ing goldenrod.

He halted his car at the end of the field and snapped a leash in the
bulldog's collar. "I hate to do it, old man," he said apologetically to
Chum's reproachful look, "but I've got to. There are to be some stunts,
and in such occasions you're apt to be convinced you're the main one of
the contestants, which might cause a mix-up. Never mind; I'll anchor you
where you won't miss anything."

With the excited dog tugging before him, he threaded his way through the
press with keen exhilaration. This was not a crowd like that of a city;
rather it resembled the old-homestead day of some unbelievably populous
family, at reunion with its servants and retainers. All its members
knew one another and the air was musical with badinage. Now and then
his gloved hand touched his cap at a salutation. He was conscious of
swift bird-like glances from pretty girls. Here was none of the rigid
straight-ahead gaze or vacant stare of the city boulevard; the eyes that
looked at him, frankly curious and inquiring, were full of easy open
comradeship. There was about both men and women an air of being at the
same time more ceremonious and more casual than those he had known. Some
of the girls wore gowns and hats that might that morning have issued
from the Rue de la Paix; others were habited in cheap materials. But
about the latter hung no benumbing self-consciousness. All bore
themselves alike. And all seemed to possess musical voices, graceful
movements and a sense of quiet dignity. He was beginning to realize that
there might really exist straitened circumstances, even actual poverty,
which yet created no sort of social difference.

Opposite the canvas-covered grand stand sat twelve small mushroom tents,
each with a staff and tiny flag. Midway lines of flaxen ropes stretched
between rows of slender peeled saplings from whose tops floated fanged
streamers of vivid bunting. A pavilion of purple cloth, open at the
sides, awaited the committee, and near the center, a negro band was
disposed on camp-stools, the brass of the waiting instruments winking
in the sunlight. The stand was a confused glow of color, of light gauzy
dresses, of young girls in pastel muslins with flowers in their belts,
picturesque hats and slender articulate hands darting in vivacious
gestures like white swallows--the gentry from the "big houses." About
the square babbled and palpitated the crowd of the farm-wagon and
carry-all; and at the lower end, jostling,