Dorothy Ware was on the veranda, gathering some of the vine's dead leaves when Dick's step sounded on the wooden sidewalk. As he saw her, his face lit up. He never noticed that the flush on her face was of another sort.
"How do you do, Dick? Come up and shake hands."
Then they stood and looked at each other silently for an instant. "We're both a little older," said Dick. "But I suppose we have so much to talk about that we'll have to make this a very passing meeting. Besides, mother's waiting for me; I've been for a morning walk, you see. You'll be at the great and only Fair, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes; I've almost forgotten how it looks. I do hope they will have a fine day for it."
Miss Ware looked after him wistfully. She thought of the thunderstorm in the forest at Schandau, and sighed.
The first day of the County Fair was hardly eventful. The farmers were busy bringing in their exhibits of stock and produce, and arranging them properly for the inspection of the judges. It is all merely by way of preparation for the big day, the day on which the trotting and running races take place.
Fortunately, it was a cloudless day. Shortly after sunrise clouds of dust began to fill the air. All the roads leading fairwards are filled all morning with every sort and condition of vehicle. Farmers come from the farthest bounderies of the county, bringing their families; the young men bringing their "best girls." This volume of traffic soon reduces the road-bed to a fine, powdery dust, that rises, mist-like and obscures the face of the earth and sky.
Soon the presence of the Fair is felt in the village itself, and the "square" resounds to the cries of the omnibus drivers soliciting fares. "All aboard, now, for the Fair Grounds, only ten cents!" So runs the invitation yelled from half a dozen lusty, though dusty throats. For this occasion every livery stable in the place brings out all the ramshackle conveyances it has. Everything on wheels is pressed into service. Like Christmas, the great day of the County Fair, comes but once a year, and must be made the most of. Few people are going to walk on so dusty a day as this, so the 'bus drivers ply up and down from seven in the morning until dusk sets in, and the last home-stragglers have left the grounds.