The staring eye, the palpitating
heart, the aching head, were successive stages in the doom of
many. The fair had its floral hall carpeted with sawdust and
redolent of cedar, its dairy house, its mechanics' hall sacred to
farming implements, its long sheds full of sheep and cattle, its
dining-hall, its temporary booths of rough lumber, its half-mile
track and grandstand. Here voices of beast and vendor mingled in a
chorus of cupidity and distress. In Floral Hall Sol Rollin was on
exhibition. He gave me a cold nod, his lips set for a tune as yet
inaudible. He was surveying sundry examples of rustic art that
hung on the circular railing of the gallery and trying to preserve
a calm breast. He was looking at Susan Baker's painted cow that
hung near us.
'Very descriptive,' he said when I pressed him for his notion of it.
'Rod Baker's sister Susan made thet cow. Gits tew dollars an' fifty
cents every fair time - wish I was dewin 's well.'
'That's one of the most profitable cows in this country,' I said.
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