if it affected you in the
same way that it did me, but after I had stood there for a time and
watched those young men and women thus wasting the precious moments that
dropped like priceless pearls into the ocean of Eternity, and were
lost irrevocably, young, men and women giving themselves up to present
enjoyment without one serious thought in their minds as to who was going
to wash the supper dishes, or what would happen if the house took fire
while they were away I say I do not know how the sight of such reckless
frivolity affected you, but I know that after so long a time my face
would get all cramped up from wearing a grin, and I'd have to go out and
look at the reapers and binders to rest myself so I could come back and
look some. There are two things that you simply have to do at the County
Fair, or you aren't right sure you've been. One is to drink a glass of
sweet cider just from the press, (which, I may say in passing, is an
over-rated luxury. Cider has to be just the least bit "frisky" to be
good. I don't mean hard, but "frisky." You know). And the other is to
buy a whip, if it is only the little toy, fifteen-cent kind. On the
next soap-box to the old fellow that comes every year to sell pictorial
Bibles and red, plush-covered albums, the old fellow in the green
slippers that talks as if he were just ready to drop off to sleep--on
the next soap-box to him is the man that sells the whips. You can buy
one for a dollar, two for a dollar, or four for a dollar, but not one
for fifty cents, or one for a quarter. Don't ask me why, for I don't
know. I am just stating the facts. It can't be done, for I've seen it
tried, and if you keep up the attempt too long, the whip-man will lose
all patience with your unreasonableness, and tell you to go 'long about
your business if you've got any, and not bother the life and soul out of
him, because he won't sell anything but a dollar's worth of whips, and
that's all there is about it.

He sells other things, handsaws, and pencils, and mouth-harps, and two
knives for a quarter, of such pure steel that he whittles shavings off
a wire nail with 'em, and is particular to hand you the very identical
knife he did it with. He has jewelry, though I don't suppose you could
cut a wire nail with it. You might, at that.

To him approaches a boy.

"Got 'ny collar-buttons?"

"Well, now, I'll just look and see. Here's a beautiful rolled-plate gold
watch-chain, with an elegant jewel charm. L