They had supper in a temporary eating-room, and the
waiter said there was a fair in the house. Not an agricultural
display, but something got up by a ladies' sewing-society to raise
money for poor people.
Now Robert Day and Corinne knew all about an agricultural display.
They had been to the State Fair at Columbus, and seen cattle standing
in long lines of booths, quilts, and plows, and chickens, pies,
bread, and fancy knitting, horses, cake stands, and crowds of people.
They considered it the finest sight in the world, except, perhaps, a
fabulous crystal palace which was or had been somewhere a great ways
off, and which everybody talked about a great deal, and some folks
had pictured on their window blinds. But a fair got up by a ladies'
sewing-society to raise money for the poor, was so entirely new and
tantalizing to them that they begged their guardian to take them in.
Grandma Padgett said she had no money to spare for foolishness, and
her expenses during the trip footed up to a high figure. Neither
could she undertake to have the trunks in from the wagon and get out
their Sunday clothes. But in the end, as both children were neatly
dressed, and the fair was to help the poor, she gave them a five-cent
piece each, over and above admission money, which was a fip'ney-bit,
for children, the waiter said.
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