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by Eugene Wood

It does a body good to get such a talk once in a while.

And there are the young fellows and the girls. This young gentleman in the rimless eye-glasses, who is now beginning to “go out among 'em” the last time you saw him was in meeting when Elder Drown was preaching, and my gentleman stood up in the seat and shouted shrilly: “'T ain't at all, man. 'T ain't at all!” And this sweet girl-graduate—the last time you saw her was just after Becky Daly, in the vain effort to “peacify” the squalling young one, had given her a fresh egg to play with. I kind o' like the looks of the younger generation of girls. But I don't know about the young fellows. They look to me like a trifling lot. Nothing like what they were in our young days. I don't see but what us old codgers had better hold on a while longer to the County Clerk's office, and the Sheriff's office, and the Probate judgeship, and the presidency of the National Bank. It wouldn't be safe to trust the destinies of the country in the hands of such heedless young whiffets. Engaged to be married! Oh, get out! What? Those babies?

I kept awake most of the time the man was lecturing on: “The Republic: Will it Endure?” but I don't remember that he said anything in it about the crops. (We can't go 'round meeting the folks all day. We really must give a glance at the exhibition.) And I am one of those who hold to the belief that while the farmers can raise ears of corn as long as from your elbow to your fingertips, as big 'round as a rollingpin, and set with grains as regular and even as an eight-dollar set of artificial teeth; as long as they grow potatoes the size of your foot, and such pretty oats and wheat, and turnips, and squashes, and onions, and apples and all kinds of truck, and raise them not only in increasing size but increasing quantities to the acre I feel as if the Republic would last the year out anyway. Not that I have any notion that mere material prosperity will make and keep us a free people, but it goes to show that the farmers are not plodding along, doing as their fathers did before them, but that they are reading and studying, and taking advantage of modern methods. There are two ways of increasing your income. One is by enlarging your output, and the other is by enlarging your share of the proceeds from the sale of that output. The Grand Dukes will not always run this country. The farmers saved the Union once by dying for it; they will save it again by living for it.

The scientific fellows tell us that we have not nearly reached the maximum of yield to the acre of crops that are harvested once a year, but in regard to the crops that are harvested twice a day it looks to me as if we were doing fairly well. Nowadays we hardly know what is meant by the expression, “Spring poor.” It is a sinister phrase, and tells a story of the old, cruel days when farmers begrudged their cattle the little bite they ate in wintertime, so that when the grass came again the poor creatures would fall over trying to crop it. They were so starved and weak that, as the saying went, they had to lean up against the fence to breathe. They don't do that way now, as one look at the fine, sleek cows will show you. A cow these days is a different sort of a being, her coat like satin, and her udder generous, compared with the wild-eyed things with burrs in their tails, and their flanks crusted with filth, their udders the size of a kid glove, and yielding such a little dab of milk and for such a short period. Hear the dairymen boast now of the miraculous yearly yield in pounds of butter and milk, and when they say: “You've got to treat a cow as if she were a lady,” it sounds like good sense.

Pigs are naturally so untidy about their persons, and have such shocking table-manners that it seems difficult to treat a sow like a lady, but that one in the pen yonder, with her litter of sucking pigs, seems very interesting. Come, let's have a look. Aren't the little pigs dear things? I'd like to climb in and take one of them up to pet it; do you s'pose she'd mind it if I did? I can see decided improvement in the modern hogs over old Mose Batcheller's. If you remember, his were what were known as “razorbacks.” They could go like the wind, and the fence was not made that could stop them. If they couldn't root under it, they could turn themselves sidewise and slide through between the rails. It was told me that, failing all else, they could give their tails a swing—you remember the big balls of mud they used to have on their tails' ends—they could swing their tails after the manner of an athlete throwing the hammer, and fly over the top of the tallest stake-and-rider fence ever put up. I don't know whether this is the strict truth or not, but it is what was told me as a little boy, and I don't think people would wilfully deceive an innocent child.

