ou git to be as old as I am, and can't work all
you want to, you'll know there ain't any pleasure like good hard
work.'

"There's one thing that bothers me, child," and Aunt Jane's voice sank
to a confidential key: "I've had a plenty o' fears in my life, but
they've all passed over me; and now there's jest one thing I'm afraid
of: that I'll live to be too old to work. It appears to me like I
could stand anything but that. And if the time ever comes when I can't
help myself, nor other folks either, I trust the Lord'll see fit to
call me hence and give me a new body, and start me to work again
right away.

"But, as I was sayin', I always enjoyed cookin', and it's a pleasure
to me to set and think about the hams I've b'iled and the salt-risin'
bread I've baked and the old-fashioned pound-cake and sponge-cake and
all the rest o' the things I used to take to the fair. Abram was
always mighty proud o' my cookin', and we generally had a half a dozen
or more o' the town folks to eat dinner with us every day o' the fair.
Old Judge Grace and Dr. Brigham never failed to eat with us. The old
judge'd say something about my salt-risin' bread every time I'd meet
him in town. The first year my bread took the premium, Abram sent the
premium loaf to him with the blue ribbon tied around it. After Abram
died I stopped goin' to the fairs, and I don't know how many years
it'd been since I set foot on the grounds. I hadn't an idea how
things'd changed since my day till, year before last, Henrietta and
her husband come down here from Danville. He'd come to show some
blooded stock, and she come along with him to see me. And says she,
'Grandma, you've got to go to the fair with me one day, anyhow;' and I
went more to please her than to please myself.

"I'm always contendin', child, that this world's growin' better and
better all the time; but, Lord! Lord! that fair come pretty near
upsettin' my faith. Why, in my day folks could take their children to
the fair and turn 'em loose; and, if they had sense enough to keep
from under the horses' feet, they was jest as safe at the fair as they
was at a May meetin'. But, la! the sights I saw that day Henrietta
took me to the fair! Every which way you'd look there was some sort of
a trap for temptin' boys and leadin' 'em astray. Whisky and beer and
all sorts o' gamblin' machines and pool sellin', and little boys no
higher'n that smokin' little white cigyars, and offerin' to bet with
each other on the