“The Poultry Fanciers’ Association likewise begins to hold frequent meetings, planning its own exhibits and its entertainments for visiting exhibitors, and announcing that silver cups may be given as prizes, in which event the cups also will be exhibited. Finally, at least one cup makes its appearance, and is displayed in advance, surrounded by many ribbon rosettes and streamers destined for such happy birds as are only less than the best.
“Hotel and restaurant keepers hungrily furbish up old and install new equipment, increase their attendance and provide music, and make bids for the reward of virtue by refusing entertainment to such undesirable citizens as Mormon missionaries. Local real estate booms more loudly than ever, and local commerce plumes and preens itself with all kinds of ‘openings’ and ‘fair-week bargains.’ It keeps a jealous eye on competition, requiring visiting street vendors to keep moving; but it is so hospitable to visiting custom that when visiting custom’s sleepy children tumble into its show-cases, it grandly refuses to accept payment for the resulting damage.
“And now ‘the Midway’ begins to cast its lights and shadows before. Its prospective patrons sorrow over the enforced absence of the glass swallower, who has at last succumbed to the rigors of his profession. But they are felicitous over the return of the electric woman, and look forward with eager anticipation to the yet untasted delights of riding on a ‘sea-wave,’ and of throwing rings at the heads of a flock of live geese. They read with avidity long newspaper accounts, by correspondents who sign themselves ‘1t,’ of the approaching Russian midget and the Igorrote village; and the report that two balloonists are contesting for a concession distracts them between the comparative merits of a real wedding in mid-air and a cannon that shoots an aeronaut and a parachute.
“Meanwhile ‘Ten Nights in a Bar-Room’ comes to town with a tent and a band that parades, but so few persons attend that no performances are given. Local entertainers, however, climb to the very pinnacle of competition. The Family Theatre provides ‘An Entire Change of Programme!’ and the Academy of Music presents ‘A Repertoire Company of World Wide Reputation!!!’ The skating rink advertises a new floor, and a grand opening, with decorations of American flags and Japanese lanterns. And the dancing academy announces a series of fair-week dances with a new palm-room capable of seating an orchestra of six pieces.
“Soon the zest of danger is added to the local frame of mind by the appearance of two men ‘from away,’ who appear dissatisfied with all the watches that the leading jeweller can display, until it is learned, after their departure, that they have taken several with them for more leisurely examination. Thereupon all strangers are looked upon with suspicion, doors and windows are doubly locked; valuables are guarded; and local justice warns or incarcerates on suspicion the best or worst-known local offenders, and congratulates the town on the loss of fewer horses, watches, and pocket-books than usual. Anxiety over property, however, at no time approaches that concerning the weather, which cannot possibly last if it is good, although it will certainly continue if it is bad.
“Local finance shows its approval of the general course of things by promising its bank clerks two half-holidays, and local learning smiles indulgently in paying its teachers earlier than usual, and granting its pupils a two days’ recess. The Grand Council of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Fraternity promises its annual visitation during fair week, and the church endeavors to leaven the worldliness of the season by announcing the twenty-sixth annual convention of the Woman’s Home and Foreign Missionary Society.
“When the exhibits actually begin to arrive, one wonders how enthusiasm can rise higher. The fair grounds present an increasingly busy scene, until there is scarcely moving room between workmen and wagons. Incoming teams grow more and more crowded with exhibits and exhibitors, fakes and fakirs, and, finally, with visitors. Every private house entertains old friends and new. Public accommodations are taxed to the utmost, and trading at the city market becomes well-nigh frantic.
“The visitors represent all sorts and conditions of men and women. The old woman who has never ridden on a railroad train and the old man who attended the first fair fifty years ago, the veteran who helped defend the town during the civil war and the business man who is taking his first vacation in twenty-four years—these divide interest with the principals in the runaway marriages, of which there are two or three daily.
“Numerous former residents return for the first time in many years, and several new families decide to locate permanently. At the last moment the Governor finds himself unfortunately unable to be present, but the president of one railroad and the general manager of another come in private cars, and two rival political candidates are much seen but not much heard.
“Various other distinguished guests arrive in touring cars, and countless other less distinguished but equally dust-covered persons arrive in carriages. Street movement grows very brisk. Buggies clash, automobiles bump, and trolley cars jump the track; and over all begins to rise the call of the cabman, ‘Going right out.’ By night all the shops are brilliant, sidewalks are crowded, and in the square there are moving picture advertisements, and the flaring torches of vending and performing fakirs.