“Oh, ma li’l darlin’, ma honey chile!” crooned the mother over her wailing, rescued daughter, rocking it back and forth to comfort and quiet it, for Billy had attacked a negro baby!
CHAPTER V
THE BALLOON MAN
BY the time Billy had made good his escape from the Baby Show, the grounds were crowded with merrymakers. The annual county Fair was an event that no farmer and but very few of the townspeople of Licking County would willingly miss, and the genial sunshine had brought thousands of sightseers out on the first day, for such ideal weather could not be expected to last long at that season of the year.
The country folk, for the most part, provided their own lunches, for noon was the time set apart for social gatherings of old friends and neighbors. Many times five or six families would spread their picnic dinners together and, not having seen each other since the last Fair, the hour would pass pleasantly enough with comparison of rival crops, a discussion of the outlook for another prosperous year, exchange of advice on farming subjects, and kindly gossip about mutual friends.
The townspeople, on the other hand, depended on the numerous lunch booths and tents scattered over the grounds, and now as Billy followed in the wake of the crowds, the odor of coffee coming to him in delightful, fragrant whiffs, proclaimed that noon was fast approaching.
“If lunch-time is here, I must be on the lookout for something to eat. Nothing keeps one in better humor or in finer condition to meet the trials of the day than a good meal. I’ve observed that this truth applies to men and women as well as to goats, too, and the fact likely explains why so many, many people are overly fond of table pleasures. But there, stop your philosophizing, Billy, and take hold of the pressing business in hand—the location of the base of supplies.”
An empty stomach quite often proves as great an incentive to action to people as well as to goats, and this may have accounted for the unusual bustle of the sightseers for, try as he would, Billy had much difficulty in wriggling through the crowds and made slow progress.
“I do believe everyone is heading for the Treat automobile, same as me,” he reflected. “I do want to get there early, for it is my one opportunity to secure a meal honorably. If I was at Cloverleaf Farm, I should be provided with plenty and to spare. That I am at the Fair instead is no reason at all why I should be neglected by the Treats.”
