Business men in their trim, conventional clothes were likewise present, glad to see so many evidences of prosperity in the exhibits; glad, too, for the brief release from office and store. Their wives, some plainly arrayed, others with nodding plumes and rustling silks, flaunting their riches with pride, accompanied them.
School girls and boys from the town were there, for this was “children’s day” and no dull lessons called them. The whole country was in festive spirits, but most of all the school children enjoyed the freedom from books and studies.
All these, young and old, the rich and the poor, the honored and the humble, made up the throng now so eagerly seeking shelter from the driving storm, but Billy was far too much engrossed in his pursuit to have eyes for anything or anyone but the excited, blustering old woman he was tagging so persistently.
“She reminds me of the posters I see on every hand of the Dutch woman chasing after something with the big stick in her hand. Harry says it’s dirt she’s after, but Dick always asks, ‘Well, where’s the dirt, then?’”
“All this old lady needs is the wooden shoes, for she’s the stick and the stride already.”
“Oh, no, you’ll not leave me so easily as that,” as she darted into a building. “I’m right after you,” and in he dodged, only to be confronted by a doorkeeper who was wrangling with the victim of Billy’s ridicule.
“Vat you say? I geeve you von neekle alreaty. Now you say anodder? You vant the good leeking, young man, to dake some of your smartness out yet still!” her voice running the gamut of the scale in her excitement.
“I GEEVE YOU VON NEEKLE ALREATY.
NOW YOU SAY ANODDER?”
“Ten cents is the price,” calmly replied the ticket-taker, “and it’s stretching the rules to let you in at all. You should be made to buy your ticket at the stand outside. We take no money here, and I’m doing wrong to admit you.”