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with us." Here was the ring; here the tent-pole holes, and here a scrap of paper torn from a hoop the bareback rider leaped through . . . . Oh, now I know what I was going to tell you that the clown said. The comicalest thing!
He picked up one of these hoops and began to sniffle.
So the ring-master asked him what he was crying about.
"I - I -was thinking of my mother. Smf! My good old mother!"
So the ring-master asked him what made him think of his mother.
"This." And he held up the paper-covered hoop.
The ring-master couldn't see how that put the clown in mind of his mother. He was awful dumb, that man.
"It looks just like the pancakes she used to make for us."
Well, sir, we just hollered and laughed at that. And after we had quieted down a little, the ringmaster says: "As big as that?"
"Bigger," says the clown. "Why, she used to make 'em so big we used 'em for bedclothes."
"Indeed" (Just like that. He took it all in, just as if it was so.)
"Oh, my, yes! I mind one time I was sleeping with my little brother, and I waked up just as cold - Brr! But I was cold!"
"But how could that be, sir? You just now said you had pancakes for bedclothes."
"Yes, but my little brother got hungry in the night, and et up all the cover."
Laugh? Why, they screamed. 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. Out on the hen-house roof are drying what, when the soap-box wagon was first built, promised barrels and barrels of nuts to be brought up with the pitcher of cider for our comforting in the long winter evenings, but what turns out, when the shucks are off, to be a poor, pitiful half-peck, daily depleted by the urgent necessity of finding out if they are dry enough yet. Folks are picking apples, and Koontz's cider-mill is in full operation. (Do you know any place where a fellow can get some nice long straws?) Out in the fields are champagne-colored pyramids, each with a pale-gold heap of corn beside it, and the good black earth is dotted with orange blobs that promise pumpkin-pies for Thanksgiving Day. No. Let me look again. Those aren't pie-pumpkins; those are cow-pumpkins, and if you want to see something kind of pitiful, I'll show you Abe Bethard chopping up one of those yellow globes -with what, do you suppose? With the cavalry saber his daddy used at Gettysburg.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended. As a result of all the good feeding and the outdoor air we have had for three or four months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings
He picked up one of these hoops and began to sniffle.
So the ring-master asked him what he was crying about.
"I - I -was thinking of my mother. Smf! My good old mother!"
So the ring-master asked him what made him think of his mother.
"This." And he held up the paper-covered hoop.
The ring-master couldn't see how that put the clown in mind of his mother. He was awful dumb, that man.
"It looks just like the pancakes she used to make for us."
Well, sir, we just hollered and laughed at that. And after we had quieted down a little, the ringmaster says: "As big as that?"
"Bigger," says the clown. "Why, she used to make 'em so big we used 'em for bedclothes."
"Indeed" (Just like that. He took it all in, just as if it was so.)
"Oh, my, yes! I mind one time I was sleeping with my little brother, and I waked up just as cold - Brr! But I was cold!"
"But how could that be, sir? You just now said you had pancakes for bedclothes."
"Yes, but my little brother got hungry in the night, and et up all the cover."
Laugh? Why, they screamed. 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. Out on the hen-house roof are drying what, when the soap-box wagon was first built, promised barrels and barrels of nuts to be brought up with the pitcher of cider for our comforting in the long winter evenings, but what turns out, when the shucks are off, to be a poor, pitiful half-peck, daily depleted by the urgent necessity of finding out if they are dry enough yet. Folks are picking apples, and Koontz's cider-mill is in full operation. (Do you know any place where a fellow can get some nice long straws?) Out in the fields are champagne-colored pyramids, each with a pale-gold heap of corn beside it, and the good black earth is dotted with orange blobs that promise pumpkin-pies for Thanksgiving Day. No. Let me look again. Those aren't pie-pumpkins; those are cow-pumpkins, and if you want to see something kind of pitiful, I'll show you Abe Bethard chopping up one of those yellow globes -with what, do you suppose? With the cavalry saber his daddy used at Gettysburg.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended. As a result of all the good feeding and the outdoor air we have had for three or four months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings