"I should think you might make a success," he said, "of an entertainment like one I attended up in the mountains last summer. It was called a 'County Fair,' and was a sort of burlesque on the county fairs or state fairs that used to be held annually, and are still, I believe, in some sections of the country."
"It sounds all right so far," said Patty. "Tell us more about it."
"Well, you know you get everybody interested, and you have a committee for all the different parts of it."
"What are the different parts of it?"
"Oh, they're the domestic department, where you exhibit pies and bed-quilts and spatter-work done by the ladies in charge."
"Of course, these exhibits aren't real, you know, Patty," said her father; "and you girls would probably be tempted to put up gay jokes on each other. For instance, that rockery arrangement of Pansy's might be exhibited as your idea of art work."
"I wouldn't mind the joke on myself, papa," said Patty, "but it might not please Pansy. But we can get plenty of things to exhibit in the domestic department. That will be easy enough. I'll borrow Miss Daggett's pumpkin bed-quilt to exhibit as my latest achievement in the line of applied art, and I'll make a pie and label it Laura Russell's, which will take the first prize; but what other departments are there, Mr. Hepworth?"
"Well, the horticulture department can be made very humourous, as well as lucrative. At this fair I went to, the ladies had a beautiful table full of pin-cushions and other gimcracks, in the shape of fruits and vegetables."
"Oh, yes," said Bumble, "I know how to make those. I can make bananas and potatoes and Nan can make lovely strawberries."
"And I can make paper flowers," said Bob, "honest, I can! Great big sunflowers and tiger lilies, and you can use them for lampshades if you like."