Billy Whiskers at the Fair

“HELLO, PUMPKIN MAN,” WAS BILLY’S CORDIAL GREETING.
By F. G. WHEELER
Drawings by ARTHUR DeBEBIAN
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY New York AKRON, OHIO Chicago
COPYRIGHT, 1909 By The Saalfield Publishing Company
MADE BY THE WERNER COMPANY AKRON, OHIO
BILLY WHISKERS AT THE FAIR.
AFFAIRS at Cloverleaf Farm had been running very smoothly for a month or more. School had begun, the boys were occupied with studies and so well out of mischief’s way for five hours each day. Summer crops had been harvested, the barn was bursting with the sweet-scented hay, the well-filled silo promised many a juicy meal for the farmyard inhabitants during the approaching winter months, and in the fields the pumpkins lay like huge nuggets of pure gold, with the shocks of corn standing guard over their richness.
Billy Whiskers, as you will remember, had returned from his long travels with the Circus, the troupe of monkeys had come and gone, and the Farm was left in comparative quiet.
Yet under the outward calm there was a vague uneasiness, and a strange restlessness was apparent among the boys, which at times infected even the older members of the Treat household. All this was proven conclusively because Billy Whiskers and his gaily-painted cart were neglected, and catalogs had held much more interest than outdoor sports for the last week or more.
But such a condition of things could not last very long. One fine afternoon when the sun was casting long, slanting rays across the fields, and there was the soft haziness of first October days in the air, Tom, Dick and Harry were passing the Corners on their way home from school when the postmaster, a genial old fellow, hailed them from his seat on a cracker barrel in front of the store.
“Here, boys, wait a minute. There’s a postal for your father, and the new automobile is a-comin’, all right, all right!”