The pigs nowaday aren't as smart as that, but they cut up better at hog-killing time. They aren't quite so trim; indeed, they are nothing but cylinders of meat, whittled to a point at the front end, and set on four pegs, but as you lean on the top-rail of the pens out at the County Fair and look down upon them, you can picture in your mind, without much effort, ham, and sidemeat, and bacon, and spare-ribs, and smoked shoulder, and head-cheese, and liver-wurst, and sausages, and glistening white lard for crullers and pie-crust—Yes, I think pigs are right interesting. I know they've got Scripture for it, the folks that think it is wrong to eat pork, but somehow I feel sorry for them; they miss such a lot, not only in the eating line, but other ways. They are always being persecuted, and harassed, and picked at. Whereas the pork-fed man, it seems to me, sort of hankers to be picked at. It gives him a good chance to slap somebody slonchways. He feels better after he has seen his persecutors go away with a cut lip, and fingering of their teeth to see if they're all there.

You'll just have to take me gently but firmly by the sleeve and lead me past the next exhibit, the noisy one, where there's so much cackling and crowing. I give you fair warning that if you get me started talking about chickens, the County Fair will have to wait till some other time. I don't know much about ducks, and geese, and guinea-hens, and pea-fowl, and turkeys, but chickens—Why, say. We had a hen once (Plymouth Rock she was; we called her Henrietta), and honestly, that hen knew more than some folks. One time she—all right. I'll hush. Let's go in here.

I don't remember whether the pies, and cakes, and canned fruit, and such are in Pomona Hall or the Fine Arts Hall. Fine Arts Hall I think. They ought to be. I speak to be one of the judges that give out the premiums in this department. I'd be generous and let somebody else do the judging of the cakes, because I don't care much for cake. Oh, I can manage to choke it down, but I haven't the expert knowledge, practical and scientific, that I have in the matter of pie. I'd bear my share of the work when it came to the other things, jellies and preserves, and pies, but not cake. Wouldn't know just exactly how to go at it in the matter of jellies. I'd take a glass of currant, and hold it up to the light to note its crimson glory. And I'd lift off the waxed paper top and peer in, and maybe give the jelly a shake. And then I'd take a spoon and taste, closing my eyes so as to appear to deliberate—they'd roll up in an ecstacy anyhow—and I'd smack my lips, and say: “Mmmmm!” very thoughtfully, and set the glass back, and write down in my book my judgment, which would invariably be: “First Prize.” Because if there is anything on top of this green earth that I think is just about right, it is currant jelly. Grape jelly is nice, and crab-apple jelly has its good points, and quince jelly is very delicate, but there is something about currant jelly that seems to touch the spot. Quince preserves are good if there is enough apple with the quince, and watermelon preserves are a great favorite, not because they are so much better tasting, but because the lucent golden cubes in the spicy syrup appeal so to the eye. But if you want to know what I think is really good eating in the preserve line, you just watch my motions when I come to the tomato preserves, these little fig-tomatoes, and see how quick the red card is put on them. Yes, indeed. It's been a long time, hasn't it? since you had any tomato-preserves, you that haven't been “Back Home” lately.

It's no great trick to put up other fruit so that it will keep, but I'd look the canned tomatoes over pretty carefully, and if I saw that one lady had not only put them up so that they hadn't turned foamy, but had also succeeded with green corn, and that other poser, string beans, I'd give her first premium, because I'd know she was a first-rate housekeeper, and a careful woman, and one that deserved encouragement.

But I'd save myself for the pies. I can tell a rich, short, flaky crust, and I can tell the kind that is as brown as a dried apple, and tough as the same on the top, and sad and livery on the bottom. And I know about fillings, how thick they ought to be, and how they ought to be seasoned, and all. Particularly pumpkin-pies, because I had early advantages that way that very few other boys had. I was allowed to scrape the crock that had held the pumpkin for the pies. So that's how I know as much as I do.