Me? I thought I'd just about go up.
But the ring master never cracked a smile. He didn't see the joke
at all.
Good-by, old clown, friend of our childhood, goodby, good-by
forever! And you, our other friend, the street parade, must you
go, too? And you, the gorgeous show-bills, must you tread the
path toward the sundown? Good-by! Good-by! In that dreary land
where you are going, the Kingdom of the Ausgespielt, it may comfort
you to recollect the young hearts you have made happy in the days
that were, but never more can be again.
THE COUNTY FAIR
Whether or not the name had an influence on the weather, I don't
know. Perhaps it did rain some years, but, as I remember, County
Fair time seems to have had a sky perfectly cloudless, with its
blue only a little dulled around the edges where it came close to
the ground and the dust settled on it. Things far off were sort of
hazy, but that might have been the result of the bonfires of leaves
we had been having evenings after supper. In Fair weather, when the
sun had been up long enough to get a really good start, it was right
warm, but in the shade it was cool, and nights and mornings there
was a chill in the air that threatened worse things to come.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended. Down cellar the
swing-shelf is cram-jam full of jellyglasses, and jars of fruit.
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