
I just thought I'dt see if you'd bite.You've formed your notions
of country people from "The Old Homestead" and these by-gosh-Mirandy
novels.The real farmers, nowadays, drive into town in double-seated
carriages with matched bays, curried so that you can see to comb
your hair in their glossy sides.The single rigs sparkle in the sun,
conveying young men and young women of such clean-cut, high-bred
features as to make us wonder.And yet I don't know why we should
wonder, either.They all come from good old stock.The young
fellows run a little too strongly to patent-leather shoes and their
horses are almost too skittish for my liking, but the girls are all
right.If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why,
you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion
magazines that you do, and there is such a thing as a mail-order
business in this country, even if you aren't aware of it.
All the little boys in town are out with their baskets chanting sadly:
PEANUTS?FIVE A BAG
You 'll hear that all day long.
But there isn't much going on before the excursion trains come in.
Then things begin to hop.The grand marshal and his aides gallop
through the streets as if they were going for the doctor.The
trains of ten and fifteen coaches pile up in the railroad yard,
and the yardmaster nearly goes out of his mind.People are so
anxious to get out of the cars, in which they have been packed
and jammed for hours, that they don't mind a little thing like
being run over by a switching engine.Every platform is just one
solid chunk of summer hats and babies and red shirts and alto horns.
They have been nearly five hours coming fifty miles.Stopped at
every station and sidetracked for all the regular trains.Such a
time! Lots of fun, though.The fellows got out and pulled flowers,
and seed cucumbers, and things and threw them at folks.You never
saw such cut-ups as they are.Pretty good singers, too.Good
part of the way, they sung "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and
"How Can I Bear to Leave Thee," nice and slow, you know, a good
deal of tenor and not much bass, and plenty of these" minor chords."
(Yes, I kno.