And wasn't she provoked, though? Served her right,
I say. A little woman beside her was the first to jump into her
buggy, and drive off with a strong inhalation of breath, and that
nipping together of the lips that says: "A-a-ah! I tell ye!" The
little girl that we picked out was hopping around like a scared
cockroach, and her pa seemed to be saying: "Now, keep cool!
Keep cool! Don't get flustered," but when another woman drove
off, I know she almost cried, she felt so bad. But she was third,
and when she and her pa drove around the ring, the people clapped
her lots more than the other two. I guess they must have picked
her for a favorite the same as you and I did. Bless her heart!
I hope she got a good man when she grew up.
Around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin, where they have the relics,
the spinning-wheel, the flax-hackle, and the bunch of dusty tow
that nobody knows how to spin in these degenerate days; the old
flint-lock rifle, and the powder-horn; the tinder-box, and the blue
plate, "more'n a hundred years old;" the dog-irons, tongs, poker,
and turkey-wing of an ancient fireplace - around back of the Old
Settlers' Cabin all the early part of the day a bunch of dirty
canvas has been dangling from a rope stretched between two trees.
It was fenced off from the curious, but after dinner a stranger in
fringy trousers and a black singlet went around picking out big,
strong, adventurous young fellows to stand about the wooden ring
fastened to the bottom of the bunch of canvas, which went over the
smoke-pipe of a sort of underground furnace in which a roaring fire
had been built.
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