"It's plumb beautiful," she opined enthusiastically. "I ain't never seen the beat! I wisht I hed eyes all around my head so ez I mought stare my fill. You—you air a plumb special showman an' no mistake," and once more she bent to the stirring of the pot.
"Now I'll take no denial," said Lloyd, advancing. "You have got to come up to town with me after tea and we will go up in the Ferris Wheel together. That'll be full safe—I'll see to it that you don't fall out. I'll sit by you—the settees are made for two."
"Fine for courtin'," Mrs. Pinnott was airily coquettish. "Some o' them high-steppin' town gals that I see lookin' arter you uns so lovin' this evenin' mought put a spider in my cup, seein' me 'tended by sech a handsome proud-sperited young man."
"Proud-spirited," cried poor Lloyd, with a dreary laugh. "I feel as meek as Moses."
Mrs. Daniel Pinnott was peeling potatoes at a little distance, and the baby in a blue calico slip, lying in the grass, kicking up its dimpled pink heels, was consigned to the care of a great cur, that now licked its face and now affected to bite the soft hand which the infant thrust up into his open jaws, and now squealed in shrill pain as the baby fingers pinched and tugged at his defenceless ears with a strength hardly to be expected of such callow muscles.
"Both you lydies must come in time to see the pyrotechnic exhibition, and go through the whole show, and if you bring any money with you I'll hold you up and throw every cent you have got into the river."
Old Mrs. Pinnott inclined graciously to this proposition. She had already paid to see a part of the show and thus satisfied her sense of independence. If the manager were polite enough to favour her with a second view of the scenes which her memory gloated upon with so much delight, she saw no reason why she should deny herself this pleasure. "I be goin' ter stay all night with my niece, Malviny Bostel, her who merried a Fenton before she merried Bostel—Fenton bein' gone ter glory, pore man! All we wimmen folks, 'bout bedtime, air goin' ter her house fur the night, bein' ez we uns don't favour sleepin' round a camp fire like Towse thar, or the men-folks—thar ain't room in the waggin. An', stranger, I ain't settin' out ter saftsawder you uns whenst I say ez I had ruther go ridin' in that big swing with you uns than ter set in Malviny's 'parlour,' ez she calls it, an' hear her talk so mealy-mouthed, an' finified, an' explain all the town doin's ter her kentry kin—she 'lowed ter me ez she talked through a telly-fun whenst she war in Glaston, an' Rufe Bostel hearn her at Shaftesville, full twenty odd mile off—though mebbe he did—his ears air long enough fur anything. He minds me of a mule in more ways than one! Waal, I know fust off ez much about the Street Fair ez Malviny kin tell me, an' more—fur I know her well enough ter take my affle-david to it that she didn't spen' many dimes with you uns. An' I'd be glad ter pass my evenin' somewhar else, so's I kin purtend ter be so tired I can't do nuthin' but sink on my pillow fur my solemn night's rest whenst I git back ter Malviny's 'parlour,' ez she calls it."
"I'll engage that nobody can teach you anything about the Street Fair after I'm through showing you around," Lloyd declared, and mechanically lifting his hat he passed on, leaving her staring after him admiring his grace. "The man's got the manners of a red-bird," she exclaimed enthusiastically.
But Lloyd was ill at ease as he approached Shadrach Pinnott and his son Daniel. The old man stood with the ox-yoke in his hand, half leaning on it as he disentangled a rope that had become wound about it, while his son bent under a bundle of fodder, taken from the rear of the waggon, and was flinging it down on the flat surface of an outcropping ledge of rock near the river, preparing the supper of the oxen. Both mountaineers looked at him with such eager expectant apprehensiveness that the awkwardness of his mission seemed augmented by their attitude. He felt that it was necessary to break the ice at once—in fact he could not be silent before the coercive inquiry of their gaze.
"Did you hear your daughter sing, Mr. Pinnott?" he asked. The surprise, the tension of doubt in the expression of their faces gave way suddenly, with an effect of flouting contempt, as if they had expected or feared to hear something different. Shadrach did not reply. Both seemed absorbed in a silent communion with their own thoughts. Lloyd perceived that what he had said was of such slight importance in their opinion in comparison with what they had in mind that he would have some difficulty in securing and holding their attention.