And when you have run as far
as the hose will reach, the boy with the Fourth of July pistol says:
"Twenty-eight and two-fifths," and that's the game. And the kids
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.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129